Growing and Delivering More Value to Our Customers

As we’re always striving to give the most to our customers, it really is a wonderful feeling to see that effort pay off with each new year. And now, for the sixth consecutive year we’ve made the list of the 2015 Portland Business Journal’s Fastest Growing Companies in Oregon.

The esteemed PBJ list recognizes companies in the region that demonstrate the highest growth rate over the last three years. For the second year in a row, Consumer Cellular was also presented the Lighthouse Award, given to companies with more than five consecutive years on the list. It’s quite an accomplishment for a company our size to have been awarded this honor!

Consumer Cellular’s growth is a story of much pride for us as a company. Putting the customer first has always meant listening to their needs and finding additional ways to provide the most value to you. While I can easily see how we’re doing from the inside of Consumer Cellular, the proof is really in our dramatic expansion and retention of customers like you who use our services, day-in, day-out.

As we celebrate our 20th anniversary this year, we’re still growing despite stiff national competition. As a result, our customers consistently benefit from improvements to our cell phone plans and increased options. Customer service will remain the number one priority as we strive to meet and exceed our customers’ expectations. Without this focus, we could have never beat the odds and been this successful.

It reminds me of a saying by Albert Schweitzer: “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.” We know our success is directly related to the happiness of our customers, and that’s one thing we’ll never lose sight of.

58 Thoughts on "Growing and Delivering More Value to Our Customers"

  1. Sandi says

    I love the quickness and ease of paying my bill on line. Just a check mark here or there and it is done. Wish all sites were this efficient.

  2. Jerry alpaugh says

    I think consumer cellular is great. You offer iPhone and budget Android phones.I think you should also offer a better quality Android phone.thanks for the consideration.

    • Ashley at Consumer Cellular says

      Thank you for commenting, Jerry. We’re glad you are enjoying our service! We try to provide a product selection that best meets the needs of our customers, but we understand that some users would like more variety. A great option is to use our free SIM card, which can be used with an unlocked, GSM phone. That way, you can have the phone you want while getting the great benefits of Consumer Cellular service. While most phones work really well with the SIM card, we can’t guarantee that every feature will work, though we’re happy to try! If you’re interested in this option, you can learn more on our website here, or we can help you over the phone at 888-345-5509. Thank you for the feedback, and we appreciate your business!

  3. Mister Misanthropy says

    I have been mostly satisfied with Consumer Cellular thus far, although I was quite disappointed in the way that the phone I bought was misrepresented on your web site. It was a very inexpensive phone, but still if there had been truthfulness about the phone’s capabilities, I may have opted for a more expensive phone. I hate being mislead regardless of the cost. Try saying that the low priced flip phone takes lousy pictures and that the MP3 function is dysfunctional–even if you do buy a memory card.

    Your service is a good bargain for people like me (I rarely use up the minutes I have paid for) and your 800 customer service seemed to be quite good the last time I used it. I don’t think that anyone will actually read this critique, but I send it in hopes that someone may. I will copy it in order to advise other consumers elsewhere. You are selling a very good product for a very good price. Just cut out the misleading advertising on your web site and you will be the absolute best cell phone provider in the USA–to be honest, you probably still are. Thank you

    • Ashley at Consumer Cellular says

      We appreciate your feedback, and please know that we do read each and every comment here on our blog. I was able to take a look at your account, and I see that Julia, our customer service lead team member, was able to correspond with you via email to address these issues. We do recommend taking a look at our phone reviews page here when deciding which purchase to make, as many of our customers provide feedback about their user experience. In addition, we offer our 30 day Risk-Free Guarantee period for each of our devices, just in case they aren’t a good fit. We apologize for any frustration or inconvenience that you have experienced while using our service, and we very much appreciate your business. Thank you for taking the time to comment, and we hope you have a wonderful day!

    • Francis Arakaki says

      Is that a Consumer Cellular Envoy Phone Mister is talking about?

