Rumour Confirmed: Vodafone to charge prepay customer $1 per call to help desk for assisted services

Forums › One NZ (including Farmside) › Rumour Confirmed: Vodafone to charge prepay customer $1 per call to help desk for assisted services

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5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#146834 11-Jul-2008 15:32

I believe there was an error with the Freephone number. Embarrassing and we are rectifying this and reimbursing where needed.

There are a variety of ways to get help - online and via your actual mobile. These are both areas we are investing a great deal of money in.

I know you guys get annoyed if we put media release info up on th site (so I won't) but the info on our investment in this area is relevant. Over a three year period (beginning last year) we are spending more than $30m on the self-service options. One of the benefits is that they are 24/7 and accessible anywhere.

Forgive me but I'm going to have to tune-out until Monday. Only 3 hours sleep due to iPhone launch and way too old to survive on this. Other good news is that Paul will be back from leave next week.

happy weekend.

JoeBloggs

355 posts

Ultimate Geek

#146841 11-Jul-2008 15:38

JoeBloggs: Can you guarantee to us that, should a fault of some sort occur on Vodafones end, and a customer needs to call customer support to have it resolved, they will have this $1 credited back?

VNZ: Our CSRs will be able to do this at their discretion.

Thank you

robbypreb

131 posts

Master Geek

#146842 11-Jul-2008 15:39

Torque: I've made multiple calls within the last 24 hours to 777, and as far as I could tell, were all answered by Kiwis with english sounding christian names.

I had heard that there call centre is run out of Egypt. Perhaps they have a different call centre for preay and contract users. The Egypt call centre, there english is good and understandable, unlike those indian or asian call centres. However the noise on the line isn't too good, maybe it is over VOIP.

robbypreb

131 posts

Master Geek

#146846 11-Jul-2008 15:41

VNZ: I believe there was an error with the Freephone number. Embarrassing and we are rectifying this and reimbursing where needed.

There are a variety of ways to get help - online and via your actual mobile. These are both areas we are investing a great deal of money in.

I know you guys get annoyed if we put media release info up on th site (so I won't) but the info on our investment in this area is relevant. Over a three year period (beginning last year) we are spending more than $30m on the self-service options. One of the benefits is that they are 24/7 and accessible anywhere.

Forgive me but I'm going to have to tune-out until Monday. Only 3 hours sleep due to iPhone launch and way too old to survive on this. Other good news is that Paul will be back from leave next week.

happy weekend.

Thanks, at least it is now acknololedged as an error by Vodafone New Zealand. Perhaps that text shouldn't have been sent until next week, so it didn't get lost in the iphone hype.

JoeBloggs

355 posts

Ultimate Geek

#146849 11-Jul-2008 15:45

There are two call centres, the Egyptian centre was commissioned to buffer the overflow and pay less local staff. Unfortunately they're a multi-function call centre and handle customer care for many different companies. That's why customers may feel the CSR has no clue what you're talking about.

grimwulf

121 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 85

#146856 11-Jul-2008 15:56

I'm hardly Vodafone's greatest fan at the moment - but I have to say that I agree on this one.

The choice is - free and wait for ages because people use it as convenience rather than looking up stuff for themselves, or paid (and face it $1 per call is hardly bank-breaking) and theoretically get through when you really really need to.

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ahmad

1937 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 53
Inactive user

#146932 11-Jul-2008 18:21

robbypreb: Thanks, at least it is now acknololedged as an error by Vodafone New Zealand. Perhaps that text shouldn't have been sent until next week, so it didn't get lost in the iphone hype.

Some would say this was deliberate...

This could have made a great Fair Go story: sending out a txt with a charged "freecall" number, the content of which warns of $1 charges to talk to CSRs about billing errors lol

JoeBloggs

355 posts

Ultimate Geek

#146942 11-Jul-2008 18:31

Hahaha, it is rather ironic.

ahmad

1937 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 53
Inactive user

#146945 11-Jul-2008 18:43

Since this didn't affect me personally, Fair Go probably wouldn't involve me in the story if they chose to ran it.

Does anyone here who WAS affected personally volunteer to appear on the show if asked?

