After a year and a half my Galaxy S5 was nearing the end. More and more often when I turned on the power button, the Galaxy S5 was a black screen. When I was walking the trails up in Seven Hills, it was acting up big time. When I got to my car, I cruised downhill to the Verizon company-owned store in the Lowe's Shopping Center.
This is one of the two Verizon-owned stores in Henderson. My visits to this location go back to September of 2005 when it was a smaller shop at the Northeast corner of Eastern at Horizon Ridge. This was before the popularity of smartphones when the hot thing were cell phones with color graphics and cameras. Back then phones were much simpler and I wouldn't be going there to see what could be done about a smart phone that was turning into a book weight.
Today smartphones and technology are so advanced that as soon as I stepped into the Verizon shop, Verizon sent a text asking me to complete a survey on this visit. Starting off this visit there were three employees standing around at the counter to the left. I gave them my phone number that was used to initiate the Verizon solutions specialist meeting with me.
In a few minutes a disinterested Solutions specialist met with me. I told her the phone's problem. Her attitude was that you didn't buy the Verizon phone insurance and are out of luck. The best that she could do was refer me to Wireless Outlet at Eastern and Windmill where I could pick up a third party refurbished phone. I could bring it here and Verizon could port it to their service at zero cost.
The service that I received here was a 360 degree difference from the Sunset Road (by Sunset Station) Verizon-owned store. When I visited the Sunset Road location a few days later, Solutions Specialist Misty McCoy gave me the outstanding customer service that is missing at this location. Misty executed a diagnostic call to Verizon to see if there was a problem with the Galaxy S5 hardware and software. Most of all Misty McCoy brought to my attention a Verizon program that the disinterest Solutions Specialist at this location failed to mention. This is a program called The Verizon Your Covered Plan. It prevents the situation where the Verizon customer is out of luck when their device suddenly deteriorates. It does this by providing the customer with a refurbished phone that will be next day delivered in exchange for $150. This gives me more confidence than a third party shop or a repair shop attempting to fix it. At the time I write this on an outdated Galaxy S3 that is so testing my patience when it is incessantly freezing as I write this review; the Verizon Your Covered program seems to be the way to go.
My main beef with this company-owned Verizon store is not something they did. It is something that they did not do. By not telling me about the Your Covered Program they put me at risk of getting a broken phone from a third party shop or wasting good money on a repair that could be throwing money away. The solution specialists need to be trained on the programs that Verizon offers and to take some interest in the customer's smartphone problem.