Do Vodafone stores have a policy not to answer the phone?

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › Do Vodafone stores have a policy not to answer the phone?

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NonprayingMantis

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#1338298 7-Jul-2015 09:09

when I worked in Retail many years ago, the policy was always that if the phone was ringing we should answer it.
Even if we were with another customer, we should say "excuse me for just 1 minute" answer the phone, quickly take the customers details and tell them we were serving someone else, and when we had a chance give them a call back.

Then get back to our original customer.

michaelmurfy

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#1338299 7-Jul-2015 09:10

jmosen: Actually Michael, you're simply incorrect. it is not like this for all retail stores, and I can tell you this because as a blind person, I call a lot of retail stores.
If I call one and get no answer, I'm very happy to accept that all staff are busy with customers, and I'll hang up and call again in 15/20 minutes. Almost always, someone will then pick up.
If that person asks me to hold, I will gladly hold.
Not until yesterday have I had an experience over a four hour period where I called three different stores belonging to the same company, and had no one pick up once. It has never happened before.
Let me reiterate that if this information were available online, I would gladly have sought it online. It was not.

You do have a very valid point but I'm only speaking from having worked at both Vodafone and Spark in retail stores. As well as a few others where if it gets busy the phone has to wait.

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dylanp

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#1338300 7-Jul-2015 09:11

Hi Jonathan

Sorry to hear you weren't able to locate a Vodafone Smart prime for your son. As you've heard they have been extremely popular, I understand some stores have been selling out multiple times in a day. We've investigated live stock tracking systems but I'm not sure of the current status.

To directly answer your question, of course stores do answer the phone when they are not working on something else and should be returning messages too. I know the people in store work very hard, there's a huge amount of information they need to keep track of. At a guess I think the school holidays at the moment might be making them busier too.

Every connection and customer does count, hopefully there'll be another opportunity for your son to try out Vodafone soon.

Cheers

Dylan

MikeB4

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#1338302 7-Jul-2015 09:14

My point is for a Telco the Contact Center should be the prime point of contact after all it is what their business is. Staff at the Contact Centers as well as the customers should be able to see branch stock levels, not hard in today's perpetual inventory world.
One should be able enter say your Post Code and local stores and stock levels instantly displayed and up to date.

jmosen

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#1338305 7-Jul-2015 09:19

Thanks for the very reasonable and courteous reply Dylan.
I appreciate how busy these stores get, and a stock tracking system searchable by the customer would be a great solution for the future.

Jonathan

GeraltofRivia

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#1338308 7-Jul-2015 09:22

Jmosen, you cannot compare a Vodafone retail store with any other type of retailer due to the fact that if you go into say, Jeans West and buy a pair of Jeans it takes, at the most 5 minutes. In a Vodafone retail store one interaction may take upwards of 20 minutes to complete, so you cannot expect to call back 10-15 minutes later and for them to be free, leave a message and they will get back to you. Also as I used to work for Vodafone I know that if you leave a voice mail they call you back usually within two hours. Did you leave a voice mail?

dylanp

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#1338326 7-Jul-2015 10:03

jmosen: Thanks for the very reasonable and courteous reply Dylan.
I appreciate how busy these stores get, and a stock tracking system searchable by the customer would be a great solution for the future.

I very much agree, especially when new flagship phones from Apple and Samsung are launched. We're thinking about solutions like that and more.

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Baconeta

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#1340022 9-Jul-2015 14:25

I know if you ask nicely at one store for the future, that they can often see the stock in other stores (usually live data). Perhaps if you try again in the future you could do this. :)

jmosen

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#1340027 9-Jul-2015 14:31

Baconeta: I know if you ask nicely at one store for the future, that they can often see the stock in other stores (usually live data). Perhaps if you try again in the future you could do this. :)

Thanks for this, we did that in the store we visited, but got a reply from the guy there that he didn't think there would be stock.
I was left with the impression he couldn't actually check without doing what I tried to do, phone the other stores.

Jonathan

hamish225

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#1341459 11-Jul-2015 23:53

just keep ringing until they answer :P

*Insert big spe*dtest result here*

Salami

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#1341489 12-Jul-2015 08:45

NonprayingMantis: when I worked in Retail many years ago, the policy was always that if the phone was ringing we should answer it.
Even if we were with another customer, we should say "excuse me for just 1 minute" answer the phone, quickly take the customers details and tell them we were serving someone else, and when we had a chance give them a call back.

Then get back to our original customer.

I get that sometimes for other stores. I don't mind . Better than hearing the phone ring for like 2 minutes

stevenz

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#1341627 12-Jul-2015 15:58

Did you leave a voicemail and if so did anyone call back?

I was always taught to consider an unanswered call as a lost sale, as appears to have been the case in this instance.

@KnightNZ

jmosen

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#1341632 12-Jul-2015 16:13

stevenz: Did you leave a voicemail and if so did anyone call back?

I was always taught to consider an unanswered call as a lost sale, as appears to have been the case in this instance.

Indeed, it was a lost sale but my son was the winner as he ended up with the Zen2, which has better specs, so he's happy :). He can also stay on Skinny which he's happy with.
No, I didn't leave a voicemail for two reasons.
First, out of consideration. My logic was that if I called back, it would consume less time than having someone dial into voicemail, hear my inquiry and take down the number to call me back. After all it was only a 10-second inquiry. "Do you have any Vodafone Prime's in stock". The answer would have been yes or no and that would have been that.
But frankly, my second reason is that I haven't had very good luck with being called back by Vodafone. Perhaps that is a little harsh in retrospect, as during the process of porting a few numbers over, I have actually had exceptional service from the phone sales people, so should have seen what happened. They're a different department from the call centre. I guess I had nothing to lose.
Anyway, he's ended up with a great handset, and hopefully in future, we'll all be able to search for inventory online, which to me is the ideal outcome.

Jonathan

richms

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#1341699 12-Jul-2015 17:50

The stores really should have a queueing system if they are to take queries at the store.

As it is, I find calling retail stores to find out if they are open, of if they have stock is pretty silly. they should have all the calls go to the call center who can weed out all the stupid questions, and then contact the store directly with legit queries like this.

As for a phonecall taking priority over people queueing in the store, forget it. They have just pushed some buttons and can be doing something else while they are waiting. The people in the store have taken time to go to the store, and are basically wasting their time waiting to get served. They should absolutly get a higher priority than people calling. Let the phone go unanswered till someone is available to take it.

Richard rich.ms

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