Where is the customer service from VZW

Question

Since February 19th I have been trying to Early Edge by eligible phone line and have been unsuccessful through the current day. What I finally got from Verizon Wireless after a 4th visit to the store was that there was a glitch in the Verizon Wireless software that controls validating that a device installment plan has fallen off and it is now eligible to enter a new device installment plan or edge agreement.
First on February 19th they told me it takes 24-48 business hours for the account to update so I got back to the store to find out that I still can't upgrade.  Then they supposedly discovered that I had to wait until the new billing cycle so that was the reason why I couldn’t complete the early upgrade.  The new billing cycle comes and goes as of the 7th and with no luck still not able to early edge because it still shows an outstanding device loan on my account, which was paid off completely on February 19th.  They even confirm it in their system but it wont let them remove it.  Now this is all while the special device that was being held for me (Gold Verizon Note 3) was sold without anyone contacting me to let me know.  This was after they promised to hold it back in February until my new billing cycle, which in theory should have been the date I could complete the early edge agreement.
So the store manager works and finds a store that’s willing to send him a gold note 3 that they have in inventory.  I made customer service over the phone and in the store promise that the device would be held until it could be added to my account.  Because the last time the store made the promise they sold the device and didn’t tell me. They didn’t even give me the courtesy of saying we had to sell it but we will work to have another in for you ASAP.  This is the abbreviated version of my still lingering frustration with Verizon because it is now March 14, 2014; 7 days past the start of my new billing cycle and they still have not fixed the problem. 
See below for more details that I sent to one of their customer service representatives via email:
Sent on March 12, 2014 at 11:18 AM
As I told you by phone I have been trying to make the change in device and use the early edge program since February 19th to no avail.  I want to more due diligence from Verizon Wireless when dealing with loyal customers.  You guys use to have a statement of “The First Time You Call It Becomes Our Problem.”  It seems that Verizon Wireless has done away with this mantra and replaced it with “No Matter How Many Times The Customer Comes In or Calls; It Remains the Customers Problem.”  I have physically been into the store 4 times each time spending more than an hour sometimes 2 hours or more trying to find out what was going on with my account.  I see that Verizon Wireless not only has a tendency to bounce its customers around from department to department over the phone but that they also do this to their store employees.  I believe my total years with Verizon Wireless is in excess of 10 as I started with Verizon just after the purchase of Primeco in the Daytona Beach Area.  I have found that as Verizon Wireless grows my experiences have become less and less stellar and more of a pain point.  I am a business and management faculty as well as a college administrator so I spend my days teaching others how to become great entrepreneurs and even greater organizations that serve the greater good.  One of my focuses is on customer services and the relations of the enterprise.  What I see is a company that has grown so big so fast that they have forgotten the cornerstone upon which their success was built. 
I hope that my message somehow makes it into a training that Verizon Wireless holds with its employees to remind them that you are a service organization that would not exist without customers.  This means that you return to your original mantra of taking on the responsibility for issues the first time a customer calls and not the 4th or 5th or even after they threatened to pick up the pin and publish journal articles or periodicals about the lax services of an organization to big to fail.  This also means that Verizon Wireless shouldn’t launch a program until they have "within reason" reviewed all possible scenarios.  It would seem that my particular scenario is not one that is so farfetched that it could not have been played out and properly addressed before it ever hit “main street”. 
In one of my classes I started teaching Customer Service 3.0 Predictive Services with Drive.  I designed this series to anticipate the customers needs based on recognizable patterns in their behavior.  This is not a new concept its just one that has been revived from the past.  One that Verizon Wireless should actively deploy across its operation. Long-standing customers have certain behavioral trends that can be categorized into a number of vats.  The most important lesson in my most recent interactions with Verizon Wireless that have soured my relationship is that no one within Verizon Wireless is willing to own mistakes until the customer explodes.  A simple phone call well in advance of the 7th of March could have fixed my biggest issue with Verizon Wireless and the local store in Daytona Beach.  A phone that was being held for me was sold and no one bother to call me.  The store made good by calling other locations to find that exact same phone and got it shipped and available on Monday but there is still something fundamentally wrong with not being accountable to the customer. When did this become the rule rather than an unacceptable exception to the rule?  If the district manager was in fact the person that made the decision to pull the phone and sell it to someone else then the district manager should have acted within the acceptable bounds of “Good Customer Service” and personally called the customer.  Our rank within an organization does not negate our responsibilities to admit ownership of our decision(s) even if there are consequences. 
I heard that another employee ordered the same phone from a Verizon store in Tampa and had been waiting and apparently they didn’t know whose phone came in. I know that this was a bunch of lip service because the phone that was ordered for me came from within the district and it was setup so that an employee could pick it up the next day and bring it to the store.  I know it was the phone that was meant for me because I was in the store that next day which was the first day we tried to activate the phone and learned that I had to wait until the new billing cycle.  Don’t try and insult a customers intelligence because you only serve to make a mild situation even worse. I was in the store when the the location that had the phone was called and it was staged for pickup by an employee that lived in the area but worked at the Daytona location.  My trust in an organization that would pull such a stunt and think that I would actually believe it drops lower than the approval rating currently held by the US Congress.  Lie to me and our relationship becomes nothing more than a guarded transactional one. 
My trust in Verizon Wireless has been destroyed by the actions of a district manager.  It does not matter how much effort the store manager Angel or even yourself have put into making it right the fact still remains there is a fundamental wrong that only the district manager could hope to fix through a written apology.  Because this person elected not to do so my resolve in no longer being a strong promoter of Verizon Wireless among peers and students is gone.  Because I now perceive Verizon Wireless to be disloyal to its customers and unwilling to admit fault.  You cannot offer apologies for the actions of a district manager nor can the store manager.  It would be the equivalent of me denying some student privileges that he/she was promised and passing it off on someone else because I don’t feel I should have to be bothered with it.
It is my hopes that Verizon Wireless returns to its fundamentals of quality customer service not just on the surface but also at the very roots of the organization.  The cost to acquire a new customer is much higher than the cost to retain an existing customer.  There are 112 textbooks that echo this sentiment.
The 112 books was an exaggeration I can only physically put my hand on 13 that are on my bookshelves. 

