Will You Suggest Vonage To Your Relatives Over Thanksgiving?

Posts: 2135

With the Thanksgiving holiday coming up, I know a number of you will be flying and driving to spend a few days with family members. Others are getting ready to host family members who will be visiting.

I'm guessing that while you are with your relatives, some of you will feel the urge to talk up Vonage to your relations. Especially those who will tell you they wish you called more often.

And that might be the time that some of you might say something like "hey Dad you are right- but did you know there's this thing called VoIP that lets you make unlimited calls throughout North America for one low monthly rate?"

And then what if Mom, Dad, Aunt Susie or Uncle Bill is interested? Will you go to their den and show them your Vonage - and if they are interested will you want to take them to a Vonage retailer if they accompany you as you start your Christmas shopping the day after Thanksgiving or order it online?

Posts: 11 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: May 20, 2005 Posts: 11

I most certainly will do no such thing. After waiting for months to get a local area code - I realize this is not Vonage's fault as it was never promised - I decided to cancel my account and go with a company that has a local area code. It's been three days since I sent my cancellation request and not only has the cancellation not happened but my credit card was charged for another month. To top it off, I've never received my rebate even though it was supposed to be issued after 3 months of continuous service. Now you can pick apart my compaints if you'd like, but those are the reasons I'll be telling my family and friends NOT to order Vonage this holiday season. Oh, don't get me wrong, the features and sound quality have been fine, but the customer service and area code availability are not for me. It was a nice thought though.

Oh, and let me answer a comment before it's made: I am not able to place a phone call to Vonage customer service during their EST business hours. Thanks for the suggestion though.

Posts: 75 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Sep 06, 2005 Posts: 75

my vonage experience has actually turned more toward the positive as of late. initially, as noted by my earlier posts on this forum, i had a fairly annoying issue with connection delay on outgoing calls... even though it took quite a long time to correct (basically, it took the entire 2-months i got for free upon signup until it was "fixed" -- but in the end the gave me an additional $20 credit for the troubleshooting help), i'm fairly happy with what i've gotten so far. what's kinda funny is that once vonage fixed my connetion delay, almost immediately my isp started to suck so even though vonage has had its act together for the last month i still haven't been able to use it to its full value. so i'm like three months into having vonage and i'm JUST NOW starting to enjoy its benefits... but with the credits they've given me, i'm pretty okay with it.

after my isp issues and the subsequent satisfaction i've gotten from the competitor, i've already recommended my new isp to a family member for them to switch. and with the relative ease of using vonage and their willingness to track down and correct problems (and offer credits for issues on their end) i've also spoken to friends about my vonage line. i'm stopping short of saying "hey guys, you need to try out vonage" and am instead simply telling them something like "i've recently started using vonage... how's this sound to you?" when talking to them on the phone. it serves the purpose of informing me of the quality when i talk to new people on the line, as well as letting new people know that vonage can sound as good, or better, than a normal phone line. more often than not, people end up asking me about vonage and how it works, and so far i have a couple taking the stance of "i'll let you use it for a couple months and if it still works as good then i'll sign up, too"

Posts: 48 · Full Forum Member Joined: Jul 17, 2005 Posts: 48

Absolutely, I will talk about it. I have had the service for some 4 months and have had various bumps but have worked thru it. The internet is not a perfect world and I think we all tend to expect every bell & whistle for a flat fee. Customer service is weak but I have gained more from these forums and you folks have been great.
Keep in mind, a few short years ago, we couldn't pronounce VOIP, let alone figure out how it worked.
Happy Holidays to all.
Doug

Posts: 41 · Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2005 7:45 am Post subject:

I all ready have gotten my sister, mother, mother-in-law, and several neighbors hooked into Vonage. I am running out of people to convert! Love the free months! Hopefully there will be some new family members that just got high speed internet that I can turn on to Vonage.

I usually go to the Vonage website and refer a friend to send an email, then once they receive the email I go through the ordering process with them.

