Vodafone NZ asks more than 2000 staff if they want to take redundancy: Overseas Centres of Excellency Instead

Forums › One NZ (including Farmside) › Vodafone NZ asks more than 2000 staff if they want to take redundancy: Overseas Centres of Excellency Instead

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#2195828 11-Mar-2019 14:07

Lias:

I'm almost always had positive experiences when I've managed to get through to NZ based staff.. Whereas I've almost never had a positive experience when dealing with the overseas call centers. To me it hasn't been the language barrier which some people gripe about (Filipino English in my experience is generally pretty damn good compared to most other Asian countries and even some low paid NZ call centers), but the seeming inability to deviate from scripts, and no authority to actually _fix_ things (especially but not limited to account/billing/install related issues)

Big Time this, going off scripts give call centre staff no ability to fix problems that go pear shaped

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#2195870 11-Mar-2019 14:39

While it might make good business sense the impact to the customer could see them dropping people. Calling about a phone problem to somebody on a line that sounds like it was from the 1970's party line is pretty ironic.

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#2195871 11-Mar-2019 14:41

frednz:
Now why would Vodafone not permit one of its customers to move to the ultrafast "pure fibre" provided by Chorus? I can't understand why Vodafone would want to maintain its cable network when it has cost a huge amount for Chorus to install ultrafast broadband throughout the country. Why can't Vodafone just abandon its often ugly huge black overhead cables and go with the flow and use the ultrafast Chorus network? Surely this must happen in the long term?

Because Vodafone make higher margins by keeping customers on their own network. Instead of reselling capacity on the UFB network. And It helps with customer lock in. As there is more work involved in connecting to UFB, if the property hasn't previously been connected to UFB.

Same reason why Spark is trying to move as many of their customers to fixed wireless. Instead of UFB.

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#2195872 11-Mar-2019 14:42

The harsh truth is hiring in India etc costs around a quarter of a NZ local to do the same job. So either you increase the base cost or introduce a paid NZ number for NZ support or go overseas. Sparks Manilla support is pretty good.

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#2195876 11-Mar-2019 14:46

loceff13:

So either you increase the base cost or introduce a paid NZ number for NZ support or go overseas.

Picking this up randomly, would there be a market for paying for NZ based support if the option was there. I prefer email/live chat myself.

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#2195882 11-Mar-2019 14:50

I've seen employees offered this opportunity at my employer and it has been really well received. I think someone noted earlier, a great opportunity for those that are not engaged to jump out with incentive, can even be win-win for both parties in some cases.

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#2195883 11-Mar-2019 14:50

loceff13:

The harsh truth is hiring in India etc costs around a quarter of a NZ local to do the same job. So either you increase the base cost or introduce a paid NZ number for NZ support or go overseas. Sparks Manilla support is pretty good.

2 degrees, Slingshot/Orcon, Voyager and all the smaller ISPs seem to be doing okay despite having a NZ based call centre. Orcon moved their call centre back home, and their NPS went from negative to positive. This move is 100% about looking good on paper before an IPO launch.

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#2195898 11-Mar-2019 14:54

frednz:

ShinyChrome:

To be fair, I don't think I have heard one piece of positive feedback from the Vodafone customers I know, so maybe this might actually help them.

While I certainly don't blame them for this move as a company, obviously as a NZer with an interest in keeping the masses here gainfully employed, it is a shame. But these companies are not run in the interest of society, so they will do what they can to make money. And they are a big multi-national company.

Interesting that it sounds like some in the middle operation are being cut out, rather than the usual front line staff. Also interesting that while the article says that they have asked 2000 staff, it doesn't seem to nail down how many they actually want to cut.

Overall, I've had a positive experience with Vodafone, but I do prefer talking to call centres in New Zealand which are staffed by people I can easily understand. The Vodafone people I have dealt with in overseas call centres are very willing to help, but sometimes they are hard to understand and sometimes they don't always understand the problem, so I have had to ask to speak to a Manager. I doubt whether overseas "centres of excellence" are going to improve customer service for New Zealand customers, but time will tell.

I think a big problem is culture and humour when dealing with NZ based support vs overseas support, where english is often not their first language. When dealing with NZ staff I find they usually fully understand things first time, and understand sarcastic remarks, you can have banter with them etc, and it is more personal experience. This then saves the custoemr time and gives the customer a good experience. But calling overseas is a colder less personal experience, maybe because they are following a set format. But I have usually had positive results from dealing with overseas call centres. I guess the real future is proper AI, and these overseas call/contact centres will be out a of a job. I am using a NZ company which has recently moved their online support offshore, and they don't always read or understand the emails, like they did when I was dealing with the NZ staff, so it isn't just phone support that is the problem.

I think the 2 big frustrations with phone support are

- The amount of time it takes to get through
- The person you are dealing with not understanding you or don't have the knowledge. then getting passed onto another person and having to repeat it all again.

I note that some banks aren't very good these days either, especially with hold times, yet banks make a lot of money.

mattwnz

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#2195899 11-Mar-2019 14:57

loceff13:

The harsh truth is hiring in India etc costs around a quarter of a NZ local to do the same job. So either you increase the base cost or introduce a paid NZ number for NZ support or go overseas. Sparks Manilla support is pretty good.

