Verizon's perfect storm: customer expectations and employee frustrations collide

I don't want to be in Verizon's shoes right now. The heat is coming from all sides and the situation seems messy.

The largest US telco at the moment (by data from the end of 2024), is now finding itself under increasing pressure from both its customers and its employees.

On one side are customers who, frustrated by pricing, technical hurdles, and service limitations, are increasingly abandoning the provider in favor of competitors. On the other side are employees – some of whom have taken to online platforms to vent about being mistreated by both management and customers.

In between these tensions lies a sobering fact: nearly 300,000 subscribers left Verizon in the first quarter of 2025 alone.

Let's learn not to forget our passwords

Much of the recent strain begins at the store level, where Verizon employees say they are being met with unrealistic expectations. One common complaint voiced by self-identified Verizon representatives online is the frequency with which customers show up to stores needing assistance, only to forget the most basic piece of information – their own phone password.

Without it, as you can imagine, store reps are unable to proceed with device setup, transfers, or account recovery. The frustration among employees is palpable, not because they are unwilling to help, but because they are limited by privacy and security protocols designed to protect users' data.

Some customers, however, wrongly assume that Verizon should be able to unlock or retrieve credentials for third-party services like Google or Apple accounts, which are entirely outside the telco's control.

That's why my PSA is as follows: folks, let's help our friends and family with passwords. Not literally giving them passwords we come up with, but to help them with some tips. Like: mixing familiar words, numbers, or personal phrases to create strong but memorable codes. Using biometrics like fingerprints can be tricky. Sometimes, biometrics can speed up the process, but they can also fail during resets.

A simple trick? Type your passwords out regularly to lock them into memory, and for extra peace of mind, jot them down somewhere safe (no sticky notes on your desk, though). For ultimate convenience, a password manager is a game-changer – it stores your credentials securely, so you only need to remember one master password.

It's not just the customers, of course

While some of these encounters could be chalked up to misunderstanding or lack of tech literacy, the tone in Verizon's customer interactions appears to be deteriorating more broadly. In a Reddit thread titled "Everyone is leaving Verizon" that we told you about yesterday, several posters identifying as company representatives describe increasingly hostile behavior from both customers and supervisors.

One employee claimed that they're being yelled at "all day long", and admitted to having started shouting back at customers in response to constant verbal abuse. Another echoed the sentiment, saying that frustration is mounting on both ends of the counter – a workplace culture where front-line staff are sandwiched between irate customers and pressure from upper management.

The problems just keep on piling up

This mounting tension among staff and customers is now being echoed in Verizon's official financial results. The company reported a net loss of 289,000 postpaid phone subscribers in the first quarter of 2025 – more than double the number lost during the same period last year. The figure also overshoots analyst expectations, which had forecast a smaller drop of around 185,000. Yikes.

Some internal efforts are being made to reverse the trend. Verizon has rolled out a few aggressive offers, such as three-year price guarantees and free phone trade-ins for users who sign up for bundled mobile and home internet plans. However, these initiatives come at a time when price sensitivity among consumers is growing. Verizon's recent hikes in monthly service rates and added fees – moves intended to maintain revenue – may have pushed some customers away (it's only natural), especially when cheaper options from rivals are out there.

Verizon's revenue for the quarter was $33.5 billion, just above expectations, but it's clear the company is in a holding pattern with flat growth over several quarters. While executives remain hopeful that device sales will pick up later in the year, the real challenge lies in rebuilding customer trust and satisfaction, which is more important than any temporary sales boost.

Why are we like this?

The bigger concern may be cultural. If employees feel increasingly disrespected and customers feel increasingly unheard, no amount of pricing incentives can resolve the underlying disconnect. Verizon is caught in a Catch-22 of expectation mismatch: customers want more support, smoother processes, and lower prices, while employees want more respect, better working conditions, and clearer communication from leadership.

And the solution may not lie in more competitive plans or faster networks alone. It may begin with addressing the widening gap between the people on either side of the counter – and finding a way to repair trust before it erodes even further.

I've been on both sides of the fence, to tell you the truth. Some decades ago, when I got my first job while I was still in high school, I was a cashier in a major fast food restaurant. I won’t lie – customers can sometimes act in such an unreasonable way that it's easy to get fuming. But I've also been on the other side, as a customer, dealing with (telco) employees who were downright disgraceful.

Nobody needs that. So, let's remember our passwords, let's have more patience with non-tech-savvy customers – and, above all, let's not succumb to our primordial manners. Children are watching. Maybe, if we get our acts together today, they'll know (and act) better tomorrow.