    • Sandy Radcliffe says

      ALWAYS watch the billing every 6 months I have problems with the billing, I may be cancelling right now I am waiting for a supervisor to call me back. We are billed monthly from the 7 th to the 6 th and 250 minutes, now this month they add on 55 minutes from the previous month and bill me .25 per minute $ 12.25 in overages from the previous month which I only used 188 minutes. Just let me know so I can throw your phone out!!!!!!

      • Ashley at Consumer Cellular says

        We certainly apologize for any inconvenience or errors on our part, Sandy. I was able to take a look at your account, and I see that Holly and Andrew from our Customer Support Team were able to get this issue resolved for you and the overages credited. Thank you for your patience, and we’re happy to assist you with anything else you need at this time. Just give us a call at 888-345-5509, and we’ll be ready to help. We appreciate you taking the time to comment and we hope you have a wonderful day.

  4. Sue Mitchell says

    I worked at the Portland center for almost 5 years and the thing I loved the most was the reasonable plans and how we as the reps provided the best customer service. I miss everyone and love what you are still doing for customers. Congrats on yet another great year

  5. nancy blodgett says

    Shanaira was extremely helpful and pleasant to deal with. I’m hard of hearing and it was not easy for her but she was polite, friendly and very supportive. I’m so glad she was the agent who happened to take my call. Great representative for Consumer Cellular!

    • Ashley at Consumer Cellular says

      Thank you for letting us know, Nancy. I’ve forwarded your comments on to her supervisor, so we appreciate you sharing your experience. We hope you have a great day!

  6. Carol says

    Love CC! Is there a way to block unwanted calls? If so, HOW?? Also, there’s an app on our Moto G’s and wondered if it was possible to activate the “Hot Spot”? Again, if so HOW? Thank you!

    • Ashley at Consumer Cellular says

      Great questions, Carol! While you can’t block unwanted calls completely, there are a few things you can do to reduce them. The first is to register your phone number on the national Do Not Call registry. You can call them at 888-382-1222. Your Moto G also has a feature that will allow you to send certain phone numbers directly to voicemail so that you don’t need to be bothered. If you receive a call that you don’t want, save the phone number as a contact in your phone. Then in the contact settings, select the menu at the top right corner. From there, you can select “All calls to voicemail”. As for the hotspot, your device doesn’t currently support tethering on our service, which is why it is currently disabled. We’re happy to answer any other questions you may have at 888-345-5509, and we can even walk you through the steps above. Thank you again for taking the time to post!

  7. Paul says

    phone came, I went to website to transfer from one company (straight talk) to consumer cellular. It has not taken place yet. How long will it take? In meantime we are using the old phone. Must not be working on 4th of July

    • Ashley at Consumer Cellular says

      Thank you for checking in, Paul. I was able to take a look at your account, and I see that Kristy, our customer service representative, was able to give you an update this morning. If there is anything else we can assist you with, please give us a call at 888-345-5509. We’ll be happy to help you. We appreciate you taking the time to comment, and we hope you have a great day!

  8. Larry Cunningham says

    May I respectfully make a suggestion for an improvement for displaying a customer’s Usage Details? As it is now, you paginate that data on pages of (I think) 22 lines per page which makes for some very big numbers of pages for customers to have to go through. Could I suggest that you make the number of lines of data displayed per page customizable so that the customer can determine how many pages he/she wishes to have? Most other companies allow customers to choose this and it would be very nice if you would too. At the very least it would be nice to have several pull down menu options such as “20, 50, 100, or ALL”. Thank you for your consideration on this request. Keep up the good work!

    • Ashley at Consumer Cellular says

      Thank you for the feedback, Larry! We’re always working to make our user experience better, so I’ve passed your feedback on to our development team. Thank you for taking the time to post today!

      • Larry Cunningham says

        Thank you Ashley … I appreciate your reply. And while I do understand that making changes sometimes takes a little time I do hope that your development team will seriously consider implementing this change as I know it would be a benefit to me and, I am sure, many other customers. Again, thanks!

  9. Jamila Leung says

    Hi,
    I have been currently broken my cellphone, and have a replacement phone. It is taken many than 30 minutes but I still cannot contact to customer service. Do u know how long I need to wait?

