Tag Archives: Verizon

How Not to Treat a Dissatisfied Constituent

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As described here recently, my wife and I recently switched to Verizon FIOS for our television, phone and Internet service.  Despite some confusion during the ordering process and a very lengthy installation process, everything seems to be working fine now.  Last week we drove to Cablevision to return our cable equipment and to cancel our service.  I was expecting to be asked why we were canceling and had several answers prepared:

  • their refusal to reimburse us when one of their wires became dislodged across a street and caused several hundred dollars damage to our car
  • their not allowing us to qualify for their ‘triple play’ promotion (roughly the same price as the Verizon package) because we already had two of the three services
  • frequently losing our Internet connectivity and having to disconnect and reconnect all of our equipment.

Not completely to my surprise, the person who accepted our equipment asked us nothing, simply handing us a receipt.  We had cable service for over five years;  wouldn’t there be some curiosity on why we were bailing out now or whether there was anything they could do to keep us as a customer?

Relating this to our nonprofit organizations, when a constituent becomes disenchanted with us, do we find out why?  Do we quickly respond to complaints that come through the web site? (I receive many about issues with online donations not being accepted and not being able to find information on our web site.)  For long time donors who suddenly drop out, do we take the time to find out why?  Not asking for this information is not taking advantage of valuable information on how we can better serve our constituents.  Do we apologize when potential donors are inconvenienced, even for factors that are beyond our control?

I can’t say I’ve had wonderful experience with Verizon in the past, but Cablevision didn’t even try to ask why we were leaving.  Maybe we’ll eventually get a survey to fill out, but by then I may not take the time to fill it out.

Wishing everyone a healthy and joyous 2008!

How Not to Integrate Offline & Online Data

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This week my wife and I have embarked on a new adventure to combine our phone, TV and Internet service to Verizon’s FIOS.  Placing the order was quite a frustrating experience, but what I found most interesting was that the information available on the Verizon web site was very different from what we were told by phone.  The web site would not allow us to complete the transaction and mentioned offers that were impossible to select.  When we asked to speak to a supervisor on the phone, we were told that they have ‘no access’ to the online offerings, and were unable to honor the promotions even when we read it from their web page.

Moral – offline and online must be in synch. When our constituents view us, they see one organization.  Presenting a different picture on a web site versus what is said by phone clearly contradicts this image.  In our case, my wife and I went ahead with the FIOS order due to the significant cost savings and the anticipated performance improvements, but nonprofit organization constituents may not be so patient when attempting to place a donation or participate in an event if they can’t get clear information.

Not-for-Profit Webmaster Roundtable

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This week I attended the quarterly meeting of Not-For-Profit Webmaster Roundtable, which has been run successfully by David Milner for several years.  We discussed the arrival of super fast Internet connectivity through services such as Verizon Fios and how this will affect how nonprofit web sites are developed,

At least one organization represented at the meeting, the Rainforest Alliance, is already taking steps towards adding video to its web site, although it has not yet allowed constituents to submit their own videos.  With the amazing popularity of YouTube and other video sharing sites, it seems that it is only a matter of time until videos are widely available on nonprofit sites.

We also discussed content management systems, an area which commonly comes up for debate.  I suggested that organizations first determine who is likely to handle content updates, and then select a product which matches these users’ expertise.  My preference is usually towards packages that are easy to use even if they lack all the bells and whistles of more advanced offerings.

Other topics: how to best implement organizational blogs (make sure they are updated frequently), web statistics (Google Analytics new version is reported to be very nice, and it’s still free) and the availability of tools such as Google Webmaster Central and Yahoo Site Explorer to find out what pages on your web site are currently indexed.