Well I can confirm over 3 years on, nothing has changed! I'm beyond frustrated with the awful customer service, primarily due to the language barrier in the Indian call centres not being able to communicate in English well enough to comprehend conversations.
I called yesterday to schedule in a house move (they advise at least 30 days notice) in March to take my contract with me. That took 45minutes on the phone to the call centre. This was after telling me my new address didn't exist, then saying Vodafone didn't provide a service there. I told them I'd looked on the online Vodafone search and it said they did - to which he then double checked and said oh yes actually they do. I was advised to take my router with me when I moved and we booked in the slot for the engineer to install next month. Got all the confirmation emails through and one mentioned I would be getting a router delivered a few days before my move, at my current address. Couldn't face another call so tried online chat - broken English and some interesting phrases that if I hadn't known the person wasn't English, would have come across quite patronising "let me educate you" etc. They confirmed the email was wrong - it always says router even though it's an adapter that will be delivered.
This morning I get a text to say it's all been cancelled and to phone if I wasn't expecting this. I phoned and actually got through to someone in the UK (amazing bonus!) within a few minutes we cleared up that the previous order should not have been booked in as it was too early to progress and I needed to call back end of next week and repeat the process. Not ideal, but fine, if computer says no, that's what it is.
Then I get a further email to say my current contract has been cancelled and will end after 30 days notice period!! Honestly, by this point I'm so frustrated I can't describe. I phone yet again, navigating my way through the long winded auto response call system where I'm told you can do all this online, don't call us lol My goodness if I could, I would have! Eventually I get through and it's the Indian call centre - I say I got through, there was just silence on the line for about 30 seconds and I wasn't sure if there was an issue with the hold music. Then I hear a "hello?" I say hello back and they then start the Vodafone script. It was evident from the start she didn't understand what I was saying and kept trying and failing to put me on hold, instead just sitting in silence - presumably waiting for a manager to help her. After about 3 minutes of silence and no response I gave up and hung up. I rang back again and got a different staff member, slightly better understanding of English, but still kept re-summarising what I'd said incorrectly so I kept having to correct her. She put me on hold for a long time and came back saying someone was taking over the service on my current property on 19th March so my contract was cancelled. I told her that was incorrect (we still live here and will be until at least end of March) and had never been the case, I was put on hold again. I presume my initial request to move had only been cancelled one end (i.e. the installation at new house, not termination at old house) but who knows. She came back and advised the cancellation request (imaginary one 'someone' made) had been cancelled and I remain on my existing contract.
I have absolutely no trust this is actually correct - but I guess we will see in 30 days if I have internet or not! It's so incredibly frustrating not to be able to speak to someone who can comprehend you and be able to provide accurate information.
I don't think anybody minds where people hail from, provided they can communicate to a certain standard and comprehend a language fully. Hearing the same complaints time and time again and just saying - talk to social media, is not a good response. The issue remains that the customer service in these cases is not fit for purpose.
.png "Community Manager"){kind=icon}
