Recently, I switched from Verizon to T-Moblie when bought a Nexus 5 on day one. The SIM card I had ordered would not automatically activate which was not a surprise as the Nexus 5 was not in their system (they were not offering it yet). I also wanted their unadvertised $30 plan technically only available to Walmart and their online phone buyers. One call, everything was setup with no problems and no hassles. Verizon is the definition of hassles from my experience.
For people wondering, the $30/mo plan is a prepaid plan that includes:
- Unlimited Texting - 5GB of 4G data, unlimited 2G data after - 100 minutes, $0.10/minute after
I switched from $90/mo at Verizon. Even my heaviest overages (~200 minutes over == $20) only get me up to $50.
Only downside: as a prepaid plan, it doesn't get the free overseas data and texting offered in their $50/60/70 postpaid plans.
My litmus test of customer service organizations is how they handle unusual situations. If they sound helpless it's a very bad sign. If they come up with creative and/or generous solutions, its a very good sign. In your case they had a button to press that they were allowed to press and they pressed it. In mine, they had no button, and quite probably were told internally "Don't help too much." In experiences I've had with stunning customer support (Dropbox/Zappos) the button didn't exist, they had to invent it, then they pressed it as hard and as fast as they could.
I think this is a problem with all of the major US mobile carriers. I have heard so many bad customer service anecdotes about all four carriers that despite being thoroughly disappointed in my own carrier's horrible customer service (AT&T), I do not think switching would help things.
yeah, everytime i hear someone in the US says he switched mobile company because of customer service, i think of the simpsons episode where Earth is enslaved by some aliens and homer says "I voted for the other [alien that would also enslave Earth] one".
Ironically, Mesh networks never took off because everyone would be weary of having your data, even encrypted, passing trhu random people networks. Little did everyone know the telcos were the worse on this front.
TMO data coverage is good enough for me that it's invisible whether I'm on wifi or mobile for the most part.
Note: the state of broadband on the open road is quite bad - I couldn't TMO anywhere in Oregon solidly, and even Verizon was quite horrible there as well (have an iPad3 with 4G).
While I respect the PR they are going for, the reality falls far, far, short, due to years of 'cost management' minded outsourcing and hamstringing of customer service. You simply cannot remake a company if you don't eliminate the cruft of crappy infrastructure. Perhaps they could hire someone from Zappos to start fresh.