New Sim Iphone 6 Plus - delivery problems

[southpolesurfr]

Really hoping someone can point me in the right direction - I'm almost at the point of cancelling my new contract with Vodafone due to complete lack of faith in operations and customer services.  If they're incapable of sending me a simple sim card for my phone, I'm very concerned at how anything with even a modicum of complexity will be handled should it arise ...

The History.

- Have been a monthly contract customer of Vodafone since 2008

- Iphone 4S phone contract finished March 2013 and I've been on rolling monthly ever since, as I hadn't yet seen any phone I wanted to upgrade to.

- Liked the look of the Iphone 6 Plus however delayed as considered switching to EE or O2 because I'm now in a rural location and the Vodafone signal here is unreliable.

- Purchased a SureSignal device to see if that would assist with the signal problems and it has made a positive difference, so decided to stay with Vodafone after all as I'd not had any problems with customer service and delivery of devices in the past.

Sunday 9/11/14

Upgraded my Iphone 4S expired fixed contract/rolling plan to an Iphone 6 plus monthly contract 12 months,   Paid for entire phone in advance for simplicity sake.  Sales agent told me the phone and new sim would be sent out to me immediately to arrive next business day.

Tuesday 11/11/14 - early afternoon

Iphone 6+ plus arrived via courier. But no Sim to go with it.  I called 191 Customer Services and was advised that a sim had definitely been sent out separately to me via first class delivery.  The service agent suggested that perhaps there had been a delay, and put an order in for a second sim to be on the safe side. He suggested that the original sim ordered would likely arrive wed 12/11, but the second one could also be kept as a spare once I received that one.

Wednesday 12/11/14 - early afternoon

All the usual couriers had been for the day (we have Royal Mail, Yodel, DPD, Amazon and various others in daily) but no sim card delivered.  I called 191 Customer Services again.  The agent said that there had been "technical problems" with both of the sim card orders put in for me so far.  She said that they had to wait until the end of the day being 5.30pm to address it, in case the sim card did turn up.  I did explain that all the post and couriers had already been for the day, to no avail. I was told if I called back after 5.30 and the sim still hadn't arrived, then a 3rd sim order could be placed with a different courier company to ensure there were no problems this time.

Wednesday 12/11/14 early evening

After 5.30pm I called 191 Customer Services again as advised earlier in the day. The agent kept me on the phone for a while as she looked at the records in the system regarding this matter and put me on hold for a while so she could "speak with supervisor" then came back and said that the best solution would be for me to go to a Vodafone shop to get my sim, because it "wouldn't be worth" the £6 courier charge to have DPD deliver it to me.  I advised her that I'm not very mobile at present due to being in recovery from a broken leg, and that in fact I felt it would be very much worth the £6 delivery charge for a DPD courier to deliver it to me.  DPD are in at my address most days in any case, so this should be an easy solution.  The agent agreed, and put the order through, advising me that it would be delivered tomorrow, being Thursday 13/11/14.

Thursday 13/11/14 early evening

Still no sim card delivered today. Called 191 customer services again to advise of this. After putting me on hold for a while to investigate a couple of times, the agent came back and advised me that I had actually signed for the sim card delivery myself on Tuesday 11/11/14.  I pointed out that actually I had signed for the phone, but that I had not yet received the sim card. By this time I had been on the phone with the agent for close to half an hour.  The agent then accidentally cut me off.  To be fair, she did call back and leave a message on my cellphone saying that she was still investigating and would come back to me.  This is the last I have heard of it.

There doesn't seem to be any way for me to contact Vodafone by email about this. All the links on the site with labels like "support" or "contact us" lead to question chains with answers that don't relate to my problem and no information at all about emailing or phoning anyone aside from this 191 customer services line in which I've now very little faith at all. 

The delay itself is a concern and an inconvenience, but what is a much bigger issue from my POV is that I'm getting a different story from each agent I've spoken to, and none of the information given about this to me so far has in any way been accurate, so far as I can see. Vodafone's customer service agents appear to be completely in the dark as to how to manage the simple task of sending me out a new sim to go with my new phone.

Does anyone have any advice as to an effective way to solve the problem, as 191 Customer Services are simply going around in circles on it?

Thanks in advance for your input

Robyn

[southpolesurfr]

13/11/14 Late Evening Update ... it just gets better ...

The 191 Customer Services agent who promised to call me back some hours earlier never did.  So I called 191 again and spoke to someone else, who advised me

- There was no record in the system of a sim card having been requested for my account prior to yesterday evening 12/11

- While the agent I spoke to yesterday evening recorded that I requested a sim card, she had not actually put an order for one into the system.

This customer service agent confirmed to me on the phone that he had placed an order for my sim card, and the system confirmed it.  He undertook to call the courier company personally tomorrow to get an eta for me, and to call me on my mobile and let me know when I can expect to receive it.

I hope this latest phone call ellcits a solution to the apparently difficult to solve problem of getting a new sim card out to me, and await further news which shall be updated here. Meanwhile, if anyone can offer any helpful advice I'd really appreciate it.  I would preferably like to have moved past my daily/twice daily conversations with Team 191 by the weekend.

[southpolesurfr · Accepted solution]

14/11/14 Evening Update

No news from 191 customer services as to what is happening with my sim, whether it has been despatched, or when it will be arriving.  So got a taxi to my nearest Vodafone store and had them swap it for me there, which was done and over in 10 mins.  I've purchased two phones/monthly contracts from Vodafone prior to this and the despatch & delivery had always been first class with no problems at all, so I don't know what's changed, but I think they have serious issues with their customer services centre.  My advice - if it can be done instore then do it instore, steer clear of 191 Customer Services if the situation allows.

Current situation resolved, no thanks at all to Team 191.

Robyn