Horrendous Vodafone Customer service

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#2436510 11-Mar-2020 19:47

So, here we are about 9 months on, and I don't hear many positive stories of Vodafone's customer service. Their Facebook page is still full of complaints, mostly from people who are told "we'll call you back" and they never hear from anyone, ever - that's when you can get through.

My 2c, it seems like they outsourced their customer service from one crappy overseas call centre...to another crappy overseas call centre.

Was it worth it? Does anyone have any (good) stories about their new! improved! call centre in India, or is it exactly the same as when the calls were being routed to Manila?

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#2436513 11-Mar-2020 19:54

You should of heard the owner of the business I work for today! We were promised 1 minute down time for a change Vodafone had to make not something as a business we requested.

They moved our fibre connection from Vodafone next generation services platform to the Vodafone platform! Complete and utter cluster """"

We were offline till 11:59am today no eftpos no phones!

quickymart

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#2436514 11-Mar-2020 19:55

Yikes. I hope they provide some decent compensation for that.

As an aside John, did you need to contact the call centre about this, and if so how useful/helpful/effective were they?

networkn

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#2436515 11-Mar-2020 19:56

Conversely I'd say the rate of new terrible stories has slowed considerably which seems to indicate that whilst things are not all roses yet, at least they have stopped getting worse

gbwelly

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#2436583 12-Mar-2020 07:09

networkn: Conversely I'd say the rate of new terrible stories has slowed considerably which seems to indicate that whilst things are not all roses yet, at least they have stopped getting worse

My theory is people have left Vodafone so the complaints have slowed.

I had a good one in Nov/Dec. An elderly relative of mine requested cancellation of landline and HFC and addition of SoHo channel to the T-Box. This was all agreed and then promptly nothing happened. After a couple of weeks she called again to see what the story was, where she was told that if she wanted the new channel she would need to switch to the new Vodafone TV box. So she cancelled all Vodafone services and will never be back.

SteveC

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#2436584 12-Mar-2020 07:30

Good question about the place of the call centre in all this @quickymart. Friend of mine asked for advice on other ISPs as they wanted to leave Vodafone. I enquired further and he had indeed had a hard time with the call centre. I asked "Have you spoken with the Customer Retention Team?" "Not that I know of." ... so off he went. A couple of hours later, big smile .. 'Those magic three words got me an excellent deal. Staying with Vodafone."
In this case the call centre either didn't or couldn't (or both) offer him a better deal than published rates. CRT did.
There was a delay getting his phone shifted to VoIP. Visiting a Vodafone Shop seemed to help that. The sales rep there made notes on his account, and the phone was going a day or two later.
Steve

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#2437029 12-Mar-2020 16:41

gbwelly:

networkn: Conversely I'd say the rate of new terrible stories has slowed considerably which seems to indicate that whilst things are not all roses yet, at least they have stopped getting worse

My theory is people have left Vodafone so the complaints have slowed.

I had a good one in Nov/Dec. An elderly relative of mine requested cancellation of landline and HFC and addition of SoHo channel to the T-Box. This was all agreed and then promptly nothing happened. After a couple of weeks she called again to see what the story was, where she was told that if she wanted the new channel she would need to switch to the new Vodafone TV box. So she cancelled all Vodafone services and will never be back.

That is exactly what I done, sick to death of it been a major mission to what should be a simple task.

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quickymart

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#2437091 12-Mar-2020 18:40

networkn: Conversely I'd say the rate of new terrible stories has slowed considerably which seems to indicate that whilst things are not all roses yet, at least they have stopped getting worse

I beg to differ...have a look at their Facebook page, still plenty of complaints there. While I accept no RSP will get it right 100% of the time, it just seems like Vodafone is still screwing up a lot of relatively simple requests (plan changes, billing) that should be fixable in one phone call, not numerous ones then eventually having to post on Facebook to get some action.

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#2437096 12-Mar-2020 18:53

quickymart:

networkn: Conversely I'd say the rate of new terrible stories has slowed considerably which seems to indicate that whilst things are not all roses yet, at least they have stopped getting worse

I beg to differ...have a look at their Facebook page, still plenty of complaints there. While I accept no RSP will get it right 100% of the time, it just seems like Vodafone is still screwing up a lot of relatively simple requests (plan changes, billing) that should be fixable in one phone call, not numerous ones then eventually having to post on Facebook to get some action.

Completely agree. It's not good enough and we are no where near the level of service that we need to be providing. It is significantly better than a year ago, and the $10m investment we made in more onshore complex tech teams has helped - but it's still not good enough. It is an issue for the entire industry and I firmly believe that the telco that sorts this first (we are all as bad as each other) will significantly benefit. It's taking much longer than I would like, but it is coming. Until then please feel free to think of me as your personal account manager: Jason.paris@vodafone.com.

