The good news? Vodafone says it is installing a more efficient customer service system. The bad news? It won’t be in place until March next year.
While the biggest topic of complaint I’ve heard from Lifehacker readers about Vodafone this year has been the unreliability of its network (something it has been spending up on with variable results), difficulties in talking to someone to get problems resolved run a close second. Long wait times are common, being endlessly bounced between uninformed staffers in multiple countries seemed the norm, and the Lara voice recognition system never once understood what I was asking it the entire time I was a Vodafone customer.
The new One Connect service will use a Genesys-based system to monitor incoming calls across Vodafone’s phone network, support email addresses, Twitter and Facebook accounts and online forums, and “route the enquiry to the best place and to the customer service advisor with the best skills to respond”. This is a great idea if it works, but the challenge is ensuring enough staff are available and that they do know what they’re talking about.
What changes would you like Vodafone to make to its customer service? Share your ideas in the comments.
Republished from Lifehacker
brent3000
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 1:07 PMI think they should work on upgrading their Phone service before they start work on the CS :P
Ron
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 1:11 PMThe best thing they can do for their customer service is to lower the number of service requests by providing the service that people are paying for.
dave
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 1:17 PMI Spent ages wasting time with techno staff asking silly questions in response to my complaint that I had 35kb/s. I gave up and cancelled. I’d like Vodafone customer service to be more honest about network coverage, especially in areas that they’re claiming have been upgraded but are still pathetic.
lolwut
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 1:36 PMwith the merging of 3 and vodafail
im not expecting much, for example:
I currently work in rhodes, my 3 3g signal in ground floor is superb, but in 9th level, it reduced to almost non-existant
Commander Shepard
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 9:30 PMNobody garentee’s coverage above the 4th or 5th floor i believe
Nick
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 1:57 PMFUCK VODAFONE RIGHT IN THEIR GODDAMNED FACE.
vijay
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 3:07 PMPlz let me join to FUCK that bastard
Paul
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 2:14 PMby better customer service do they mean more indians? cause if so then it wont be any better.
Ash
Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 11:22 AMFucking red neck racist.
polymath
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 2:16 PMHow about a call centre not run from Mumbai? Even the staff in the stores need to call the Indian call centre to do anything and I mean ANYTHING! If you call Vodaphone and get someone with an Australian accent, you’ve dialled the wrong number.
My contract is up next month and I’m moving away from them the very instant I can.
Neil
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 2:30 PMBetter? A chimp that poos on you when you enter the store would be ‘better’ customer service than they currently provide. VF staff are the most useless, incompetent people i’ve ever had the misfortune to deal with.
JD
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 2:34 PMThey’ll still use outsourced call centres. The call centres only care how many calls they get through, not how many people they help, because that’s how they get paid. Unless they change that fact the service will never get any better. Forcing you to call back actually helps their stats and bottom line.
TC
Thursday, November 10, 2011 at 12:46 PMThat’s amazingly insightful. Except for the fact that Vodas call centre is their own, and not outsourced.
Otherwise, great post. Well written and accurate*
*Accurate for someone who has no idea how business works.
Josh
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 2:55 PMon my Pocket Wifi (Vodafone) I’d normally get .5Mb/s on speedtest.net, but all day today its been pushing 3.6 – 3.8Mb/s
up speed is nornally .8Mb/s today it’s been 1 – 1.8Mb/s.
vijay
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 3:07 PMPerfect….by then my 2 year contact with Vodafone will be finished……F.U Vodafone
Nick
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 3:51 PMOh and I forgot to mention they all of a sudden rescinded my iPhone’s Personal Hotspot tether with a carrier update. No warning at all was given.
Guess what, Voda? You bunch of pricks – round 2 with the Telco Ombudsman.
Steve
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 4:25 PMJust bring up the Telecoms Ombudsman, bitch hard enough and you can get out of your contract without early termination fee. Move to a network with non-awful reception.
Commander Shepard
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 9:32 PMOr you know, check the coverage with a $2 sim before joining a carrier you d1ckwad
jess
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 5:39 PMWow…Vodafone expects people to wait around until March?
On my 20 minute train trip to the city everyday, my phone loses reception at least 4 times, can I get better customer service for that?
IHEARTVODA
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 6:42 PMVF FO LYF!
Peter
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 10:12 PMThey need to rip the 3 mobile bandage off, replace the Sims at no charge and focus on their network coverage. Everyone hates the after sales support, no matter what company. As long as they aren’t lying or being unreasonable, they can do no wrong there.
pv
Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 1:37 AMEmm, does anyone stand in their store for excessive amount of time waiting to be served? Most of their store people are not well trained, does not appreciate customer’s time, disorganised, no clear system of managing customer waiting. No acknowledgement, most of the time their staff in the store just look busy and achieve nothing to manage waiting customers. They don’t even know who was there first. Absolutely shocking retail service.
glittalogik
Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 12:55 PMMove their CS department back to Australia. Done. Simple. VF used to have the best customer service in the industry until they shunted it offshore.
Mobile data is improving, albeit slowly; still got a long way to go there too.