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| Vivint REVIEW: Committed to customer satisfaction, Vivint protects customers throughout the United states, and Canada. Security and customer satisfact |
| 11th of Aug, 2012 by User220737 |
Ripoff Report Verified™ REVIEW: EDitor’s UPDATE: Positive rating and recognition has been given to for its commitment to excellence in customer service. Ripoff Report’s discussions with the company have uncovered an ongoing commitment to total customer satisfaction. You can expect to have any questions or concerns that you have with them to be answered and resolved in a timely manner, if any. They have shown us their customer service process, and it reflects a desire to serve customers, as well as fix problems. The company's management specifically told us about how their job is to simplify lives and help people to live intelligently. The management really wants every person who buys a system to feel valued. The concern for each customer's experience starts at the top, and is reflected in the action of every employee they hire. Ripoff Report Verified™ .. part of Ripoff Report Corporate Advocacy Business Remediation & Customer Satisfaction Program.A program that benefits the consumer, assures them of complete satisfaction and confidence when doing business with a member business.. The information provided in this report is based on comments made by Ian Bell and Tim Izatt during an on-site inspection held by a third party verification company and with Ripoff Report with no biases toward Vivint. Vivint is a full service residential home security company covering the US and Canada. Their sales process will start in a few different ways depending on where the initial lead comes from. When it comes to inside sales, the process starts when the company searches a region that might be interested in their services. The company sends their sales representatives to those regions to knock on doors to discover prospective clients. The company then has local technicians service the client if they are interested in doing business with them. Vivint also offers their clients customer support during this process and can even have a representative meet with them in person to answer questions and make sure that their clients are receiving the full benefit of their services. Follow up is something that Vivint focuses on to ensure their clients are receiving proper customer service. When concerns arise depending on the level of severity, the company states that they standardly respond within 24 - 48 hours. Some issues do arise that take longer to settle and the company works to solve them within 72 hours. Vivint’s process for monitoring issues that arise on social media sites it to settle the concern within 20 minutes of it being posted. The company also works to monitor their sales and customer support calls to see how they can be improved. They use these calls as examples for employees in training. Currently, Vivint is working to make changes to their contracts to make things easier for their customers as they have found that many of their complaints stem from feeling misled or customers paid fees they did not feel they authorized. ”Vivint has found that the number one reason complaints do arise is because of the way the sales process is conducted. A sales representative knocks on the prospective client’s door. The representatives are clean-cut, upright young men with hats, who are salesmen, and discuss why someone may need this product. Ian Bell from Vivint states that, “We train our employees not to lie; we don’t want to lie to the customers. Also, on top of the training we also have our phone calls to the customers to remedy concerns. However, there is pressure with a door to door to sales. Some people don’t like the fact that someone knocked on their door, which I understand. People will be eating dinner and then someone will knock on the door, it can be annoying. We are aware that it isn’t always comfortable. There always are complaints when you do door to door sales.” Statements from the owner. ”"We are committed to making homes safe for families. With advanced early detection systems, many home fires are preventable and can be stopped in the beginning stages, saving lives. We have a plan for every family and every budget, and whether you choose our most basic or expanded services, you can be sure of our top quality technology and expert customer support.” This sales process continues because of the amount of people the company has discovered who respond positively. The fact that it is working the company feels they should keep the same processes. Vivint feels they minimize the number of misunderstandings that people have through their contracts. The company provides the phone calls to discuss contract length, price, renewal terms, cancellation window, and the warranty to provide clarification of terms. The client goes through an automated process to make sure that they know all that they are agreeing to and the people say, “Yes” to all the terms. If the client says “No” or that they weren’t aware of something, then they are brought back to the phone salesman who helps to clear up the terms. When it comes to clarity, the company feels they rarely have issues where a person doesn’t know what they are agreeing to. They state that they go over all the contract terms with them and give a hard copy of the contract to them. The company feels that the contract terms for the auto renewal after a year causes many complaints. If the client does not do their cancellation after the 30 days prior their instillation it can auto renew, which is in the contract. The company is in the process of modifying terms so that the transition is better. The contract has been their biggest detractor from their National Promoter Scores (NPS), but they have found that their other scores we are astronomically high. In that situation with the terms in dealing with clients, the company states they will do everything they can to help them but they are still working to remedy the problem, as they are committed to total customer satisfaction – always making improvements to their products and services. THE COMPANY MAY COMPENSATE AND GIVE DISCOUNT.. . Sometimes customers call with various complaints and the company states that they do their best we can to resolve them. The company has found they are able to fix 92.13% of problems over the phone. If they can’t solve the issue over the phone, they send a technician to fix the problem. Depending on where they are in the lifecycle of their services the company may compensate them or give them a discount. If the issue is in the first 90 days then all the services are free. One example is that whenever Vivint receive a complaint from NPS they call the customer. Then, they work to try to resolve the complaints that the customer may have with the company and the company feels that sets them apart from others in their industry. The company states that the biggest changes are going to come internally because of feedback they get from the customers in general. They state that whenever they hear of any problem they follow up and do what they can to help the customer. Then, they assess over time the different problems that have been raised and then implement measures to help them not to arise again. Ripoff Report has been helpful in helping them to know some of the problems because they feel it is hard to know how to help that person, but they do their best to find ways to help every customer who may have a complaint. GOING BEYOND THE CALL OF GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE. An extreme example of their customer service is when there was a lady who had an alarm system in her home. She was signed up for a 60-month contract. When she was half way through her