Cheers

Jason Paris

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#2437097 12-Mar-2020 18:53

quickymart:

networkn: Conversely I'd say the rate of new terrible stories has slowed considerably which seems to indicate that whilst things are not all roses yet, at least they have stopped getting worse

I beg to differ...have a look at their Facebook page, still plenty of complaints there. While I accept no RSP will get it right 100% of the time, it just seems like Vodafone is still screwing up a lot of relatively simple requests (plan changes, billing) that should be fixable in one phone call, not numerous ones then eventually having to post on Facebook to get some action.

Cheers

Jason Paris

matisyahu

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#2437117 12-Mar-2020 19:34

JasonParis:
quickymart: I beg to differ...have a look at their Facebook page, still plenty of complaints there. While I accept no RSP will get it right 100% of the time, it just seems like Vodafone is still screwing up a lot of relatively simple requests (plan changes, billing) that should be fixable in one phone call, not numerous ones then eventually having to post on Facebook to get some action.

Completely agree. It's not good enough and we are no where near the level of service that we need to be providing. It is significantly better than a year ago, and the $10m investment we made in more onshore complex tech teams has helped - but it's still not good enough. It is an issue for the entire industry and I firmly believe that the telco that sorts this first (we are all as bad as each other) will significantly benefit. It's taking much longer than I would like, but it is coming. Until then please feel free to think of me as your personal account manager: Jason.paris@vodafone.com.

Cheers

JP

There needs investment in improving the online experience as well - moving from one plan to the next shouldn't require a phone call, it should be all doable online along with choosing a new number (you can do this with Skinny), a single place where all ones services that one has are accessible from a single location etc. (is there any word on what is happening with the new billing system and the new front end?). The call centre should be the last line of defence aka "the excrement has hit the fan and I need to speak to someone" rather than "the website is still 10 years behind the competition thus requiring me to phone about something that the competition enables me to deal with online myself".

"When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called 'the People's Stick'"

larknz

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#2437124 12-Mar-2020 19:55

I have contacted Vodafone twice recently for help and have been impressed both times. The CSRs have been helpful both times and have resolved my problem both times. In contrast to my previous experience of waiting 90 minutes to be answered.

quickymart

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#2437727 13-Mar-2020 21:10

That's great, but sadly I think tales like that are the exception rather than the norm (at the moment, anyway).

Yabanize

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#2437882 14-Mar-2020 11:34

gbwelly:

I had a good one in Nov/Dec. An elderly relative of mine requested cancellation of landline and HFC and addition of SoHo channel to the T-Box. This was all agreed and then promptly nothing happened. After a couple of weeks she called again to see what the story was, where she was told that if she wanted the new channel she would need to switch to the new Vodafone TV box. So she cancelled all Vodafone services and will never be back.

The new Vodafone TV launched late 2017, although it had its fair share of issues along the way (As did T-Box when It launched) It's a pretty good box now, aside from the way licensing works for recording / catchup...

(You can't record EVERY show like T-box but you can most of them, and you can often just 'catch up' on shows you didn't record) and then there's all the other apps on it.

T-Box launched in 2010, That's a 10 year old product, do you understand that they would rather move people on to their new platform rather than continue supporting an old one? (and all the back end equipment it requires)

That said, I haven't heard any comment about when/if it's officially being retired? @ZollyMonsta @Sansom

I wonder how many customers still actually have them.

I think if your 'elderly relative' did get Vodafone TV, SoHo would be free on the new Sky packages.

I think we also saved about $30 per month on a new package (broadband, landline) too.

matisyahu:

There needs investment in improving the online experience as well - moving from one plan to the next shouldn't require a phone call, it should be all doable online along with choosing a new number (you can do this with Skinny), a single place where all ones services that one has are accessible from a single location etc. (is there any word on what is happening with the new billing system and the new front end?). The call centre should be the last line of defence aka "the excrement has hit the fan and I need to speak to someone" rather than "the website is still 10 years behind the competition thus requiring me to phone about something that the competition enables me to deal with online myself".

Skinny was built from the ground up for this, If customers can do everything themselves, they don't have to call = money saved on customer service.

But it would be nice to see more "self service" on more traditional providers like Vodafone and Spark too.

Vodafone has some epic services that are awesome when they work (which is most of the time with Fibre etc) so hopefully less people need customer service, but when they do (or a billing issue etc) it's not great

pipja

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#2437886 14-Mar-2020 11:49

Yabanize:

Skinny was built from the ground up for this, If customers can do everything themselves, they don't have to call = money saved on customer service.

It's called keeping up with the time.

Vodafone's web experience is still bad. MyVodafone is broken on Chrome right now, i.e. you login but it takes you back to the username/password screen with a bunch of cookie warnings, probably a CORS issue on newer Chrome version(s) because it used to work fine. I had to switch to Firefox to use MyVodafone.

With Spark, I could chat with a representative and get most of the things I need to do completed, from changing plan to adding services/billing, etc. With Vodafone they will send an Indian/Filipino to call you and then fail to get the job done.

Basically Customer Service overall is still bad in my book.

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