The worst customer service in the world?

When we dropped Vonage because of incredibly poor call quality, we knew we were in for a treat going back to Verizon customer service. We’ve got great call quality once again, of course — but it took two weeks, a mistaken visit from a Verizon technician (who realized he had nothing to do once he arrived), five calls to customer service, two incorrect orders, one mysteriously cancelled order, and many long minutes on hold before Verizon finally, we hope, completed our terribly complicated order of installing one residence line and one business line. I can’t help but wonder how much lower the monthly bills would be if they had efficient customer service.

It’s done and we’ve got good reliable phone service once again, although I haven’t completely given up on the idea of VOIP service.

Vonage is clearly not business-grade (or, for that matter, even consumer grade). There are other solutions that provide business-grade service, though. Some of these are probably worth looking into, including Aptela and Covad installations. None of them are terribly cheap, but then, neither is bringing in a new fiber line from the telco trunk.