Daniel V.

It is with much disappointment and regret that I write today regarding my recent experience with Nextiva and its employees. It was, without a doubt, one of the most personally frustrating and financially damaging experiences I have had to experience in my years of communications with a service provider of any kind.
I am a business owner who depends greatly upon the ability and ease for my customers to contact me for products or services. Without the communication of both our established and also potential clients, I wouldn't be in business to this day. I find it most imperative that in order to keep my clients, I must carry my business in a way that is integrous and honest, and it was to my ultimate disappointment that Nextiva's employees did not share the same values.
As my business grew, I found myself in need of a phone service that offered more than my mobile service provider did, so I began looking for internet phone providers that could accommodate my needs. It was in March of 2018 that I committed to finding a resolution to the need, and also when I initially contacted Nextiva for service. My business and its employees rely solely on communication by mobile devices, and it was our understanding upon several conversations with Nextiva's sales department that Nextiva would allow me to continue to use my mobile device while utilizing their features for my business (IE Call Forwarding, Call Transfer, Conference Calling, etc). Through multiple conversations with Nextiva Sales and even Nextiva Management, I made it very clear that I used a Straight Talk mobile device powered by Straight Talk wireless service, and I was assured that Nextiva's service and features would work perfectly well on my device, and that there would be absolutely no issues porting, but rather a reliable and smooth transition and zero loss of connection at any time. After many issues, failed port-in attempts, and multiple service disconnections, we discovered that Nextiva does not work with a Straight Talk mobile device. This distressing sequence of events resulted in a devastating loss of profit for my business while we experienced multiple shut downs of our only business line of communication. In fact, we believe to be the first customer of theirs to attempt use of their service with a Straight Talk device, as it became clear that they were not even aware that the type of device would not work with their service, further proving that they had not ever tested using this type of device. It is unfortunate that Nextiva advertises that their service will "work with any provider on any device" as it is blatantly untrue and false advertisement.
It took two separate instances of "mobile phone disconnections" and troubleshooting with Nextiva's technical support team to conclude the prior stated. Not only did Nextiva's service require that we go through three port-in attempts, but our mobile services (and therefore business calls) were disconnected twice over several hours before Nextiva's team could conclude the reason why. After several days and hours on the phone spent with Nextiva's team and realizing that their service would not work for our needs, the porting team then ported-out our main business line without our authorization or knowledge. In fact, we didn't have any idea that Nextiva's porting department ported out our number for nearly an entire week and were not able to retrieve the number for 8 days after it was brought to our attention that it was ported out unauthorized we only found out because we received an email from a customer asking for a "working phone number" that they could reach us at. You can imagine the kind of frustration this caused on our end to realize that the reason we weren't receiving business was because of something Nextiva's employees took upon themselves to do without our authorization, let alone our knowledge. Upon requesting that our service be cancelled prior to the unauthorized port out, it was made clear to more than one person that we could not port out our number until we had a new service provider to port out to. Support team members of Nextiva supposedly understood this by promising not to shut our service off until we found a new service provider, yet ported the number out anyway, leaving us to chase it down on our personal time outside of Nextiva in an effort to regain control of it.
This year our profit margin had been slowly rising higher until we had no phone or open line of communication with our customers. During the month that we spent attempting use of Nextiva's service unsuccessfully with our multiple port in attempts and disconnects, our profit margin dropped 96%. I can't begin to place a value on the amount of business that I have lost by not having an open business line for my customers to reach me at. I have hundreds of loyal clients of over 6 years that were unable to reach me (and at this point may believe I'm no longer in business), several sales that I was in the middle of that I was never able to complete, and several websites and advertising avenues with business line listed, that appeared fraudulent to (who knows how many) potential clients searching for services from my business as well. It is unknown if I'll be able to recoup all of them back, and unfortunately, there is no way that I'll ever know.
I can state for certain that I did not receive business phone calls for anywhere between 1-2 weeks combined due to the incompetency and many mistakes of Nextiva's employees that we experienced during our attempts to use their service. We were billed for two months of service that we did not use and spent hours of both our personal and our business time in attempts to resolve any and all issues with their team, ultimately, to no avail. It was discussed with both Nextiva's porting department as well as their retention team the multiple issues that contributed to our needing to cancel, and we were assured that because we were unable to use their service as expected, that we would be refunded the full amount of our costs. We signed up for a 30-day trial (or money back guarantee) but because of the multiple failed ports, we missed our window to cancel (to no fault of our own). Not only were we assured that our payments would be refunded due to our extensive issues, but we were then lied to on the phone during our final disconnect of service by an employee whop stated that Nextiva would never have promised us a refund, and that we should not expect one.
I am a business owner that is undoubtedly frustrated and beyond upset over the financial damages and loss that we experienced during our time attempting use of Nextiva's services. I wouldn't recommend that anyone spend a moment of their time speaking to their team. It was most devastating to learn that I couldn't trust the words coming out of their mouths at any given time, as they have mastered the art of saying exactly what it is that their consumer wants to hear. Perhaps this may be a service that works better for landline users (though that is stated with only the utmost assumption), but if that is the only case, then Nextiva needs to stop selling their service as a solution for mobile phone users as well.
**The above is my full review, and upon submitting to the Better Business Bureau, their minimal response to my experience was as follows:
"We would like to apologize for the inconveniences Mr. Vincent experienced. At Nextiva, as mentioned before we are highly committed to our customers and an amazing user experience is a top priority. In an effort to comply with Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) and FCC requirements, we cannot share details regarding this matter via this method of communication."
Following this, I was able to reject their response as unacceptable. It wasn't until I publicly reviewed my experience with them on the internet that I was contacted by a Manager of Nextiva's Customer Relations team. They had seen my review of their business (which was posted to multiple business review websites) and contacted me. It was during my second/follow-up phone call with this manager when it was explained that he had reviewed and listened to the calls between their customer service representatives and myself. The reason for this was to investigate the accuracy of my claims regarding conversations between myself and their representatives. After review, he realized that what we stated in our full review was correct, and under the circumstances he fully admitted fault. He went on to explain that this was only the 2nd time in the 7-year history of his employment with Nextiva that he had ever run into a situation such as ours and that was as extreme and as devastating as the one that my company experienced. Regardless of his admission of fault, the most Nextiva was willing to do was refund my monthly service cost for the service we never received to begin with, and completely disregarded the huge financial devastation that was put on our company because of this. Nothing was offered in an effort to make right of the damages caused, even after full admittance of their wrong doings. Since then, my business has switched to Verizon's One Talk service, which has proven to be an incredibly smooth transition. It is a reliable service that allows us to utilize the features we've been desperately needing to make communications with our customers easier. I would highly recommend anybody looking for a service such as this to look no further than Verizon! I fully believe you'll find the experience to be a much better one than you'll find anywhere else.