Just sent an email to the executive team

[ssrij]

My email to the Vodafone UK CEO and Vodafone Group CEO:

Hi and good afternoon,

Thank you for taking the time out of your extremely busy day to read my email. I am a Vodafone UK customer and signed my 3rd contract with your company on the 9th Sep for a brand new iPhone 7, but so far, I have been lied to and misled by your customer service team regarding the delivery of my pre-order. 

I am sure you already know about this as I am not the only one who has experienced it, but I have been very disappointed by the kind of service I have received. I have had countless chats via your Live Chat service and called up 191 many times only to be given a different answer each time with no concrete date/time for my delivery. I have paid £400 upfront for my contract and will be paying over £1300+ over the course of next two years, but I have not been treated fairly. I was promised delivery on the Friday the 16th multiple times, but I didn’t receive my phone. I was then promised Saturday, then Monday but still haven’t got my phone.

I am also a computer science university student who is learning how to make great apps for iPhone and having the phone with me was of great importance so I can test my apps, which I cannot do right now and hence cannot take advantage of what I am currently learning at the university.

Please invest some of Vodafone UK's £6B annual revenueinto:

(1) Upgrading your IT infrastructure - your company took thousands of pre-orders and many of them weren’t even entered into the system before the end of the day, rendering the whole idea of pre-ordering early in the morning to avoid rush moot. This was because your system cannot accept so many orders during a rush and orders were instead noted down on pieces of paper. There are many more issues with it, which you can find more about in the forums. For example, your online tracker is broken - I pre-ordered a Galaxy S7 Edge on 24th Feb and was delivered on 8th March, but the online tracker still shows the order was under-processing, and your untrained and uninformed customer service team keeps redirecting people to the broken online tracker to check updates, even though it doesn’t work! That’s downright ridiculous. 

(2) Hiring more people from the UK/EU instead of outsourcing it to third world countries - Absolutely terrible customer service they provide and they would lie to you all the time to get you off the chat. I just had a chat and was told the delay for my iPhone is 8 weeks, that’s unacceptable - even Apple’s own estimate is only 1-2 weeks for the iPhone 7 - and they always like to overestimate so most likely it’s just a week.

(3) Training your customer service team - The customer service also needs much more training and told not to lie to customers. You might as well set up a dedicated team that can manage information relay between different call centres across the globe. Instead of lying, they need to simply tell the truth. No customer wants to be lied to and given a different answer by a different person each time. If I was told when I pre-ordered that there will be a big delay then I would’ve been happy, but I was lied and misled several times. It’s better to under-promise and over-deliver than to over-promise and under-deliver. The irony of Vodafone is being a communications company and failing at communication is just sad.

(4) Improve transparency - EE is regularly providing their customers updates regarding their pre-orders on the forums - down to day by day update of phones coming to the warehouse and getting shipped via DPD. They also had a huge demand of phones, but the way they are handling it is a million times more professional than Vodafone. Even their CEOposted a video apologising to the customers and reassuring them that their preorders will be fulfilled as soon as possible.

(5) Establishing a better relationship with your suppliers/distributors - Your company gave everyone who pre-ordered the iPhone on the 9th a promised delivery date of 16th, but then messaged nearly everyone on the day of promised delivery that it’s not arriving because of less stock. Now, your company must already be knowing how much stock it has or will be receiving, it cannot be that your supplier/distributor just randomly dumps a random number of stock into the warehouse. If your company didn’t have enough stock, then it shouldn’t have promised delivery to everyone. Or maybe your distributor/supplier does randomly show up and dump a random number of stock into your warehouse and your company just assumed it would be enough to meet the demand - in that case your company needs to establish a better relationship and communication with them so you always know how much you’re getting. I am no business man and I don’t know what goes behind the scenes, but your company must have or should have an idea of how much stock it should be receiving to fulfil such orders in the future. There needs to be more control on your side and in future, promised delivery dates should only be given as long as there’s confirmed stock to fulfil those promised delivery dates.

Vodafone is a great company, I love the plans, offers and signal coverage (best in my opinion), but there’s serious issues that need to be sorted out as soon as possible. I have been loyal to this company since years but issues like these get everyone frustrated.

Thank you for reading my email,

Suyash, a Vodafone customer

[Retired-Viki_R]

Hi @ssrij

We're working hard alongside Apple to ensure all customers get their devices as soon as possible.

We're currently awaiting new stock that Apple are currently making and so the guide time limit you've been given is to allow them the time to make and dispatch these devices, this is why we cannot give an exact date for delivery.

We understand your frustration and would appreciate your patience during this time, apologies for any inconvenience caused.

[shane12345]

@Viki_R

What about those of us who were repeatedly guaranteed delivery on launch day- but instead just keep getting "delayed' texts?

I spoke to VF on the phone every day between 9th and 16th Sept, each time i was given an absolute guarantee that my phone would be delivered on the 16th.  I took the day off and waited.  Now almost a week later and i just gets the same "delayed" texts as everyone else.

When is someone going to get in touch with me and tell me what went wrong with my specific order-that was guaranteed by VF for 16th?

[Retired-Viki_R]

@shane12345

We ran out of stock I'm afraid.

Our apologies for the inconvenience.

Viki

[shane12345]

@Viki_R

That doesnt make sense.  In order to guarantee a delivery with someone, you'd have to be absolutely certain you had stock of the item.  It's not good enough to say 'we ran out' when I see thousands of others receiving phones from you daily.

