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Frontier: We Lost 40,000 Customers Due to Migration Issues

Frontier has acknowledged that it has certainly lost customers due to the botched integration of acquired Verizon customers in Florida, Texas and California. Company CEO Dan McCarthy told attendees of the JP Morgan Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference that the company lost 40,000 customers alone just among users who signed up with Verizon before the April 1 transition took place -- but then cancelled the installation after hearing about Frontier's problems in the media -- or because Frontier couldn't meet the promised installation date.

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"Where we did probably lose some customers, who really weren't our customers yet, was as we came out of conversion we had 40,000 service orders in the backlog," said McCarthy. "Those are customers that have bought the service and Verizon has given them a due date in April and during that time frame customers did not want to wait any longer and wound up going to a competitor."

The CEO admitted that some customers have bought out of the contract via ETF because of problems, but didn't specifically provide a count.

"We have seen some early termination fee promotions where people buy out contracts, but by and large we haven't seen a major uptick in churn associated with that," McCarthy said.

While conceding some possible defections, by and large the company has downplayed the transition problems' impact on the company's overall userbase. McCarthy also noted that the company put all marketing on hold during the transition -- effectively because it knew that competitors would be using migration problems to their own marketing advantage. Companies like Bright House had been promising discounts to angry customers.

"We certainly have had competitors targeting us," McCarthy said. "(It's) one of the reasons why we guided on our first quarter earnings call that we would not be doing marketing during this period. We did not say that earlier because we did not want people to start targeting us right out of the gate."

As it stands Frontier's first impression for many of these users wasn't a good one, and it's going to take a lot more than a ramp up in marketing to fix consumer perceptions that this is a company incapable of handling its current incredible rate of growth.

Most recommended from 19 comments



kdwycha
join:2003-01-30
Ruskin, FL

7 recommendations

kdwycha

Member

I've Been Lucky

No issues with data, video or voice since 4/1. However the only thing that annoys me is we are paying for an SD box because any account changes brick the optical network terminals provisioning and you have to wait weeks for a technician to arrive. I would have liked to return this box weeks ago.

Then when the technician arrives after 7 no-call no-shows they simply call technical support tier 2 to reprovison the ONT.

It seems like a vast waste of resources to utilize field technicians as on site technical support representatives for issues that could be handled over the phone. It's no wonder there are so many missed appointments, rather then have Tier 1 technical support consult with Tier 2 and fix on a call they roll a technician to call Tier 2 technical support.
totalradio
join:2007-09-15
El Dorado, AR

6 recommendations

totalradio

Member

"Frontier: We Lost 40,000 Customers Due to Migration Issues"

More like "customer MIGRAINE issues" because of the shitty service they get.

Nezmo
The name's Bond. James Bond.
MVM
join:2004-11-10
Coppell, TX

5 recommendations

Nezmo

MVM

Plenty of marketing here ...

So we're out of the transition period now? Must be as we've had Frontier TV commercials touting they're here for us for weeks now. This company is a joke.
XaveT
join:2015-07-10
Springfield, MO

5 recommendations

XaveT

Member

Advice from a bystander

My brother had severe issues with no-call, no-record-of-appointment BS trying to get his apartment Frontier FIOS installed in Denton, TX. He ended up becoming angry enough to do something about it after the second appointment was checked up on after they said they had no record of an install scheduled about a month after the initial one (same story). He went to the Better Business Bureau (of New York, I'm not sure if that's important) and filed a complaint. They sent it on to Frontier in less than 10 minutes, and his install was done less than 5 business days later. The tech just called and had someone on the phone provision the ONT, and he was good to go. I could have easily done that when we moved him in in late April.

Frontier is a circus act; I'm glad I don't have to deal with them in Missouri.