I recently came across a blog that Lani Anglin, of R.E. Revealed, posted and I know we can all relate to it. Lani wrote about an experience she had with her cell phone and Sprint’s customer support – rather, lack of support. As I read it, I immediately grew tense and thought about the battle I’ve had with Verizon over that last decade or so and wanted to share my tips.

My most recent problem with Verizon came when my Treo 700p started randomly resetting on me. It would reset while I was talking on the phone, when it was just in my pocket, when I was trying to send an email – no rhyme or reason, it would just reset. And this didn’t happen once or twice, it would happen 10–20 times a day.

Having had issues with Treos in the past, I tried to trouble shoot it by resting it(soft, warm and hard – feel free to insert comments here), updating the software, updating my network…nothing worked. I finally made the dreaded call to tech support and after talking to multiple employees, they asked me to take it in to the store.

After taking it into the store and performing another hard reset, the tech guy finally told me that I had to get a new phone. Wasn’t that what I told you from the beginning? And since they didn’t have a replacement on site, they shipped me one. I will say, they shipped it to me in just a day and a half – at least something was good about their service.

I performed a Hot Sync on the new phone and everything was back to normal – at least until a few days later when the new phone started resetting as well. This time I called tech support and told them that I was having the same problems and that I had performed multiple hard resets and that I was still experiencing problems. This time, the guy simply said, “well if you’ve performed a hard reset, there’s nothing else we can do but send you a new phone.” YES! Finally they were helping me, without wasting my time.

So I got my new phone a few days later and this one had a burn mark on the screen – you know, the darkened areas you see on the touch screen. So I called them once again and they sent me a new phone…again. I’ve now had this phone for about two months and everything seems to be working well.

What did I learn?

– Sync your phone regularly
– Perform a Hard Reset if you can’t resolve any phone problems
– If the problem persists, tell your provider what your problem is and then tell them you have performed a Hard Reset and it hasn’t helped.
– They will ask you to perform a Hard Reset…Tell them you already did and that you don’t have time to waste doing something you’ve already done.
– Make sure you know how to perform a hard reset – they will ask you.

As we all know, technology is great and we all depend on it. Unfortunately, when it isn’t working, our work, our lives and our convenience must pay. Hopefully these tips will at help to minimize your discomfort and help you bypass some of the customer service BS.

If you’ve had a similar experience and want to share any other tips you have, please do!