I wish that companies offered email support. Often these days there are often only two choices, phone, or live chat. Live chat I guess is okay, but a huge time waster compared to email. And if you are going to live chat, you may as well just phone them, apart from the benefit of a paper trail.

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#2195956 11-Mar-2019 15:46

DjShadow:

Lias:

I'm almost always had positive experiences when I've managed to get through to NZ based staff.. Whereas I've almost never had a positive experience when dealing with the overseas call centers. To me it hasn't been the language barrier which some people gripe about (Filipino English in my experience is generally pretty damn good compared to most other Asian countries and even some low paid NZ call centers), but the seeming inability to deviate from scripts, and no authority to actually _fix_ things (especially but not limited to account/billing/install related issues)

Big Time this, going off scripts give call centre staff no ability to fix problems that go pear shaped

I believe it is called thinking outside the box but the staff must be given the training to enable this but that usually means promotion up the ladder for the bright ones or they get bored and leave as there is no incentives.

I have always had excellent call centre help from Netflix. Over the two years with Netflix I have spoken to: Florida, Sweden, Vancouver, Auckland, California and Manila (I always ask). The last time I was having huge audio sync problems with a movie via Chromcast but no sync problems via the iPad. The front line staff escalated it to their tech guys and I ended up iPhone filming my iPad and my Chromcast TV at the same time and sending it to them. All up I was chatting and filming for an hour. Within 24 hrs all was fixed. They also acknowledged that I was the first with the fault as they started getting more front line staff queries as we spoke. Great fun.

Whilst the difficult we can do immediately, the impossible takes a bit longer. However, miracles you will have to wait for.

frednz

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#2195999 11-Mar-2019 16:55

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12211416

The above new article is headed:

"Vodafone secretly plans to outsource jobs to India: insider"

From the above:

Vodafone NZ's sweeping restructure involves "culling" hundreds of call centre roles and replacing some tech staff with "Indian counterparts", an insider says.

He warns the telco plans to shed "technical network and install managers" and send the roles offshore.

"There have been reports that Indian staff have been found sleeping at their desks as they get used to working during New Zealand time," the source said.

India is seven hours behind New Zealand.

The account is similar to one offered by a (now-ex) Vodafone technician, who earlier told the Herald he was one of 40 staff who saw their jobs sent offshore to giant Indian outsourcer Infosys.

The laid-off staff were asked to mentor their Indian replacements before leaving.

"We had to train them for eight weeks. It really rubbed salt into the wound."

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Lias

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#2196049 11-Mar-2019 18:23

Crikey, India is just a terrible idea. I've worked in IT for 20 mumble something years now, and in that time dealt with _many_ call centres and foreign engineers, and the overwhelming majority of accent related miscommunication issues I've had were with Indians (to be fair China excluding HK/Taiwan is probably second, but a somewhat distant second). Now I appreciate that's only my personal experience, but it matches anecdotally with almost everyone I've ever discussed the subject with. If they really must outsource overseas, for the love of god stick with the Philippines.

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#2196050 11-Mar-2019 18:24

frednz:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12211416

The above new article is headed:

"Vodafone secretly plans to outsource jobs to India: insider"

From the above:

Vodafone NZ's sweeping restructure involves "culling" hundreds of call centre roles and replacing some tech staff with "Indian counterparts", an insider says.

He warns the telco plans to shed "technical network and install managers" and send the roles offshore.

"There have been reports that Indian staff have been found sleeping at their desks as they get used to working during New Zealand time," the source said.

India is seven hours behind New Zealand.

The account is similar to one offered by a (now-ex) Vodafone technician, who earlier told the Herald he was one of 40 staff who saw their jobs sent offshore to giant Indian outsourcer Infosys.

The laid-off staff were asked to mentor their Indian replacements before leaving.

"We had to train them for eight weeks. It really rubbed salt into the wound."

I worked for the Vodafone NZ based retention team up until recently.

VF opened up a new tech department in India towards the end of 2018 to handle all enquires related to the new one bill system being rolled out to customer (combined mobile and broadband bills). We weren’t even allowed to touch ‘one bill customers’ it was an automatic transfer to India if we had one on the line. Trying to get anything done by them was a frasutraing process.

Everything this insider has claimed is 100% accurate.

stinger

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#2196052 11-Mar-2019 18:34

Wigglykelowna2:
frednz:

India is seven hours behind New Zealand.

Everything this insider has claimed is 100% accurate.

... says someone who created a GZ just to say this. I'll take that with a grain of salt. For all I know, you could be the person leaking to NZ Herald, and thus introduce a confirmation bias.

India is not 7 hours behind NZ. They are 7½ hours behind at the moment, and 6½ hours during NZ non-day light savings time.

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#2196054 11-Mar-2019 18:40

loceff13:

The harsh truth is hiring in India etc costs around a quarter of a NZ local to do the same job. So either you increase the base cost or introduce a paid NZ number for NZ support or go overseas. Sparks Manilla support is pretty good.

A quarter? You'd be overcharged if it costs 1/10th.

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