I can see why others have problems

[John-Doe]

I am now putting my feet up for a few days.

I signed up via a 3rd party for a contract last Sunday, the sim arrived on Tuesday and was ready to use.

That's about as far as things have progressed.

Filled out a keepmynumber form the same day as the SIM arrived, did not work on Wednesday, neither did it the day after.

Web chatted to the vodafone team again, they couldn't find the account, but I did at least create an online account after almost an hour and a half of frustration, finally giving up and calling somebody.

The online account says though "There are currently no services being used on this account"

The guy I chatted to on Thursday said sorry about a million times which appears customary and guaranteed everything would be ok in 24 hours, it wasn't. 

Then I webchatted again last night, the lady went back to the format of Tuesday saying she could not find the account.

Then I got onto them this morning, change of stance, apparently my 3rd party provider has done something amiss, and this was the cause, I told the lady to stay on the line while I called them to confirm. The 3rd party say they have done everything, and actually spoke to people at vodafone who said that they will escalate to the backoffice and everything will be sorted in 72 hours (that is noon on Tuesday).

I don't believe them, after what has happened thus far a guarantee from vodafone means nothing. O2 who I have been with for 15 years would have sorted this out either in a 10 minute webchat or quick phone call. so far here it's taken probably 4-5 hours and little has been achieved. It's a shame that I signed up to vodafone, because when I called O2 to ask for my PAC code they really did give me some great offers to stay.

Now as I see it the customer service angle of vodafone is not fit for purpose, there is nobody I can contact (must have contacted maybe 8-10 different people already) and nobody can apparently do anything.

This must be damaging the brand massively, and I think if the CEO knew he would be furious that for all the complexity of putting a network together, the most basic simple things like entering customer orders onto a system are not possible.

What I am going to do is wait until Tuesday lunchtime when the inevitable next stage of failure occurs and then call the CEO, and explain my issues to him. If he is not available then I will call back on the hour, every hour until he is free. He needs to know the damage being created lower down the company. Uncorrected, this will hurt the company long term, I have no doubt about it.

I have also copied this email and sent it personally to the CEO from my email address.

[BandOfBrothers]

We have seen past posts here @John-Doe where a person has upgraded or opened up a new contract with a 3rd party and we see that occasionally the 3rd party company are slow at passing the details onto Vodafone cauaing delays and or open up a 2nd line instead of upgrading them. 

When a person goes through a 3rd party they become their customer with Vodafone supplying the connection to the network. 

Please let the Social Media Team here catch up with your post and I'm sure that they will help of they can. 

[AnnS]

Hi @John-Doe

I assume this is CPW.  With you being a third party customer, the third party were responsible for setting up the contract and forwarding the details of the new contract onto the network to activate the airtime on their behalf.  If the third party have failed or delayed to send your contract details, there would be no account on the system  to activate.  Vodafone can only go on what has been received from the third party.

If you have managed to set up an online account, until the number has been fully ported onto the network and you have received your first bill and have some billing information to view, you will be unable to see any usage.  You should however, be able to see the tariff you are on and the monthly charge.

When you next contact Vodafone, you need to check  all the documentation has been received from the third party seller to enable the contract to be set up and get your number ported over from O2.  If there is anything missing, this will be something you will need to take up with the point of sale.

I hope everything works out for you.

[John-Doe]

Hi folks

Thanks for the comments.

I understand the potential issue but it does appear to not apply here. I have spoken to the 3rd party and they say all has been completed at their end. As I said in the original post the guy at Vodafone I spoke to said that all was ok and it would be sorted in 24 hours, that was on Thursday.

And on a wider scale, even if such a problem was the root cause, I cannot see why I am responsible for the SLA (service level agreement) between vodafone and the 3rd party. It's somebody else's problem, not the customers, and I expect the CEO will think the same.

Until Tuesday at noon I don't want to spend any more time on this, trying another customer support or similar person when the previous representatives have clearly failed seems like a fools errand to me.

I am trying to help the company here, in a way I just hope they fail again (which i 99% expect) and then the CEO can get some good honest feedback.

Like I said before, it's killing the brand, very damaging.

[Anonymous]

A couple of points from a long-standing forum user and ex-customer :-

- Vodafone's customer service and internal communications have been pants pants pooey pants for several years

- If the CEO doesn't know this already he must be the worst CEO in the history of commerce 

[Alex]

@John-Doe I'm sorry to see you're still having issues with this. 

I've sent you a private message with details on how to get in touch - once you've done this, a member of our team will be in contact to assist further.