Answer 1

Nicely written, but alas it will fall on deaf ears and blind eyes.
The problem here is not the store manager, the district manager or the untrained personnel in the stores. It comes down to supply and demand and the act of securing customers.
You wanted to stay with Verizon, you were willing to purchase another device, the relationship is then you are purchasing goods or services to remain a customer. The snafu is your account was not updated. Then because the people you spoke to did not have an answer for the situation, they lied to you.
Not a good business decision on the face of it, however after being lied to, after having your device sold out from under you, your decision is now to proceed to get that device replaced and remain a customer.
The long tirade you wrote is more effective if you simply cancelled your relationship with Verizon Wireless and show you are a informed consumer via walking to another service who may value your money more. You will note I did not say 'Value You More"  since over the last few years customer services have rapidly declined at Verizon Wireless.
Profits for the shareholders ( yep my wife and I own a load of Verizon stock) and insane payments to the management are now focused on making money over the slight annoyances of a small minority of customers with varied issues.
You see 120 Million customers is what they are looking at. The shear numbers mean a few hundred thousand customers leaving or posting how unhappy they are is minuscule so until that 120 Million drop down to 60 Million or even less Verizon Wireless will not be in any hurry to placate you or 59,000,999 customers until the bottom line is affected.
I hope you actually get your device, I would be very surprised if they tell you another story on Monday  which 100 text books would not have any bearing on taking care of the customers.
Many times people can teach but in real life the world is not a text book. There are no flow charts to handle the scenario that get in the way.
Good Luck