Verizon — Local services in Groton

Note this is a franchised store and not a corporate location. I have updated this review after speaking with the owner. They’re a good person and working to correct the below issues.

There were a number of things I came across while at this location. The first thing was their lack of knowledge to help customers get their phones working if they are having issues with their phones. My first visit to the store one of their sales reps told an older lady that Apple released an update to case the phone to stop working so she should look into upgrading her phone, and told her it was a “Known issue with Apple doing that”. I interrupted and informed the lady that Apple wouldn’t release an update like that and she only needed to do a hard shut down on the phone with the issue she was facing. On my second visit to the store I over heard an older couple complaining about how the wife came in seeking help for an issue with her phone and the sales rep talked her into trading in the phone and changing their plan. The husband was extremely upset about it since the phone didn’t needed to be traded-in, only factory reset. He wanted the old phone back and to have their plan reverted back but since they had already shipped the old phone out for the trade-in they they would have to pay for the new phone if they wanted their plan changed back.

I could imagine, but would not be able to say for sure, that this is a common practice to convince older people/less tech savvy people to upgrade their phones instead of trying other options.

Now from my personal experience they at first told me that I would have to update my plan in order to even get the new iPhone but I’ve run into franchised Verizon stores trying to do that before and I knew that wasn’t true. After pointing out that wasn’t the case the rep did lay out options for trading in my damaged phone which would need me to upgrade.

When it came time to upgrade the rep didn’t inform me that I had 14 days to give them my trade-in. I was under the impression that I would have to give it to them the same day I picked up the new phone. When it came time to transfer the data from my old phone to my new for we needed to update the software on the old one before we could do that. The rep told me that there was a glitch with the update that was wiping peoples phones. We started the update and then ran into the issue he had referenced. The iPhone displayed that it needed to be connected to a computer. He said “This was the thing I was worried about. We won’t be able to retrieve any data on the phone now.” I asked if we could connect it to a computer to fix it since that’s what the screen was displaying and he at first said that probably won’t work but you could try. I asked if there was one at the store we could connect it to and he said no but my boss usually has a personal computer they use to fix the phones with during the week. I followed up with “Oh, so this is something that can be fixed.” He then admitted that yes it was an issue that could be fixed. I asked if I could take the phone back home for the day to connect it to my personal computer to get it working again, he said yes but still hadn’t mentioned that I had 14 days to complete the trade-in. I was able to finish the update by connecting it to my PC and transfer the some of the data over to the new phone myself. I went into the store later that night to drop off the old phone and one of the other reps informed me that I still had 14 days to complete the trade-in.

Something they ask customers to do while transferring data/ updating the software on the phones is to leave their Lock Screen Pin with them. Which makes sense but had I not taken the phone back home myself they would have been able to connect it to a PC complete the update and then have access to all my private/personal data on the phone. I’m not saying they would have done that,or accessed the phone in that way, but it is an easy possibility. They also added things to my service plan that I told them I didn’t want. Like...

After a rough start, I received a call from the owner, Neil. After an attempt to repair a cracked screen with resulted in the fingerprint reader being rendered in operative, My IPad Pro 9.7 was replaced by an I pad Pro 10.5 and upgraded to 256GB. This was so much more than I expected, but the outstanding customer service and support is not done yet. Following an owner who went out of his way to make this customer happy and solve the problem I thought would never be solved, the outstanding customer service and support was not done yet. Reinforcing the notion of this business was heading shoulders above the competition, was the service I received in getting my new tablet set up. While the customer service overall here is without peer, the treatment and professional advice I received from Peter Genovese was just as far beyond what I expected as what the owner did for me when he replaced my 9.7 tablet with a 10.5 and doubled the gigabytes of storage. Peter not only backed up all the information on my old iPad, but then he walked me through setting up the new one and in the end want so far as throwing in a free OtterBox defender case so next time I drop something, this tablet won't break. I need to emphasize that all this was done without any cost to me. The Courtesy and professionalism of the store is well beyond what any reasonable customer could expect in this modern world where all too often the sale is far more important than the customer service that follows. Peter set the mark awfully high, and I don't know many stores capable from even reaching the level of customer service experience today. It's obvious to me that Neil has done an exceptional job training his staff in world-class customer service. It's also obvious the entire staff here recognizes the importance of customer service in holding onto customers as well as in gaining new ones through word-of-mouth.

So suffice it to say, that Neil along with Peter have earned themselves a customer for life. I encourage anyone was within the area to get the wireless zone at Groton chance to earn your business. And when you're contemplating where you shop for the price you pay remember that there's a price for customer service. And I personally guarantee you won't receive any better Customer Service than you will from the good folks at the Verizon Wireless Zone...

Brian beach, The best in the business! That's all I have to say he is the kindest and smartest, wireless phone dealer associate in sales I have ever met in my entire life he spent four hours with me the other day helping me troubleshoot a problem that was caused a year ago by a Mac dealer in the Crystal Mall who is affiliated with Apple. Four hours! He helped me find the mystery to my enigma which is they made a mistake in uploading my music after a restart/reboot to factory default settings that saved my music on iTunes to my account but with their-Simply Mac's private email address as my password?! Yes, this even stumped AppleCare for an hour and a half to two hours and iTunes has to credit me or give me my songs back through some type of data password merge/reset. Even though I still don't have my music transferred to my new phone, I bought the gentleman-Brian lunch. I also quickly made a complaint to Simons Crystal Mall management and to the Simply Mac manager, Jesse who refused to take my complaint seriously and not give me her cooperate manager's name or contact?! BEWARE OF SIMPLY MAC!!! I hope this doesn't happen to another poor soul like myself. I have hard time trusting but I will never lose faith because Groton Center Wireless Zone-best crew staff, has never failed me. Thank you...