    • Ashley at Consumer Cellular says

      Thank you for commenting, Jamila. We apologize for the wait time, and I’m glad to see that Danielle, our customer service representative, was able to assist you in getting your replacement phone setup. We’re glad to see that everything is taken care of. If we can assist you with anything else at this time, please feel free to give us a call at 888-345-5509.

      Just in case this happens in the future, we recommend taking advantage of our free call back service. That way you don’t have to wait, and can still get help at a convenient time. We know your time is valuable, so we want to be mindful of that. Thank you for reaching out to us, and we hope you have a great day!

  10. Michael Frazier says

    Using Bluetooth, I have found it not all that difficult to copy a set of photos from the Moto G Ext into my Windows 8.1 desktop computer. There was an article offering to tell someone else how to move photos with a USB cable, but I didn’t need to bother Consumer Cellular to explain that procedure. To move the photos via Bluetooth, I used the following steps: 1. remove any existing Bluetooth between phone and the desktop computer. 2. set up Bluetooth fresh, with pairing of the phone device to the Windows 8.1 computer. 3. Go into Gallery in the phone and select the photos intended to be transferred. Hold down a finger or stylus on one of the photos and then at the top bring up select all to get a group of photos selected. 4. Go into the Windows 8.1 computer and choose Bluetooth and select “receive a file”. 5. Go into the Gallery and choose share with Bluetooth the option selected. It takes maybe 30 seconds per photo file and there are progress messages displayed in the phone. I implement this procedure with the phone sitting next to the computer. 6. once all the photo files are transferred, the computer asks me to browse a file location for the files that have been received.

    • Ashley at Consumer Cellular says

      We glad to hear that, Michael! Thank you for sharing this option with our Moto G EXT users. We appreciate you taking the time to post today.

  11. markD says

    My new Moto phone has one really glaring flaw: it does not make plain how to quickly ANSWER a call. On a blacked screen (per usual), by the time I’ve thought to push a power button to create the unlock screen, then noticed the tiny unlock icon and then “swipe twice” instruction, then do so, then see the small answer icon, it’s rolled to VM. My prior phones had instructions to cover from the very beginning basics, such as “how to answer.” Seems in my Moto’s smartphone case, this routine has been omitted. I know it seems very basic, but it’s not so basic and intuitive as you might suppose. Even a computer comes with steps starting with “how to turn on.”

    • Ashley at Consumer Cellular says

      Thank you for commenting, Mark. In our eyes, there is no such thing as being “too basic”. We want you to feel comfortable and confident about your phone. That’s why we have our helpful How-To videos for each of our phones, and they cover topics just like this. I’ve emailed you a link to the Moto E LTE videos, and we have one specifically for answering calls. We’re also available to help you at any time over the phone at 888-345-5509. Thank you for taking the time to comment today, and we’re here to help you get to know your new smartphone.

  12. Dave Johnson says

    I have the Moto G EXT. So far,so good(2 1/2 months) Today I tried to get it to allow me to use it as a hotspot. 2 calls to customer support did not get this done. Could you please figure out how to get this done for us? Customer Service tells me it works on the cheaper Moto E 4G. I have upgraded to Lolipop 5.02 when it showed up as available. I’d return it and get the Moto E but I bought a Motorola flip case($35) and it is too big for the MOTO E.2nd thing, would you consider adding a automatic upgrade option to minutes and data, so if I go over at end of month I don’t have to continually check to see if we are going over. Have my DIL on the plan and her use is unpredictable.Thanks, Dave

    • Ashley at Consumer Cellular says

      Thank you for taking the time to comment, Dave. I was able to take a look at your account, and I see that Ubaldo, our customer service representative, did his best to get this working. Unfortunately, the tethering feature does not always work with the Moto G EXT, but we’ve done everything we can do try to enable it for you. I’ve verified the settings on our end, so please power cycle your phone, and that may resolve the issue. The Moto E does support tethering as it is an LTE device. We also appreciate your suggestion in regards to an automatic upgrade program, and I’ve forwarded your idea to our management team. If we can answer any question for you, please feel free to give us a call at 888-345-5509. Thank you again for the comments, and we hope you have a great day!

