Combine Liberty Bell and Grand Central to Save Money and get Better Service.
Liberty Bell:
Tom Martino is a consumer advocate - If you have a complaint about a company he will look into it for you, and he keeps a referral list of good companies with great customer service at referrallist.com.
Like the rest of us, Tom Martino had bad experiences with Qwest's customer service, so he started Liberty Bell Telecom. Liberty Bell resells Qwest services. While Qwest will still maintain the lines and send out technicians if there is a problem, but you only deal with Liberty Bell's customer service. In addition, instead of having to choose 3 features, you get all of them (call forwarding, caller id, etc.).
The service cost $6-8.50 less, but the voicemail is $6.
Meanwhile, GrandCentral provides free local phone numbers, free call forwarding, free voicemail, and much more. (Check out the list of features below.)
Today I had Liberty Bell change the settings on the line so after 4 rings the line forwards to my GrandCentral number instead of Liberty Bell's voice mail.
| 1 Line | 2 Lines | |
| Cost Before | 29.99 | 39.99 |
| Cost Now | 21.50 | 34.00 |
| Monthly Savings | 8.49 | 5.99 |
| % Saved | 28% | 15% |
| Annual Savings | $101.08 | $71.88 |
If you find this information useful, and choose to sign up with Liberty Bell, please give them my phone number as your referral - please contact me or click the link below to call me through GrandCentral.
Here's the list of features for the two services mentioned today:
| Liberty Bell | GrandCentral |
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The only problem with using a third-party for phone service (as opposed to the company who own the physical lines - in this case, Qwest), is that you are one more step removed from the equation if you have problems. The company I work for has used third-party services in the past, but there have been negative factors that, in many cases, outweigh the poor customer service of Qwest.
When you're using a third-party, it really means that they (and not you) have to fight with the provider to get the best service). So long as the provider and the third-party have a good working relationship, you may not notice any difference. But in our case, the response we received from the third-party was usually something like, "we can't do anything, it's all on Qwest since they own the lines. We've put in a request and have to wait until they fix the problem."
So basically, you're left with one of two options: 1)Fight with the provider yourself, or 2)Receive great customer service from a company that really has no control over the level of actual service you receive. In the end, we've decided that it's "better" to put up with lackluster customer service that to receive an inferior product.
However, most of our problems have revolved around internet connections. Phone service may be such a no-brainer that it wouldn't be affected by this flawed system.
Hey Dave,
What you're saying makes sense and is a good factor to consider when making a change in service.
So far with Liberty Bell, I actually seem one (or more) steps closer to the equation if I have problems.
With Qwest a single problem would take a number of calls with each call being transferred repeatedly between people/departments at Qwest. Then it would take several days for a technician to come out.
There was a glitch when they changed the service over - I called Liberty Bell, and without being transferred once, I was able to discuss the technical problem (our phone numbers were ringing the wrong physical lines in the house) , talk about my bill, and ask questions about how to use some of the new features I got.
Within 24 hours a Qwest tech was knocking on my door, and the problem was fixed within 5 minutes.
At this point, Liberty Bell seems to have such a strong connection with Qwest, that they can actually get better service from Qwest than Qwest provides to it's own direct customers!
You're right, I think a good part of it is that it's phones and not Internet - phones just seem much more basic.