8 Month LNP Horror Story

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Mar 02, 2005 Posts: 3

Unfortunately - I have been caught up in this Vonage number transfer as well - now they are blaming Focal communications for the failure of my number transfer - service credits are coming - Big Deal - I'm still paying for my verizon service.
What a mickey mouse outfit this is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Evil or Very Mad

Posts: 33 · Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2005 12:10 pm Post subject:

AAAAAAHHHHH!!! Another lame email response!

Quote:

From : Vonage DigitalVoice Customer Care <numbertransfer@vonage.com>
Subject : [vonage.com #1184260] Callback From Supervisor on LNP issue

Dear Andrew,

We are still awaiting a status update from the carrier on your
transfer. I have went ahead and asked them directly for a tentative
transfer date. Hopefully they can get back to us with this date. As
soon as they do, we will inform you of it.

Sincerely,
Pat
LNP Department

Does anyone actually consider this a "callback"? Yet again, Vonage promises one thing and does another. And yet again, I get a non-answer. My response:

Quote:

Have you even read the ticket? If you think it will work to take the attitude "Hopefully they can get back to us," you clearly haven't read the ticket. After 8 months, the only way this will be resolved is YOU CALL XO Communications (contact them at 866-295-9696, 4) and walk through the process. They won't talk to me and insist that YOU must call them. Once you have done that (and actually WORKED THE PROBLEM instead of waiting for them to "get back to us"), send me a message that tells me EXACTLY when it will DEFINITELY be done. After eight months, someone there should act like a professional and think outside of your procedural box.

Still waiting for real action,
Andrew

Posts: 33 · Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2005 12:32 pm Post subject:

I just emailed the following:

Quote:

To: dslreports@vonage.com, jeffrey.citron@vonage.com
Subject: 8 Month LNP Transfer Still Waiting

I signed up with Vonage and sent my number transfer authorization July 10, 2004. I have waited 8 months to be transferred. My number shows as transferred, but is not. To date, I continue to receive many promises but very little action from Vonage representatives. And at one point, your people mistakenly cancelled my account, and I had to start the whole process over again. My experience is detailed in your forum:

http://www.vonage-forum.com/ftopic2925.html

This is an embarrassment to your company, as hundreds of people are reading this experience. I will continue to update this forum topic with all new information, including this email.

Waiting for real action,
Andrew xxxxxx
xxxxxxx@hotmail.com
Old Account (that you cancelled by mistake): 1002xxxxxx
Current Account: 1002xxxxxx
Ticket #s: xxxxxxx and xxxxxxx

I instantly received the following response:

Quote:

From : Vonage Customer Care <dslreports@vonage.com>
Subject : [vonage.com #136xxxx] Automated Response: 8 Month LNP Transfer Still Waiting

We have received your recent request for assistance and have opened ticket [vonage.com #136xxxx] for you.

We promise to respond as quickly as possible. If you are experiencing any issues or problems with your service please send us your account number, home networking configuration and a brief description of your problem.

You can send additional information by replying to this email. Please make sure that the string: [vonage.com #136xxxx] is in the subject line of all future correspondence.

Thanks again for contacting us.

Regards,
Vonage Customer Care

Posts: 33 · Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2005 4:38 pm Post subject:

So basically, now I have 3 tickets that can sit there without action. Woo hoo!

Logging all of Vonage's responses could have three different consequences.

Which do you think it will be?

Posts: 33 · Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2005 1:13 am Post subject: Vonage's Bad Management

My emails, calls, forum posts & messages, etc seem to have gone unnoticed by a customer service structure that cuts and pastes apologies along with phrases like "sheer volume," "escalated," and "immediately." None of those words mean much, as I have yet to be contacted by a single person who has any more will, authority, or brains than the average trainee customer service rep.

Is it their fault? Of course not. They are victims of a management elite that tenaciously shields itself from any real contact with the problems encountered by their understaffed, undertrained, and disempowered employees. Vonage management has effectively adopted a policy of "Shoot our messenger... while we hide behind the desk."