  13. Debra Kent says

    We have been a CC customer since November 2012. Our first cell phone was purchased from you. We out grew the internal memory after several software updates throughout the following year.

    It was easy to switch to an unlocked GSM phone. The SIM card moved right in place. After about a year the internal memory was not enough to complete several software updates.

    Currently, we purchased an unlocked GSM Moto G 1st generation with 16GB/11GB for personal use. When it required a micro sim card, we purchased two from Target (our account was credit after activation for $20). Discovered after not being able to make phone calls at work it was T-Mobile version.

    I called your customer service and discussed my new found problem. She was great with informing me about the ATT version. It was ordered on Monday, shipped on Tuesday and we received them on Thursday. Our account had the SIM cards under our order section with online activation option upon arrival.

    We did the online activation and it worked great.

    Thanks for providing several ways to activate our new SIM cards. It was easy with the online steps and connection to phone with needed updates and configuration.

    It is great being your customer!!!

    • Ashley at Consumer Cellular says

      We’re glad to hear you had such a great experience, Debra! Many of our customers find that the SIM card option really works well for them, so thank you for sharing your story! We appreciate you taking the time to post today.

  14. Kimbre says

    The data works well when you use Wifi. Do you think you could increase your talk time on your plans? Many cellular companies offer free minutes for talking. You offer extensive texting but the talk time is relatively expensive as compared to other companies. Thank you for your consideration.

    • Ashley at Consumer Cellular says

      We appreciate your feedback, Kimbre. We did add an unlimited option to our talk plans in our recent update, and we do our best to craft our plans in a way that gives our customers the most value for the best price. That’s also why we offer flexible plans, because you may need a lot of minutes one month, and few the next. I’ve forwarded your suggestions about adding more minutes to our management team, and thank you for taking the time to post them. We hope you have a wonderful day, and we look forward to serving you for years to come!

  15. Robert Davy says

    Why doesn’t Consummer Cellular have a real time email customer support capability. I have three phones and they all stopped working at the same time so I have no way to call the customer support number.

    • Ashley at Consumer Cellular says

      We apologize for any inconvenience, Robert. If you don’t have access to our support team by phone, you can also reach out via email at [email protected]. Our team will be happy to help you, and will respond as quickly as they can. I was able to look at your account, and I’m glad to see that our customer support team member, Serina, was able to get your service issues resolved. We appreciate your feedback, and thank you for reaching out to us.

  16. cb says

    I am having the most horrible customer experience with this company I have ever had. I am waiting for callbacks that are promised and not made. I am waiting for emails that are not sent and I am fed up. Anyone reading this, I urge you now to change companies!

    • Ashley at Consumer Cellular says

      We apologize for any frustration with our service, CB. We do our best to respond to our customers in a timely fashion, and I’m sorry that hasn’t been the case in your experience. We would like to do our best to get any issues you are having resolved immediately. I’ve sent you an email so that we can get in touch with you directly. Thank you for commenting today, and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience.

  17. Jack Thorne says

    Been a customer since 2010 and you were a much smaller company and quite frankly you were more customer oriented earlier. Now you have a slick way of squeezing more money from your customers by having no minute plan between 250 and 750 minutes.
    Way to go. It won’t be long before your tactics begin to lose customers.

    • Ashley at Consumer Cellular says

      We’re sorry for any frustration you’re having with our service, Jack. We aim to provide the highest level of customer service, and we appreciate any feedback from our customers so that we can do a better job. In regards to our plans, we do our best to offer options that best fit the needs of our customers. We find that the option to change your plan as often as you like is more convenient, so that customers only pay for the minutes they need. We appreciate you taking the time to comment, and please give us a call at 888-345-5509 if we can assist you in any way. Thank you again for your feedback!

  18. Bruce Bright says

    Do you offer any kind of insurance for a lost phone, or are my options limited to buy another phone, possibly with a different carrier?