It would be a rather light-hearted story knowing Fair Go

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snapper1

1 post

Wannabe Geek

#146992 11-Jul-2008 22:31

JoeBloggs: There are two call centres, the Egyptian centre was commissioned to buffer the overflow and pay less local staff. Unfortunately they're a multi-function call centre and handle customer care for many different companies. That's why customers may feel the CSR has no clue what you're talking about.

Actually thats not true. Egypt are VF Egypt and don't handle calls for "many different companies". Also, they are managed in the same way as other outsource centres and thier staff who handle NZ calls are dedicated to the VFNZ account.

Complain about Vodafone all you like, I'm sure they deserve it most of the time, but don't just make stuff up.

Re pre pay charging, I think its a great idea. Everyone should be looking to use self service options, its the future. Maybe Vodafone won't recruit as many csr's, the costs go down and maybe (I maybe an optimist) they can bring down thier prices.

JoeBloggs

355 posts

Ultimate Geek

#146998 11-Jul-2008 22:59

snapper1: Actually thats not true. Egypt are VF Egypt and don't handle calls for "many different companies". Also, they are managed in the same way as other outsource centres and thier staff who handle NZ calls are dedicated to the VFNZ account.

Sorry, I should have said many different Vodafone networks worldwide. They handle much of the entire Vodafone Group with regards to overflow.

Also, as per your statement, they do indeed (officially) have a dedicated team for us here in NZ, but they switch staff around quite readily and overflow excess calls to anyone in the call centre. I don't know anything about their turnover either - neither do you. That's why customers often report a sense that the CSR doesn't know what they are doing (as per the recent automated phone survey after users call VF's helpdesk).

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BBJones

12 posts

Geek

#147006 12-Jul-2008 00:00

Bringing down charging would be nice!

My guess is it's more about about user pays, lets face it they are a business and they are going to pass their costs onto the customers I have only called 777 about 4 times in the last 3 years and I'm guessing a good chunk of my bill goes to funding the hundreds of staff they have in the call centre.

It's the wait times that get me, I get pretty annoyed when I have to wait 15mins to speak to someone at IHUG. I wish I could press "1"~"5" to pay $1 ~ $5 to go into a higher priority (a sort of call centre auction!) and if I am happy to wait even longer to have no priority then I don't have to pay (or if it's clearly their fault the charge get's waived). If you where really "upset" with somthing they have messed up you would hit $5 and they would sort you out first and you wouln't have to pay. But if you where really "thight" you could turn on the speaker phone and read a good book (perhaps the leading news stories on hold would lessen the pain)!

So if charging the prepay people who incurr a cost by not using their connection (I'm sure it costs them just to hold the account in their systems -can anyone confirm this) or who call up to get someone else to find out something they could have done themselves ends up enabling them to lower my p/minute rate by another cent next year...I think it's brilliant! I get much more annoyed every time I pay my rates and know that most of that money is going to fund the infrastructure for people who subdivided there sections and made a fortune (at my expense).

Both Vodafone and Telecom seem to get so much greif about pricing at the moment, but every year I am paying less and less in total. We should spend more time trying to understand their reasons and influencing them with suggestions than overreacting about how they split things up.

Is there anyone here who is paying more than they where last year and getting less for it?

Food for thought anyway :)

-BB

ahmad

1937 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 53
Inactive user

#147007 12-Jul-2008 00:03

BBJones: Is there anyone here who is paying more than they where last year and getting less for it?

In the past year or two, we have seen international SMS rise from 20c to 30c, and no longer have Vodafone promotions like free TXT weekends.

I can't recall the last promo, so yeah, I feel like I'm paying more for less.

BBJones

12 posts

Geek

#147108 12-Jul-2008 13:27

I don't mean for an individual service, I mean my total bill has dropped.

At the end of the day I don't care how they slice and dice it, as long as it keeps heading south :)

-BB

cokemaster

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#147120 12-Jul-2008 13:43

ahmad:
BBJones: Is there anyone here who is paying more than they where last year and getting less for it?

In the past year or two, we have seen international SMS rise from 20c to 30c, and no longer have Vodafone promotions like free TXT weekends.

I can't recall the last promo, so yeah, I feel like I'm paying more for less.

But on the other hand, you have Bestmate/My favourites, Vodafone family, GSM mobile as a landline offering, pricing plans such as Flexi mytime or Freetime which promote cheap offpeak usage.

There is no doubt about it, you are getting more for less.

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