I left AT&T for T-Mobile years ago, because AT&T's customer service is terrible while T-Mobile's is excellent. I won't give AT&T my money ever again, but my choices keep narrowing.
I doubt that I'm alone, which means that Verizon could easily "not lose" contrary to the title of the thread.
I went with voicestream(t-mobile) to avoid the major telcos in the U.S. Once it became t-mobile, they still behaved better than the others. About mid-year last year they started behaving much like the incumbents, so I switched over to Virgin mobile(Sprint Network). It seems the lesser evil at the moment. The network has been great for me and the prices even better.
Virgin's customer service is hit and miss. I have had some reps bend over backwards for me and others just shrug me off.
I will do whatever I can to not deal directly with one of the incumbents.
I left because Verizon because it cooperated with warrant-less wiretapping (as did AT&T) and T-mobile did not.
Now I'm screwed because I have a Nexus One so I'm basically locked in. I bought the phone without a contract but it's not like it works with other networks.
The problem is this depends on the person/situation. I had the opposite problem. Tmobile coverage in my area was terrible and the customer service was absolutely horrible! Also, the at&t coverage in my area is great and I almost never get a dropped call though they can be on the pricey side when it comes to plans.
But I am currently in a wireless communications class and am still blown away by how much goes on behind the scenes of cell phone towers. People get upset about a dropped call now and then but the tech is pretty amazing. Then again I feel ALL Telco comPanies have dropped the ball on their infrastructure.
When I see posts such as this, I wonder what problems were encountered that required engagement with customer service, and what the expectations were. If the expectations were unreasonable, customer service is certain to get a bad rep.
I've never had problems with AT&T's service which I use for two landlines, an iPhone and an iPad. I've had the landlines, and made changes to them, for over ten years. I've had multiple T1s with them over the years as well.
I doubt that I'm alone, which means that Verizon could easily "not lose" contrary to the title of the thread.