I finally broke down and bought a cellular phone last Monday. Many people told me that Verizon Wireless provided the best customer support, and after dealing with computers for many years, I highly value good support. But nothing could sway me away from Verizon after I compared their coverage map to their competitors’ maps. It’s just nice that they have great support too.

The Verizon salespeople are very knowledgeable. A few bad examples probably exist somewhere, but I’ve visited two different stores in very small towns (at least one with a general lack of good education), and both had employees that could answer every question I had. And they answered them correctly – I verified each answer with the other store and the internet. The service was so good that I wrote appreciation letters to the stores and the main Customer Support office. I’ve never done that before. It’s rare to find educated salespeople, and it’s extremely unusual to find a company that seems to appreciate them.

The coverage has been excellent so far. The phone (LG VX4500, review coming after I use it for a while) is all-digital, so it can’t get service in some remote areas that only have old analog towers. I have yet to locate any of these areas, even along some very empty sections of interstates 79 and 90.

Unfortunately, my phone died last night, less than a week after I bought it. This was a great opportunity for Verizon to show how great their customer support really is. I took it to the nearest Verizon store, which wasn’t the one I bought it in (it wasn’t even in the same state), and showed it to an employee. I had all of the receipts and packaging from the phone, but she didn’t want to see anything. She took the phone in the back and returned a few minutes later with a brand new one. She called the national support line to get them to transfer the number to the new phone, since it was out-of-state, and I left the store with the new phone (working perfectly, with full service) only 10 minutes after I walked in.

That’s excellent customer service.

I asked her what would happen if I needed service on the phone after the 15-day return period. Because I’m paying an extra $3 per month for phone insurance, I never need to deal with LG directly (believe me, this is a very good thing). I can just walk into any Verizon store, anywhere, and get a new phone this quickly.

Coverage

Everywhere I’ve been so far has had at least 4 of the 6 signal-strength bars.

Value

Not the cheapest provider, but you certainly get high-quality service.

Support

Verizon offers the best support I’ve seen from any company in a long time.

Overall

I highly recommend Verizon, just like it was recommended to me. They have earned an excellent reputation.