Tech team replies here are adding insult to injury

[GarethJohnWilliams]

its a shambles if you ask me, they feed you information that you want to hear, whatever you do dont ask them a question, coz its a load of steaming bag of rhino dung, and this is coming from someone who has 4 contracts with VF, when they have finished, i am done with them, waste of space 

[BackTeeth]

Agree totally.

What with the tosh from the Tech Team: "Can we help with your acount?", "Check the tracker", "I have sent you a PM". Then factor in the time lag for responses (if they bother!).  Is the Vodafone CS Training Manaual called "28 Days Later" by any chance?

Then the Vodafone Apologists pop up and 'contribute' their 'wisdom' when its obvious that it is only Vodafone CS that can solve an issue, if they are remotely capable or competent.

[hrym]

Actually, the team are very good - I've met many of them.  They may not always give you the answer you want, but that's a different story. :smileysurprised:

[froggerty]

Why don't they give the answers wanted?, that's the point of asking the questions. They may be decent folk but when replying saying 'can we help' or 'contact us here' all seem to revert to the usual Vodafone robotic state. It's the replies from those that have worked out or stumbled across solutions that actually help others, not the so called 'tech team'. Why can't they give a straight answer and advice rather than making fools of people making everyone just run around in pointless and time wasting circles?

[63johnw]

I think what hrym is referring too is that the answer given is not always what the poster wants to hear, i.e. vodafones answer/solution/response doesnt agree with the posters take on things, it may be correct as far as vodafone are concerned though.

[Ellis_VF]

Hi Everyone.

Thank you all for the comments here. While I never like to hear that people are not satisfied with our service, I also think it’s important to get this type of honest feedback.

My team will always try and answer every question they can and in the quickest way available to them. If we can answer a question fully on the forum then we will do so. However, a lot of questions require us to access accounts or take another action which requires us to speak to a customer privately. In these cases we will direct customers to the best channel to get a resolution.

We do make in known that we do not usually respond to questions until after 24 hours have passed. Also that most responses will come between 24 and 48 hours after the original post. This information is on the forum so a customer understands the time frame in which we are likely to respond.

As for technical questions, our team will answer any that they can on the forum. A key factor why this doesn’t always happen is down to our very own Community Champions. They tend to thrive on technical questions and answer a lot before we get there.

I hope this helps explain how the team works.

[steveo67]

Ellis,

If it were only 24/48 hours is would not be so bad ... But in the real world what happend is this:

Post a request for help assisatance whatever

after 48 hours you get a response telling you to fill in a form

You get an email back saying that VF received the email and you will get a reply in 48 hours

after 48 hours you get a reply VF asking for you to confirm some security details

You get an email back saying that VF received the email and you will get a reply in 48 hours

after 48 hours you get a reply VF or someone calls to help /assist

So you see the 48 hours the customer has to wait for resolution is in reality 6 days and thats presuming you dont get the message asking you to confim a reference number the and customer responds to each email straight away which of course he/she doesnt because we all have lots of more important stuff going on in our own personal lives. So you can see that a simple question or request for help drags out to be week or longer.

And then there your assuming that its reolved first time ... this doesnt happen one person says one thing then you get an email saying something else, then you have to post again restarting the whole proceedure above.

My most recent example is the wifi box I was sent, I notified you that I didnt want it within the 14 days cooling off period (actually after 2 days) but it took a whole month to resolve and I fianaly got the credit not yesterday for the massive amount of £8.

Thats whats frustrating and thats what annoys most people IMHO .... and for £8 its not particularly good business for Vodafone either !

[KD]

Hi steveo67

Thanks for your feedback.

I agree with you that the process to get in contact via email isn't straight-forward. We're working behind the scenes to improve this but there's no immediate fix that I can give.

I'm pleased to see your issue was fixed but I am sorry that it took longer than it should to resolve.

For any account specific queries, the quickest way to get a response is via Live help or 191. You can see all the ways to contact customer service on the Contact Us page.

Thanks

Kirsty

[BackTeeth]

Strange how all the 'thanks' on the posts from "Ellis" and "KD" are from CC's and their scores are weighted, giving a false impression that the customers (excluding the CC's who's views dont really count on this topic) found the responses helpful.

"KD" talks of trying to improve things behind the scenes, but there is no immediate fix. I would suggest that VF look back over the posts for the last few years to see that they should have had plenty of time to develop, test and deploy a solution.

The poor levels of customer service and response mechanisms within VF are not a new problem. It is just that VF management are not interested in improving customer service, as they would have done something about it far earlier. They are more interested in attracting new customers (the majority of which would not bother to look at forums like this) that they are about dealing with the issues that their existing (often, and maybe stupidly loyal) customers. Problems that are often caused by VF processes and employees actions.

VF, if you are serious about customer service, make changes.

• 191 is not fit for purpose for any issue that requires thinking 'off script'. Same applies to Live Chat.
• Make it easier for the customer to escalate, where appropriate (and generally the customer should be the one who chooses to escalate, not an off-shore employee reading script).
• When you commit to a call back etc., stick to it!

If Customer Relations are swamped (to the extent that when you are actually honoured to be given a direct dial number, it takes 10 minutes to have call answered), that should tell you that something about the level of resource that should be applied. 191 causes a lot of the problems that the CR team have to fix. VF needs to apply organisational learning, at the moment it is continually repeating the same errors, and that is what YOUR CUSTOMERS are getting fed up with.

No organisation is perfect, but VF's actions and attitude towards its customers gives the impression that VF thinks that it is perfect, and that everything is wonderful in the garden, and that is obviously what is reported to the Leadership.

[steveo67]

Kirsty,

I note your comments. 

I strongly disagree with your advice that the quickest way to contact you is by dialing 191.  When you dial it you get the most unfriendly menu system, you enter your security details then your kept on hold for ages and ages before being asked for your security details again, then told you have come through to the wrong department, then bumped to being put on hold again, before being asked for your security details again (they dont change I am the same person). Before you know it you have wasted an hour of your life and got nowhere or worse been given the wrong information. 

I should not have to spend so much of my life sorting out VF mistakes with my account. 

BlackTeeth is spot on when he says 191 is not fit for purpose !