[kids]

@shane12345 As has been said many times networks do not know the exact number of devices they will receive until they arrive. Even the Apple stores did not know for certain what stock they would have.

So using your logic Vodafone could have taken pre-release date orders but would have been unable until the phones actually arived to give any indication as to when customers might receive their phones.

I pre-ordered a phone for my nephew from Apple and when I picked it up I asked when they would know when they would have more stock, their answer was although they know the days they receive a delivery they do not know until late evening the night before what that will consist of.

[aquestion]

@Kids so therefore Vodafone should not have made it read in the email like pick up was on the Launch day and should have said what you said we have no idea of the stock we will get and you will get when Apple Supply us. Many of us wasted time and effort simply because Vodafone could not use the sms function which you would think they were masters at!

They then don't have their staff en masse telling blatantly incorrect information and hand out fake DPD tracking numbers. This information was then relayed back to them on one of Vodafone's major communication portals with its customers, plus emails to the CEO and other Senior Managment and it appears due to the consistent misinformation have not acted on. Now that is a bit stupid, making a mistake is one thing but when alerted about it and not acting that's another, I am sure offcom are looking at a nice old fine for Vodafone.

Maybe that is the Reason no senior management have put their head above the parapet as too busy polishing up their CV when they have to move on....

If Vodafone later inform us the Messaging system they use was not working that weekend. They were using the same SMS and email facility they have which on Launch day managed to tell me about the Apple Iphone 7 coming out and A Smartpass notification, plus other marketing emails.

With this resource they should have indicated oh dear we took more preorders than we have stock for your in a queue and will be supplied asap. 

Not waited until Monday and quite frankly get shown up by their competitors throughout the week. 

If they didn't know what orders they had taken and with whom for several days then I guess they need to have a major internal discussion as that is a massive failure of a retail operation surely.

 Maybe they wish to review their ISO 22301 & 27031 processes that sounds worrying and if a Shareholder I would be very concerned.

[Retired-Cara_B]

Hi @aquestion

Thank you for posting your frustrations, we completely understand and we also like that the eForum can be a place for customers to discuss their experiences. The lack of communication is an issue and we've given out all the information we currently have. I understand it seems that everyone hasn't received what they ordered but we've had many orders go out already and a lot more going out daily. It's happening slower than we anticipated and wanted but we're taking this day by day. As soon as we have an update for everyone, it'll be published here. 

Cara

[ssrij]

---

@Cara_B wrote:

Hi @aquestion

Thank you for posting your frustrations, we completely understand and we also like that the eForum can be a place for customers to discuss their experiences. The lack of communication is an issue and we've given out all the information we currently have. I understand it seems that everyone hasn't received what they ordered but we've had many orders go out already and a lot more going out daily. It's happening slower than we anticipated and wanted but we're taking this day by day. As soon as we have an update for everyone, it'll be published here. 

Cara

---

"a lot more going out daily" but still so many people who pre-ordered on 9th but havent recieved their phones, including me. Many people who pre-ordered after 9th have got their phones but people who ordered on 9th haven't. Something's definitely fishy is going on - orders aren't being sent out in first come first serve order perhaps. If "a lot more" orders are going every day, surely everyone who ordered on the 9th should've got their phones by now :smileyindifferent:

Please read https://community.ee.co.uk/t5/Apple/iPhone-7-and-iPhone-7-Plus-Delivery-Information/m-p/474245#M3320... and look at how they are communicating to their customer. Please, read it. This is the level of communication we expect from Vodafone.

[aquestion]

Thanks, @Cara B for the not very useful reply firstly the tracker for my order gives an estimated delivery date of  the 16th to the 23rd of September and I have heard little and certainly not that the phone has turned up at the place requested. Should i again pop down just in case it's there and the staff forgot to call me?

I made a complaint due to me having to ask Vodafone for some information on the Friday and then that complaint ad I was misinformed and refused help meaning I had to waste time and money going to the store for no reason,  has been handled poorly with a comedy of mistakes and errors showing how poor the issue is being managed overall by Vodafone.

You offer me a link which is dead yet EE are doing regular updates so please don't waste time replying to me get together as the Tech team have a read of EE's offering and possibly attempt to offer a Vodafone version then we might think your working hard to resolve the issue!

Vodafone have had a week to gather some information and get a plan going or are your systems in such a mess you can't compete with your rivals?

Didn't Vodafone have a plan b in case you got less than the required amount of devices? Didn't you do some forecasting on potential demand?

How come it appears it taken so long to get a handle on it, while your peer companies appear to have managed?

No one in my household is complaining about there is a wait but they are disappointed that Vodafone have been so poor in handling the situation.

Thanks for the dead link that in a nutshell sums up the whole iphone 7 customer care and communication disaster by Vodafone!

How often should I check the dead link? DoesVodafone have a rough ETA for when the link has some useful information or should I set up a script to repeatedly check the page? 

I think this episode will be used in business schools for years in how not to deal with a product shortage

Oh just for kicks and for offcom's investigation can Vodafone state again orders are being dealt with on a first come first served basis?

As it appears from posts on here its not the case.

I am happy to wait as long as it is first come first served and again Vodafone have not been stating mistruths which meant people were misguided when purchasing.