Vodafone to create X Squad

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#2314213 10-Sep-2019 12:40

This is something I suggested a little while ago.... assemble a team to resolve the more complex issues.

It is a team they will need to keep until their IT issues are resolved.

epr

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#2314216 10-Sep-2019 12:46

How long before they realise it is pointless and become x employees?

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Oblivian

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#2314271 10-Sep-2019 13:21

Lias:

So can we get a special keyword for Geekzoners to automatically get sent through to these guys lol?

https://xkcd.com/806/

Not just me thinking that then!

Like a multi choice triage IVR 'do you know what Vlan your router needs to be on for vDSL or fibre'. Which quickly escalates to something like 'what is CG-NAT' and any wrong answer is the normal queue :P

But fair call. Where the bucket of 'too hard' use to sit in the corner and overflow at the tier1 centre until someone got a kick up the pants. Hopefully this means there is someone there to catch them as they fall out and double-check it isn't something better redirected

I see it as a small scale SDM

tripp

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#2314377 10-Sep-2019 17:03

Lias:

So can we get a special keyword for Geekzoners to automatically get sent through to these guys lol?

https://xkcd.com/806/

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boosacnoodle

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#2314407 10-Sep-2019 17:26

A team already existed for this previously, named CFE (Complex faults & escalations). Unfortunately for internal reps there was often quite a wait to get through to this specialist team due to the fact that they were understaffed. The salary for that was so low as to not really be able to attract talented people for that team. Further, you had to be based in Auckland (this was when they were still employing quite a number of people in Christchurch).

It's good to see that Vodafone have realised that they needed to do something to sort their customer service and the majority of the actions by Jason so far seem to be positive.

TwoSeven

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#2314427 10-Sep-2019 18:11

I seem to remember this is similar to what was done 20 years or so ago. I think increasing customer service has to be a good thing.

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jackyleunght2002

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#2314429 10-Sep-2019 18:14

I am so looking forward to see an improvement version of customer service thru the phone

At the moment talking to the India call centre is scary...

Talking to Philippines is good....

Jacky

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#2314508 10-Sep-2019 19:59

Their Manila call centre was completely useless, unless you liked endless transfers every 5 minutes and explaining your situation all over again, resulting in a pointless 45 minute call until you eventually gave up.

Serious question I have, how is this team going to be different from the "Ninjas"? (note: I've never dealt with one of their Ninjas so I genuinely don't know what the difference would be).

kingjj

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#2314524 10-Sep-2019 20:48

Bloody brilliant move. Glad to see they won't be worrying about traditional call centre metrics - they are and will always be the death knell of good customer service. I'm all for someone taking ownership and a call takes as long as it takes. Good job @JasonParis

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#2314529 10-Sep-2019 21:09

This sounds strangely familiar there jp!

best of luck with it though, absolutely agree, measures like getting it right the first time is far more important than getting off that call 5 mins faster!

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panther2

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#2314583 10-Sep-2019 21:57

Their cs is crap.. . Doubt this will do anything

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#2314672 11-Sep-2019 07:47

Regardless of the money spent on it, its a band aid fix. Money needs to be spent on training the front line staff, and communications improved. Its the same with all providers really - having a "special" team is not going to help long term - it will become a "us and them" situation internally leading to breakdowns in comms. Seen it many times.

Ever had a helpdesk staff member try to talk to a NOC staffer ? ;)

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trig42

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#2314769 11-Sep-2019 08:25

kingjj:

Bloody brilliant move. Glad to see they won't be worrying about traditional call centre metrics - they are and will always be the death knell of good customer service. I'm all for someone taking ownership and a call takes as long as it takes. Good job @JasonParis

On the face of it, it sounds like a good move. A team that can take ownership, communicate and transcend the various levels and departments both internally and externally.

I wonder, will the people in the X Squad have the authority to actually go to a department in Vodafone and demand they stop and look? By that I mean, they should be clued up enough to know where the resolution to the problem lies (eg. a billing issue, a complex network issue, a breakdown in communication between external parties and VF) and then go direct to that department and personally see to it that a resolution is tried and the customer communicated with (but have the authority within the company to 'demand' action from those departments).

I wonder what the KPIs will be for the X Squad, and how many 'cases' they have to manage at once (I'd imagine quite a few, but too many and it all falls down again).

I wonder if they are hiring internally or externally for this? Might be keen to have a look at it.

Lias

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#2315150 11-Sep-2019 16:50

I understand the scepticism that it might not change things, but when there is as much wrong with the company as we all know there is, you do have to start somewhere and I definitely think it's a step in the right direction. By and large Vodafone's actual performance as an ISP has been pretty rocksteady the last few years, it's everything else letting it down, and I personally think a decent part of why the customer service has at times been truly godawful is because staff simply don't have the ability to do their job. I've been lucky enough to have JP intervene and twice assign me staff who I very much suspect are predecessors of this team to help me resolve issues in the last 18 months, and they've been awesome to deal with, but have themselves been hamstrung by the internal systems and the poor processes for dealing with other parts of the organisation. I think that ensuring all staff have the resources to actually resolve things, and ensuring that the systems are as flattened and simple as possible are also vital (e.g. 1 billing system for everything which we all know is in progress/coming by 2055).

My 2 cents.

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boosacnoodle

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#2315181 11-Sep-2019 18:10

trig42:

I wonder what the KPIs will be for the X Squad, and how many 'cases' they have to manage at once (I'd imagine quite a few, but too many and it all falls down again).

Jason has said that it will be measured on FTF (first time fix).

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