I believe that every rep I've encountered has the best intentions, and truly wants to help. But clearly they haven't the tools necessary. Proof? Not ONE SINGLE Vonage EMPLOYEE has actually called the intermediate carrier and worked the problem. If people who have waited 7 or 8 months don't get that kind of service, the only reasonable conclusion is the Vonage DOESN'T HAVE that kind of service. The employees are impotent to do anything but apologize and resubmit electronic requests... and hope their bosses someday give them more options.

Vonage asks us to contact our carriers, but why don't they do it for us? Vonage asks us to contact our state utility commissions, but why don't they do it for us? It would be far easier and more efficient for Vonage to do these things and more, but they don't do it. The easy answer is that they don't have the time, but that is either dishonest or ignorant. The irony is that they inevitably spend far more time (and lose far more goodwill) than they would by simply empowering their people to follow up proactively. Transfers would go quicker, phone carriers would get off their butts, customers would be happier, referrals would increase, time spent on problematic accounts would decrease, etc, etc, etc.

There is no other reasonable answer. Vonage is badly managed by marketing experts, not by expert managers. If there is one basic measure of a manager's abilities, it is the effectiveness and efficiency of their systems. Under the circumstances, some people at the top need to be fired.

Is there a Vonage employee willing to deny this? Then prove me wrong by taking the steps I claim you lack the power to take. Or by showing me managers who don't hide from taking the initiative themselves.

Posts: 8 · New Forum Member Joined: Mar 07, 2005 Posts: 8

Oh man... this is ALL FAMILIAR to me. I have been on the rodent spinning wheel since July myself. EXACT same runaround. Nobody apparently has the initiative at Vonage to pick up a phone and actually TALK to the carrier and work the problem through. Nobody reads the support requests you send them - it's the same canned reply and empty promises time after time.

Expedited your ticket = we skimmed it twice and now it's a coaster for my coffee.

Tentative new date = your chances are about as great as winning Pick 10.

Runaround = as motivated as a German tourist running away from the tsunami and your problems.

Customer Service Department = Jill, Jim, Steve, and Jane... oh wait, Jane is at lunch. Sorry for any inconvenience in holding long enough to evolve into a higher lifeform.

Service credit = Not during your lifetime.

There is a problem = It's not our problem... it's the carrier's fault, yeah, that's it... the carrier.... We can fix it by giving you a new transfer date to put you off for another few weeks. Maybe you'll forget or write someone else!

Posts: 33 · Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2005 3:45 pm Post subject:

Just called 866-496-6359 again. This time I was on hold for less than a minute (miracles do happen). The rep reviewed my account and said, "It looks like they put in a date of March 9th which is tomorrow."

"So my number is set to transfer tomorrow?" I asked skeptically, and she said yes.

After all the crap, I predict that tomorrow will come and go, and my number still won't be transferred. We'll see.

Posts: 67 · Full Forum Member Joined: Feb 08, 2005 Posts: 67

i'm pulling for you though, drew!

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Mar 09, 2005 Posts: 2

Drew,
I have been going through the same situation that you have but for only four months. You have given me some good ideas. I believe Vonage is going through some growing pains lately. You could go to another Voip carrier or would that mean giving up the mission? My old carrier is lingo. I am leaving them (well have tried to leave them since november) because of tech issues. Vonage has a better infrastructure but there customer service is lacking. With all the monthly credits they are giving out for these slow number transfer issues, you think they would fix the problem. good luck today is march 9 lets see what happens

Posts: 44 · Full Forum Member Joined: Jan 19, 2005 Posts: 44

I'm not so inclined to believe Vonage is always (or even often) to blame here.

At least in my case, it seems to be falling squarely on the third-party that Vonage sends the transfer to. In my case, it's Paetec.

When there are three entities involved in a process, and the first one says they sent the request, and the third one says they never got it, you have to wonder what's going on with the second one.

What's worse, Vonage apparently has no way to contact Paetec besides emails. I could fault them for such a horrible system with no backup measures, but that may be Paetec's demands to only be emailed.

Regardless, while I am definitely in worry mode over this, I am focusing my blame right now on the middle-man for this (and in my estimation, many other) problems.