    • Ashley at Consumer Cellular says

      Thank you for asking, Bruce. We offer SquareTrade protection plans for our phones, which protect against drops and spills, but we do not have an insurance plan for your phone. If you have lost your phone, please give us a call at 888-345-5509. We will temporarily suspend your service, so you won’t need to worry about any usage overages or calls made by someone else. If you find the phone later, you’ll be able to quickly resume service.

      If you can’t find the phone, you will need a new one, either one that we offer or a SIM card if that is a better option for you. We’re happy to help you over the phone at 888-345-5509, or you can find our phones and SIM cards at your local Target or Sears stores. We know that losing a phone can be very frustrating, so we’re happy to help you however we can. Thank you!

  19. Stan Tracy says

    My new phone is not working properly!!

    • Ashley at Consumer Cellular says

      We’re sorry to hear that, Stan. First, please confirm that you’ve completed the activation process in the Quick Start Guide. Then, turn your phone off, then back on again. This will allow your phone to connect with the nearest tower with the best signal. If your phone still isn’t working, we’re happy to troubleshoot it with you over the phone. Please give us a call at 888-345-5509, and we’ll get that resolved for you. Thank you for bringing this to our attention, and we’re ready to help!

  20. Phil Lehman says

    Love CC, and referred many folks. Sadly today my reception dropped from very strong to a level where my phone can’t even work in my house. AND I called and what has been a terrific customer service experience to date suddenly has turned south. Estimated wait time was 5-10 minutes, but I languished on hold for 40 minutes before the call failed, probably due to my bad signal.

    Are you guys growing too much and sacrificing quality?!

    Bummed customer.

    • Ashley at Consumer Cellular says

      We apologize for your inconvenience, Phil. We are actively hiring more customer service representatives so that we can reduce hold times for our customers. We encourage you to try the callback option, so we can call you at a convenient time in your day. Another good option is to send us an email at [email protected]. Our team will get back to you as quickly as possible.

      In the meantime, I was able to take a look at your coverage area and was unable to see any outages that might affect your signal. Please try turning your phone off, then back on again. This will allow it to connect to the closest tower with the best signal. If that doesn’t resolve the issue, please give us a call and we’ll be happy to troubleshoot it further. Thank you for reaching out to us today, and we hope you have a wonderful day!

  21. Irene Skieresz says

    Took my phone on visit to NC. Kept getting a ‘NO SERVICE’ or a emergency calls only messages. The phone notification bar showed a strong signal. Tried rebooting phone several times with no luck Next day phone worked for short time then reverted to NO SIGNAL again or emergency numbers only. I now do not feel safe travelling with this phone.

    • Ashley at Consumer Cellular says

      Thank you for commenting, Irene. I took a look at your account, and I see that you were able to resolve this issue with the help of Amanda, our customer service representative. While there is coverage in the area, it will work best outdoors. We can take a look at the coverage of a location you plan to visit, and alert you to areas where your phone may have less coverage. Just give us a call at 888-345-5509, and we’ll be happy to assist you. Thank you again for commenting today, we appreciate it!

  22. Joanne G. from Connecticut says

    Hello Consumer Cellular. On 7/20/15 I called to customer services to activate my new Moto E LTE. I also had several other questions which were quickly taken care of!! I have been a customer for several years now and have NEVER looked back once. Whenever I have had to call, the representatives were always curteous, friendly and knowledable and eager to help! I was always made to feel comfortable because, let’s face it, we ‘older’ folks can be skeptical about our capabilities with our ‘new gadgets’ and along with great interpersonal skills, my customer services person was so patient with me! I wanted to give a shout-out in general for a job well done but more importantly, wanted to acknowledge Service Representative Aja, out of Arizona…..she was fantastic! When we go above and beyond, we need to know our efforts matter! So, just a note of THANKS…gotta go now, I’m playing around with my new Moto, which by the way, I love!! Thanks for your time!

  23. Irene Skieresz says

    Heard about security flaw in android phones. Does consumer cellular have a download to fix the problem and is my Huawei able to use the download? Seems that it is not capable to run a lot of newer Apps.