contract, she killed herself and her son. A family member was still getting the bills and called in two months later asking about them. When the company found out their situation they cancelled her account, which they feel was the right thing to do. Tim Izatt from Vivianr stated, “We went above and beyond to help them. We sent flowers to the funeral and we compensated them financially.” Another example of their customer service would be with a client who was really struggling financially. She had gone to relatives and church not feeling comfortable to ask for money and didn’t know what to do. The company paid for one month of her payments so that she could have light in her house for her kids. Furthermore, Mr. Izatt stated, “That isn’t always the case. We do what we can to stick to the contract and make sure that people understand the terms. They have an automated system that helps people to understand the contract. We try not to be jerks and help people wherever we can.” A common thing that the company has happen is when clients are outside of the 90 day free window. They call and say that there is a problem for something that normally happens within the first 90 days. If that happens, they let their reps make a decision about what to do. The company states that they would rather have their reps over take care of people and come back and get slapped on their hands then to not take care of the customer. Furthermore, the company has had a lot of auditing to make sure people aren’t abusing the system. Tim Izatt states, “That is why I like to work here. We take care of people outside of self. I know you haven’t been here but if you had you would find that we like to take care of others and protect people. It is called servant leadership. To say you are a servant leader is to take away from it. But, we try to serve others more than self. That is why I work here. I came from eBay and really enjoy working here.” Vivint feels that they are taking steps to doing whatever it takes to make the client happy by taking every reasonable means to fix problems. Sometimes they come across an unreasonable person and cannot accommodate them. However, Ian Bell states, “We want to fix whatever problem there is, especially if it is our fault. Whether it is credit, cancellation, or things like that. We encourage our employees to be compassionate and aware. We tell them that we want to be personable. I interact with people who are online. One thing I always tell them is that we want to be real. We want to sound like a real person. We don’t want to be robots. That is our number one thing, to be real and compassionate.” The company has used Ripoff Report as a tool to solve customer service related problems. They are willing to make appropriate changes as they go, including expanding their customer service department. The company states they do go on Ripoff Report and review complaints because they feel the customer’s voice can improve their day to day practices. Many customers don’t bother contacting the company and just make complaints, a common problem says, ED Magedson – Founder of Ripoff Report. STATED IMPROVEMENTS FROM THE COMPANY. We have simplified our customer service process to decrease the amount of time that a customer has to wait before speaking with a representative. Our customer service will look at your contract, listen to recorded phone calls, and make sure to get to the bottom of your issue to resolve things THE RIGHT WAY. At Vivint we want customer's to have a positive experience, and we understand that sometimes customer's fall on hard times. We're willing to work with all of our customers. Their experience and safety are our primary concerns. As a matter of policy, when a business becomes a member of the Corporate Advocacy Program they agree to allow Ripoff Report to contact every client who filed a complaint so they can make things right with them. In order to confirm that the complaints were resolved, Ripoff Report is copied on all responses so we can insure that the member business did right by their customer .. Ripoff Report is proud to state, that Vivint not only took care of their customers that contacted Ripoff Report back – but, they went beyond the call of good customer service with comments. Many customers had already been taken care of. Customers even expressed to Ripoff Report they were sorry they even filed a Ripoff Report about them. Check out their Solar testimonials (Vivint solar offering): Check out Vivint’s Security/ home automation offering: . More at NOW TO THE ORIGINAL REPORT THAT WAS FILED ------------------------------------- VIVINT Fraud Company: VIVINT Calgary, Alberta My name is Hu Meng, a new immigrant. I’d like to report a scam I experienced recently. On July 1, 2012, Sunday, when I was studying in my home, a salesman knocked my door, and I opened the door for him. He told me that he was selling Home Security Alarm System for his company called Vivint to this community, and he had got 9 signatures on the document from 9 customers, who agreed to use this service, and he was looking for the 10th customer, if it were me, I will enjoy 10-day free trial period to use it. At first, I was not interested in it, saying that I and my family are new comers to Canada living in an apartment for rent. Then he said, if I use his Home Security Alarm System, my insurance company will reduce the premium, and I can save money. He also said, within ten days of trial period I could cancel the service free of charge without any excuse. I was persuaded by him, and agree to use it temporarily for ten days. Then he showed me the SCHEDULE OF EQUIPMENT AND SERVICES of Vivint. On the form, he remarked all of the items are for free, and I just need to submit to him my void cheque for the trial use application procedure. I told him I would like to consider it today, and if I decided to use it, tomorrow I would give him the cheque. But he told me it’s for free, I can ask his company to cancel the service without any excuse within 10 days, no charge on me. Therefore, I gave it up, signed it and he got my void cheque. After that, he called his partner to come and installed the equipment in my home. On July 9, 2012, I decide to cancel the service, and I sent a fax to his company , no response. On July 10, surprisingly, no sooner as I logged in my account atTD Bank’s Web site than I found that his company had deducted $151.49 from my account! I immediately called the company (phone: 800.216.5232), and a clerk recognized that it was the 9th day from the date of installation, and I had right to cancel it and the money could be refunded. Later on, no any corresponding action done by the company, no email, no telephone call, nothing. Next day, I sent a fax to it again, also I called the company to dispatch its technician to remove the equipment and make refunding for me. The clerk gave me to another department (he called it as
Cancellation Department, the telephone is : 800.216.5232 ext. 5022), but I never got access to it. Up to now, I found no further action was made by this company. It just ignores me. The guy who persuaded me to install it didn’t leave his telephone number to me. Upon request, my TD Bank reversed the money back to my account in July 2012. However, the scam company VIVINT charged me again by $52 Canadian dollars at the end of July. Now, the TD Bank could do nothing to reverse the money. Now, I need this company to refund me the wrongly deducted money and remove its equipment off my apartment, because it doesn’t honor its policy, ignores my requests by means of faxes, phone calls, emails... The following is the information concerning about my account in Vivint, the company: Name: Hu M Account #: 2614*** (in Vivint) Location of Installation: (((REDACTED))) |
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