Great Job VF

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kingjj

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#243500 14-Dec-2018 16:15

I know there's a lot of love on these boards for VF but I have to say today that I am truly impressed with the customer service I just received.

We live in a VF only town so we don't have a choice of provider. When we moved in we got FibreX with Home Phone (needed for elderly family) and then setup the 'Three Feature Combo' a few months later (voicemail, call waiting, caller ID). The Three Feature Combo has never worked (but was billed for) and I've never had the energy to call up and get it sorted. A few weeks ago I decided to call up and was warned there would be a half hour plus wait so I went online and used the online chat instead. While the chat agent was very friendly (to the point of being overly friendly) he fixed nothing and the promised callback within 24 hours never happened (not that it was expected).

Today I decided I needed some human contact so I called up again and after navigating the phone menu I was immediately connected with a great fella called Charles from their Chch contact team. He was fantastic, he quickly gathered my details, understood the problem and put me on hold to get it sorted. He then advised me what he had done and when I should expect the services to be up and running (no later than the early hours of tomorrow morning). I checked 10 minutes after the call and low and behold the services were up and running.

That's the sort of service that Vodafone should be aiming for consistently. The agent wasn't a robot, he didn't promise what he couldn't deliver and there was no unnecessary waiting or transferring. Probably the best interaction with support I've had since the Snap! days (which sadly went downhill once 2D got involved).

@MikeHales @JasonParis - great work by your team.

Coil

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#2145423 14-Dec-2018 16:18

Pegasus resident?

Glad to hear it is all sorted tho!

kingjj

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#2145431 14-Dec-2018 16:30

Coil:

Pegasus resident?

Glad to hear it is all sorted tho!

Yup! Love the place, wasn't too keen on the VF lock in but it's worth it to live in such a great wee town. Have to say though FibreX has been rock solid since we moved in so we really haven't missed Fibre.

Coil

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#2145436 14-Dec-2018 16:36

kingjj:

Coil:

Pegasus resident?

Glad to hear it is all sorted tho!

Yup! Love the place, wasn't too keen on the VF lock in but it's worth it to live in such a great wee town. Have to say though FibreX has been rock solid since we moved in so we really haven't missed Fibre.

Seemed like the town is run under an oppressive rule. No animals that make noise, No music, No loud cars, nothing. Pretty sure it says you also can't walk on the streets after X time and whole lot of other things. Is this true?

MikeHales

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#2145437 14-Dec-2018 16:39

Thanks for sharing - apologies the chat agent didn't deliver, useful feedback.

kingjj

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#2145447 14-Dec-2018 17:16

Coil:

Seemed like the town is run under an oppressive rule. No animals that make noise, No music, No loud cars, nothing. Pretty sure it says you also can't walk on the streets after X time and whole lot of other things. Is this true?

That's the rumor. Certainly not the case though. Can't speak for the early days when the developer was still involved but these days its very laid back and typical of any other developed subdivision. The covenants are not actively enforced although the spirit of them is still there. There's plenty of dogs here that enjoy a good chat, a mixture of residents that drive a variety of cars and a few lawns that are less then pristine but are still presentable. This to me means the place has matured. Just went for a walk through the wet lands and around the lake, lots of families about and a heap of new houses going up.

kingjj

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#2145450 14-Dec-2018 17:19

MikeHales:

Thanks for sharing - apologies the chat agent didn't deliver, useful feedback.

m

Cheers. The chat agent felt like he was copying and pasting off a script and was carefully crafting every response so it was flattering to all parties. The phone agent sounded like someone you could have a joke with and like he was actually interested in helping. The latter is the style I like. Thanks Mike

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nickb800

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#2145500 14-Dec-2018 18:43

It's not a good example though? As vf customers we have been conditioned to accept that contacting them isn't enough, we need to repeatedly contact them because internal communication is awful/non existent

kingjj

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#2145671 15-Dec-2018 09:56

nickb800: It's not a good example though? As vf customers we have been conditioned to accept that contacting them isn't enough, we need to repeatedly contact them because internal communication is awful/non existent

That it may be but in this day and age I find it rare to get things sorted on the first contact with many companies. A recent change on our mortgage required contact with three different people over a number of days. Setting up our gas account took several days worth of calls with new information requested each time. When we left 2D it took a conversation with chat support and phone support to confirm the break fee. I think its the nature of the beast when you get as big as VF that there will be times the customer has to make contact multiple times. What impressed me this time was the agent not only understood the issue straight away, they were straight up about the multitude of systems they had, how complicated it was and what would be required to fix it. None of the canned responses that are so popular these days. That's what I want from support, someone human who acts like it.

amiga500

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#2145676 15-Dec-2018 10:17

Unless these companies are making absolutely massive profits such as Apple does, they see customer service as an expensive add-on. By the time they have paid their CEO's millions of dollars a year, paid huge rents to Westfield, and so on, they start looking around for costs that can be shaved. They'd rather accept a churn & spend money on flashy tv ads attracting new customers.

(It's much like the airlines once fuel prices spike upwards. The quality of the wines & choice of wines in business goes downhill, & instead of nice economy meals they dish up something hot that would cost $5.00 at Pak n Save plus a bun and butter! While I am a strictly economy flyer if you watch a few British Airways youtube trip reports you'll get the picture! I know from personal experience that the United economy meals can go from really nice to the $5.00 standard in only a year!)