    • Ashley at Consumer Cellular says

      Thank you for asking, Irene. In general, issues such as this are resolved by the manufacturers of your phone. When they have a new security update ready, they will send it out to their phones. You’ll see a notification on your phone when it is available, and from there, just follow the steps to install it. In the meantime, we always recommend that our customers use an anti-virus protection app, such as this one we reviewed on our blog, if they feel that they want more protection. We’re also happy to answer any questions you may have about your phone or account, just give us a call at 888-345-5509. Thank you again for posting today!

  24. Dave M says

    I purchased a non consumer cellular phone, received the free sim card and called customer service…using the call back option, the person I spoke with was excellent and helped me set up my new phone.. I have never had anything but outstanding service from your customer service…Thank You

    • Ashley at Consumer Cellular says

      Thank you for sharing your experience, Dave. We’re glad that your phone setup went well, and we look forward to serving you for years to come!

  25. Don says

    I have been a CC customer for many years and have been happy with the phones offered and the plans. I would love to see one change though. I have a family plan with 4 smart phones and most months I have to shut off the data on my teens phones to stay under the 4 GB limit for Data. They use wifi whenever available but at times there is no wifi where they are. It would be great if CC offered larger data plans for families. Keep up the good work, your customer service is great. Don’t have to try to understand a customer service rep with a thick accent named Sam!

    • Ashley at Consumer Cellular says

      We’re glad you enjoy our service, Don! It’s always helpful to hear feedback from our customers regarding their needs, especially when they let us know how our plans work for them. I’ve passed your feedback on to our management team. Thank you for your kind words, and we appreciate you taking the time to comment!

  26. Howard Sperber says

    After 15 minutes on hold I finally got a Rep to talk to and we got disconnected! I had just enough time to have given him my phone number, (which he had anyway), so you would think this employee would have had the initiative/decency to call me back but no… I had to call again and be on hold for another 35 minutes!
    Does CC service suck, or what?

    • Ashley at Consumer Cellular says

      We apologize for such a negative experience, Howard. Our elite customer support team will be contacting you shortly to get this issue resolved. We appreciate your patience, and we’re very sorry for the inconvenience. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.

  27. Howard Sperber says

    Thank you CC! In all fairness, I must say that today I had occasion to call CC again, dreading an anticipated long wait time that I previously complained about. This time I got a response in less than 5 minutes!… Much appreciated!

    I also must add that in response to my previous grievance with CC, I actually received a call-back! (It took 24 hours for this to happen, and I wish they could have helped me sooner than that, but I must compliment CC for the effort, late though it was). This was an unexpected surprise!

  28. BARB says

    Howard I certainly wish I had your luck with response from customer service. My frustration is really high with a company that is supposed to pride themselves on customer support. I Called to get information on setting up new phone service, I was told it was an extended wait time I could leave my number and receive a call back in 15 minutes, WELLL…….45 MINUTES LATER I GET A CALL and was not able to answer the phone, instead of them calling me back they ask me to again return a call to customer service, why???? to be told it’s an extended wait time and to expect a call back in 15 minutes. Hello, other people have lives and work also, and it doesn’t revolve around sitting around hours waiting on consumer cellular. If this is the type of service that can be expected I will go with another company and advise everyone I know to steer clear of CONSUMER CELLULAR AND THERE POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE!!

    • Dominic at Consumer Cellular says

      Thanks for the comment, Barb. I’m sorry that we missed you when we returned your call, and I apologize for the fact that the call came later than you expected as well. I’ve asked a member of our customer service team to reach out to you again to follow-up. If you prefer, you may also email us at [email protected], and we’ll be more than happy to help. Thank you.

  29. ron says

    How to I get CC to call me back rather then wait 15/30 for someone to answer. I read somewhere where you have. Please help as the customer service is right now HORRIBLE

    • Ashley at Consumer Cellular says

      Good question, Ron. Depending on the time you call, we do often have the callback feature available. I took a look at your account, and I’m glad to see that we were able to assist you and get your questions answered. If we can help you with anything else at this time, please just let us know at 888-345-5509. Thank you for commenting, and we hope you have a great day!