Doug

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 05, 2005 Posts: 3

Maybe. I've had very good experiences up until a few weeks ago with vonage, but this caller ID problem is driving me crazy. Not just the problem itself, but how vonage customer service is handling it as well. I called up the other day after reading the forums to ask them about changing the ring cadence and the voltage that people were posting in the caller ID problem thread. First of all I must have told the guy 8 times what the problem was, every time he'd say i don't understand, what is the problem? And I would clear explain how it would work once after the router was rebooted and then it wouldn't again. After he finally understood what I was talking about he put me on hold, looked up some information, and then said i'll try changing some settings in your router, reboot it and i'll call back in a few minutes. Of course the problem persisted, at which point he asked whether or not I was using any house wiring, or wired directly from my caller ID phone to the vonage RTP-300. Of course I told him we were using house wiring but everything had been working before the latest firmware update. As soon as I said yes, he immediately interrupted me and told me how vonage does not support any house wiring and that there was nothing he could do for me. I then tried to ask whether or not they were still working on the problem and realized that something in the firmware change caused the problem. Instead he insisted that it was my fault for using my house wiring. Again I told him that there was not a problem until the 1.0.55 firmware update, and he continued to tell me that there was nothing he would (not could) do for me since I'm using house wiring. This is complete BS. Vonage could at least acknowledge the problem and tell people that for the time being they should hook their phone directly into the vonage adapter, but that they realize there is a problem and they hope it will be fixed in an upcoming firmware update, just hang tight. Not everyone can connect all of their phones throughout their entire house to one vonage adapter in a single room, that is rediculous. Even though I just bought a uniden tru8865 expandable cordless system, that doesn't mean that the base is in the same room as the vonage adapter (one is in the kitchen, versus our den). And don't insult my intelligence by saying the problem is with my house wiring when everything worked less than a few weeks ago when we were on older RTP-300 firmware. Lets see here CSR guy, everything worked great --> vonage upgrades firmware --> caller id not working now. It doesn't take an engineer to use a bit of problem-solving ability to see what the problem is here now does it! And this is not the way that customers should be treated. Maybe I got one bad CSR, or maybe its vonage's attitutde towards its customers I'm not sure. Either way, any discussion of VOIP will not be initiated by me, but my relatives do know we have it already and will probably be asking questions. Any answers I give them will include all of the information I have about vonage: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Dan
Vonage since Jan 05
Linksys RTP-300
Uniden Tru8865 w/ 7 total handsets
WideOpenWest 6000/512

Posts: 49 · Full Forum Member Joined: Nov 15, 2005 Posts: 49

I have live with Vonage for just over a week, but have been very pleased so far with the quality of the service. Reliability is good, but after 1.5 weeks you really can't attest to much there.

I would recommend Vonage to my more tech-savy family members and friends. For instance, I have been talking up at work with a bunch of computer geeks. My concern with the larger crowd is that there are just too many potential issues and quirks to work through. Most would be lost in the case of a failed connection, etc. or having to mess with a firmware update.

Here's a really good example: The WRTP54G currently being sold in regular stores throughout America appears to be shipping with the .20 firmware. However, by all reports this firmware, out of the box, with wireless networking enabled, *will not* successfully upgrade its firmware.

I was able to dig this out via forums such as this one and do all of the admin steps necessary to boost my router out of the .20 hole and into auto-update land.

My thought it that most people are buying a wireless router with phone service because they expect to use the wireless capability. Since it is enabled out of the box it is unlikely these people will get a firmware update and also likely they will experience a lot of issues that are fixed by later upgrades. Most of these people are also unlikely to have the will or skill to figure all of this out and get it fixed, and apparently the Vonage tech support is not very good at leading them through it.

Just a thought, and one which tends to greatly limit Vonage's larger growth potential in my opinion.

Posts: 1389 · Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2005 9:15 am Post subject:

I will be most defintely. My parents have had an 800 for years so the kids could call back anytime, and I have my father hooked on the idea of just getting a local 508 number and only paying $25 a month for it.

Posts: 30 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Nov 20, 2005 Posts: 30

Based on my experience, I would only recommend VOIP to my enemies. But unfortunately for Vonage, I don't have too many of them!

Posts: 52 · Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2005 10:04 am Post subject:

Most of my family already knows about the 2 days on incoming fast busy we had a few weeks ago. Vonage's or SBC's fault, it really doesn't matter at this point. So no, I don't think I'll be converting anyone this weekend.