Verizon Retail Store Isn't Much Of A "Retail" Store

Question

I've been a customer of Verizon for several years and very happy with their service.  As a result of my long standing relationship with them, the router that I had been using was very old.  I wanted to upgrade my router so I could enjoy faster internet access.  I also have a charity event coming up this Saturday that was going to be hosting at my house.  It would require a strong internet connection because some of us are streaming to Twitch and using video conferencing to connect to our other team members in remote locations.
Therefore, I wanted to purchase the latest Verizon Quantum router (which supports IEEE 802.11ac).  I thought maybe if I visited the Verizon Retail Store in Columbia, MD that they could sell it to me and I could walk out the door with it, so I could be ready for my event this weekend.  I even went online and talked to a sales associate over chat if this was possible and they confirmed it.
When I arrived at the store today at about 12:30pm, the sales associate told me that I would need to purchase the router over the phone because she couldn't sell it to me directly.  I impressed on her that I needed to "walk out with the router today" because of my charity event and she said that would be fine as long as the order was placed by phone.  So she got me contact with a customer service representative and we placed the order.  I also made sure to tell the rep on the phone, as we were finalizing the order, that I would need it to be fulfilled at the retail store I was currently at.  She also said that it would be fine.
Well it turns out that it wasn't fine.  The order was placed "Ship to Home" despite my best efforts.  As a result, the Sales Associate at the retail store told me that she wasn't authorized to give me a Quantum Router (which they had in stock at the time) because the router that I ordered was being shipped.  We even went as far as talking to a retension associate and technical support staff member over the phone to see if we could get the order changed.  Unfortunately, that proved futile.
Instead, she exchanged my older router for an advanced "N" and told me that I could exchange that model back once the new Quantium router came in.  She also couldn't give me the tracking number for my order and instructed me to call customer service in a few hours.  When I called them later this evening, I found out that the order was not shipped out today and probably wouldn't arrive until Monday (and I still couldn't get my tracking mumber from her).
I'm not mad at the customer service and sales representatives that I talked to today.  I truly believe they were doing everything in their power to help me.  The problem is that they didn't HAVE the power to help me.  The systems in place made their jobs DIFFICULT and FAILED to satisfy my needs.  It shouldn't be this hard to walk into a FiOS RETAIL store and make a hardware purchase.
I had another problem with Verzion FiOS Internet when I first moved into my new house last summer.  They told me that in order to move my service to my new residence that I would need to sign up for a new bundle program.  They would even upgrade my router when I did this.  After completing the order, several days passed and I hadn't received anything.  I had to fight with the customer service support staff to get my service restored using my old equipment.  To make matters worse, I never did receive my new router.
Again, I don't think that anyone I had talked to was trying to make my life difficult.  However, I do think the systems in place have made things very difficult and reflected poorly on Verizon's high recommended customer support record.  I really hope that my next interaction with Verizon sales goes better, assuming there will be next time.  I also hope my router gets here before Saturday....

Answer 1

It can make a difference.  Your internet speed is only as fast as your slowest point of connection, which could have been the router.  After I replaced it, I did see a strong improvement.  Granted I did upgrade speeds as well to 75/75, but I don't think I could have enjoyed its full capability had I not changed the router.
Fortunately, the router did arrive in time.  I got it Thursday evening, much to my surprise.  I didn't expect it to be that quick.  I installed that evening and I was doing 76 down/91 up in no time, according to SpeedTest.net (WiFi was similar speeds too, thanks to the new 802.11ac format).  That Saturday, the charity went off without a hitch.  I had 3 ppl streaming to Twitch in my house (one of which was wireless) and GoToMeeting running all day and nobody had an connectivity issues.
I'm very glad that my router arrived in time, but still a little irritated that I couldn't buy it that day.  But I guess alls well that ends well.  Thank you for getting it to me so quickly Verizon.