Verizon: Get your Android terminology straight for your customer’s sake.
Hello everyone. This will be an Adventures at Best Buy kind of thing for you. Guy calls in (cause I answer phones for the entire store) and says “Do you guys have the new Droid?” So I assumed what every English speaking person does when the term “new” is used and default to the most recent “Droid” I know of which is this:
For the uninitiated and the customer’s education this is Motorola’s second Droid phone known as the Droid Shadow. Motorola has released several devices that run the Android Operating System, including this abortion candidate, all of which are entirely different. To give faith in general common sense the benefit of the doubt I thought to myself that maybe his misappropriation of the term was just limited to him and his knowledge of the Android Operating System, so by this logic and assuming he simply meant the newest one to hit the market I asked if he was looking for the HTC Evo or maybe even that other half-assed attempt at Android by my baselessly preferred carrier of choice. I was, again, wrong. This leads me to my establishment of blame. The customer was looking for the HTC Incredible. This is Verizon’s most recent Android phone, aggressively advertised as a “Droid”. This customers confusion was due to nothing short of an immensely lazy marketing campaign. So in order to establish in a clear manner that this was not the customer’s fault in any way I have prepared the following message for Verizon (formerly known as Verizon Wireless.)
To Verizon,
Clean your shit up so I don’t have to deal with it! Help your customers out and use consistent terminology to industry standards and maybe spend more than a 5th grader’s lunch money on the creative peoples in your marketing department. Otherwise continue to kick-ass despite a reportedly slower network while the big blue fruit loving behemoth grinds to a halt under the weight of phones and pads for people who like to buy functionally crippled devices due to restrictive software in vain attempts to be trendy while at the same time forcing me to abandon almost a decade of customer loyaltly bargaining leverage when dealing with their customer service in order to get a decently spec’d phone that doesn’t link any of my credit cards directly with Steve Jobs retirement/global domination fund.
ATT Customer and Electronics Support Employee
Matt Anderson
That is all.
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Good article, I love the letter at the end.
Dear Matt,
Plus refrain from calling people idiots when you yourself are making yourself out to be one:
Your time might be better spent taking a step back and realizing that VZW gave the “Droid” moniker to all Droid phones (Droid by Motorola, Droid Eris, Droid Incredible, Droid X, etc) to differentiate ITS Android phones from you know, other carriers, which obviously has failed to work for you, but more importantly, works for the people that matter, the people BUYING things.
Had you not overlooked this, you might have realized he was SPECIFICALLY talking about a VZW Android phone since I don’t know, they’re the ONLY carrier that uses that name….and then, just maybe then, you might have given Big Red some credit for effectively putting their Android phones into a category of their own, to which you could potentially sell him something that might fit his needs better but still be a “Droid”
In short, your rant = fail.
I did like your letter though in regards to shots at Apple. Spot on.
I understand why they’ve chosen to mislabel phones. I get that. I do not agree with their solution. I know why Hitler didn’t like Jewish people but I still didn’t agree with him sticking them in ovens. And no, I don’t hate Jewish people. They rock all over the place. But saying I’m wrong merely because you believe I don’t understand their reasoning for doing something is sort of weak. If we were talking about whether or not Verizon had accidently run someone over with a car I could give a shit why. Doesn’t change the fact they just made a person into a vehicular skid mark.
Plus, do your research! I didn’t say idiot in the entire article, nor comment on people’s intelligence in any way. I merely doled out blame for confusion. Second, if you look here:http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/controller?item=phoneFirst&action=viewPhoneOverviewByDevice&deviceType=Phones&sortOption=priceSort#
You will see further proof that this is a retarded marketing campaign. The link is for all Android phones by Verizon. The only two that are called a “Droid” are the Incredible and the Moto Droid itself. All other Android phones by Verizon are left out. Don’t try and insult my intelligence on my post dude, although I will be more than happy to enter in a healthy and respectful debate with you should you choose to raise those punches above the waistline. But thank you for acknowledging a well crafted “F-You” letter when you see one.