Verizon is rethinking one of the wireless industry’s most familiar playbooks: winning customers with freebies. While offering free phones and other perks can create a short-term surge in sign-ups that looks great in quarterly results, Verizon CEO Dan Schulman says that strategy doesn’t necessarily build loyalty. Instead, he’s pointing to a different long-term growth driver: better customer service and more reliable network experiences.
Speaking during Verizon’s Q1 2026 financial results discussion, Schulman said the company’s turnaround is gaining momentum and credited improved performance to service-based offerings and a stronger customer experience. The message was clear: Verizon wants to reclaim market leadership by putting the customer at the center of its decisions, not by leaning on giveaways to solve retention problems.
Schulman also suggested the industry has become overly reliant on free handsets as a default fix. In his view, retention isn’t a one-size-fits-all problem, and throwing a free phone at every situation can be an expensive habit that doesn’t address what customers actually need. Verizon believes it can improve profitability by tailoring solutions to specific customer concerns—what Schulman described as micro-segmenting and listening closely rather than automatically offering a device upgrade.
One of the most practical examples of this new approach is Verizon’s increased focus on solving at-home and in-building connectivity complaints. Instead of spending heavily on broad incentives, Verizon is providing customers with 4G and 5G network extenders, also known as femtocells. These devices are designed to strengthen cellular signal inside houses and office buildings where reception can be weak, inconsistent, or unreliable.
Schulman emphasized that responding to customer feedback earlier—by sending a femtocell when someone reports poor indoor coverage—could significantly reduce the costs tied to repeated support interactions or more expensive retention tactics. He noted that delivering and installing an extender could come in at roughly one-third of the cost while leaving customers happier with the service they’re actually paying for.
The broader theme is that Verizon is putting more weight on treating subscribers like people rather than account numbers. To speed up troubleshooting and make support more effective, Verizon is also leaning into artificial intelligence to help customers get faster, more accurate answers when connectivity issues arise. The carrier is working with AI developers including Anthropic and Google as it explores ways to improve network performance and boost customer satisfaction.
For customers, the shift could mean fewer flashy freebies and more emphasis on everyday reliability: stronger indoor coverage, quicker fixes, and service improvements aimed at preventing problems rather than patching them with promotions. For Verizon, the bet is that a better network experience and more responsive support will do what giveaways often can’t—keep people from leaving in the first place.
