Excessive Vodafone Support call waiting times 75 mins and then i have to wait an hour for a callback

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › Excessive Vodafone Support call waiting times 75 mins and then i have to wait an hour for a callback

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
79295 posts

Uber Geek

Administrator

ID Verified

Trusted

Geekzone

Lifetime subscriber

#1185708 30-Nov-2014 09:55

ckc:
Lurch:
ckc:
freitasm: Vodafone to Australia can be pretty bad - has been for the last few months. Try accessing www.smh.com.au on Vodafone cable and you will see it taking a few more seconds than expected for a site just on the other side of the pond.

Just tried it. Instantly, and I mean instantly, loaded. Faster than Stuff or the Herald ever did.

I cannot fault VF for quality of connection. I'm just hoping they don't cut me off for using 3TB of data in the first month.

Just tried the site www.smh.com.au first time was about a minute, second time was instant. Caching? Try going to amiga.org, the page doesn't load completely for me and I get 403 errors this is only on Vodafone. If I use a proxy I can get to the site fine :-)

Haven't bothered logging a fault after my previous experience of sitting on hold for hours with no answer I'll just stick to the proxy.

I have had no issues with any of those sites. Or torrents. Or ssh to Europe (except for a week ago, but tracert showed the issue was in Europe). I get faster than I paid for, I've really torn through the data getting all my stuff from my VPS before I close it down, AND they've also just knocked money off my internet every month for the next year.

Most of the issues accessing sites happen on the cable network. I am told the cache farm was updated last month, but routes to AU were being worked on.

dejadeadnz

2394 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1185970 30-Nov-2014 22:07

KiwiNZ:
This post amuses and annoys, *hint* "courteous and considerate" is a two way thing.

This place would lose considerable skills if folks like the Telco staffers decided enough with the personal attacks and ceased their efforts here.

As a general assertion, you're indeed correct. I would also think that this place would also lose a lot of its character if anyone were to think that merely being helpful/generally helpful to users on here gives them a license to be rude. I drive 80Kms return 2 to 3 Saturdays a month to provide free professional help to the needy for around 3 to 4 hours at a time. Their problems are far, far more serious than just not getting high quality internet access. Even though frankly some of these people (and the organisation to whom I offer my voluntary service) would be stuffed were I to decide to not bother, I've never once felt entitled to do things similar to what a certain someone has done in multiple instances on here. All of the other volunteers at this community centre feel the same way.

I hardly think my view that being helpful isn't some kind of permanent shield against criticism for legitimately objectionable conduct is all that controversial.

freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
79295 posts

Uber Geek

Administrator

ID Verified

Trusted

Geekzone

Lifetime subscriber

#1185994 30-Nov-2014 23:52

I gather that some people have a personal thing against Vodafone. This doesn't mean anyone can go around on a personal crusade against people who work at Vodafone.

I have removed one reply based on that.

Inphinity

2780 posts

Uber Geek

#1186035 1-Dec-2014 08:29

We've been having frequent issues with traffic to Aus, which has gotten worse (more frequent, longer duration) in recent months. Very similar symptoms to the OP, by the sounds, with high packet loss, high latency, and services like RDP, SSH etc regularly dropping, or just failing to work at all. One of the issues in trying to address it is that by the time we eventually get through to someone at VF (usually 40 - 60min), the issue has generally subsided. It is incredibly frustrating.

JonnyCam

643 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

#1186109 1-Dec-2014 09:42

freitasm: I gather that some people have a personal thing against Vodafone. This doesn't mean anyone can go around on a personal crusade against people who work at Vodafone.

I have removed one reply based on that.

Personal attacks are not needed, , but does not change the fact that the times are not acceptable to customers who pay VF for their services.
I know it's not john's fault, but when he replied essentially saying the long times were due to people calling up with stupid queries / non-issues.
Vodafone markets to consumers, a majority of who are not entirely tech savvy and so they have to expect these calls and cost it in as part of the business, and have appropriate cover. (one off, with people sick etc excused, but this just seems to have grown month on month)

When you do get through, if speaking to their outsourced call centers - the call quality is horrific and mostly sounds like you are talking to a computer generated voice with long delays.
It's a great look for a telecommunications company.

John always seems to go out of his way to help people on the boards, but for people who aren't on here, that's of little use (and it should not come down to one person volunteering their time to fix what must be either systemic issues, or plain under resourcing.)
This affects the general consumers who have to endure 75 min hold times to say their internet is not working, or the wifi on their modem keeps dropping every few mins (HG659)

I don't care if it's VF, Spark, Contact Energy, whoever - 75 mins is not customer service.

(for the record, I have VF and find the service fine, but just don't want to ever call them - maybe that's the idea?)

freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
79295 posts

Uber Geek

Administrator

ID Verified

Trusted

Geekzone

Lifetime subscriber

#1186112 1-Dec-2014 09:46

Hey, I also don't like the Vodafone customer services delays. I don't call because I know it is unbearable. I don't call because I know they will ask me to do the things I have already done. I don't call because I am not 100% confident they are able to solve technical things - although I am more than happy with their non-technical handling.

I once started a compilation of all "this support waiting time is too long" types of posts on Vodafone's own Community site - I was going to post here to prove there are a lot of discontent customers. I stopped on day two, because simply it would be a very very long list.

NZCrusader

646 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1186196 1-Dec-2014 10:34

I am weighing up whether or not to sign up for 100/10 cable.

Primarily I play on AU servers across a range of FPS games.
To be honest as a potential customer, this thread scares me away a bit from signing up.

Might be better to sit tight on DSL and await 100/20 fiber with another company.

Will keep an eye on VF sub form here to see if the situation changes.

EDIT: I should state that I do not use the phone service to call ISPs. Usually just contact reps or email support, but performance and low latency to AU is top priority for me.

NZ / AU Battlefield 4 Gaming Community
http://www.sonsofvalour.net/forums/forum.php

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

ckc

321 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#1186241 1-Dec-2014 11:32

I am quite sure that a thread complaining about VF is not representative of VF service as a whole. :) Eventually I'll get bored of repeating I get great ping and great speed, but not just yet.

Lurch

1061 posts

Uber Geek

#1186366 1-Dec-2014 13:49

ckc: I am quite sure that a thread complaining about VF is not representative of VF service as a whole. :) Eventually I'll get bored of repeating I get great ping and great speed, but not just yet.

Going by the number of complaints, both here, Vodafone community, twitter and the FB page VF service has taken a dive. My own experience just recently reinforced that. There is a small number that are helpful but on the whole service agents are no longer caring.

Sitting on hold for hours on end to be told they would do something then to find out it had not happened, even through support online I was told things were going to plan. In the end it took several attempts before my issue was resolved.

Emails also go unanswered.

The one I liked the most was an agent picking the phone up and putting us on hold straight away, they would then check now and then to see if we were still there. The only noise from their end was a sighing :-)

I have all the txt messages and email saved for a rainy day ;-)

Anyway the actual internet connection itself is fantastic and that's the main thing. I just hope I don't have to deal with support again.

ckc

321 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#1186440 1-Dec-2014 15:25

Well, as long as you don't have to call them and plan to spend four times as long doing everything you need to get done on the phone. :)

1 | 2 | 3 | 4