Improved customer experience or saving money?

[Cynric]

Recently a VF mod stated the following in a reply to someone, "The ability to change your Wi-Fi channels and alter your broadband frequencies has been removed as our routers are set up to automatically choose the best settings for you. ".

I'm curious whether this removal of important facilities, without any consultation, is a cost saving exercise for VF's benefit or to improve the experience for the customer having what has become practically a 1-click solution as the router does all the thinking for you? 

If VF's helpdesk statistics shows that a large proportion of calls are all about setting Wi-Fi channels and other basic setup questions, then is it cheaper to remove the functionality because without it the queries to the helpdesk can never be raised. I presume to counter this argument there must be a huge amount of customer feedback saying, "I find operating the router too difficult, can you please make it more simple". (Of course having a big button on the control panel for "auto/manual" would have been too obvious). 

So VF, what is it, cost savings for you or customers who have problems with the router control panel? 

[gipjon]

I think that is a very fair question to ask . I dont see why vodafone cant ever  answer questions when we ask them. Not much point in having paid staff and its very disappointing having TJ as admin. Forum staff are underperforming and are costing vodafone dearly in customers satisfaction and customer numbers. Loads of customers have left when you read back on the forum posts because forum paid staff dont sort things out or try to smooth things over. Well that looks like another complaint going into vodafone ceo head office about forum staff.  Every time i ask a question on here and dont get a answer i put a complaint into the ceo office to get the answers . I have allready had one forum staff member pm me and said thanks im leaving which is still in my pm box (WELL IT WOULD BE IF I COULD ACCESS MY PM) probably block access on pm's to save electricity on servers 

[Cynric]

.@gipjon This is what is driving my question. The helpdesk metrics may be showing that there is a lot of effort being spent on certain types of issue. So rather than fix a problem and/or train-up the helpdesk staff it seems that VF have taken the decision that, for them, the simplest route is to remove those features of the router that are implicated in the metrics. This doesn't answer any issue with the software technical behaviour or whether the user interface design is causing confusion. I feel it's a dumbing-down of the firmware to the point of the fewer buttons to click equals a reduction of helpdesk demand. There will be a day when the control panel will just have one huge green button labelled "GO" next to which will be one of these two emoji 😀 or ☹️ to inform the user if it is working properly. Then when you call the helpdesk they will connect via the backdoor and make adjustments that you cannot see.

[Jayach]

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@Cynric wrote:

. There will be a day when the control panel will just have one huge green button labelled "GO" next to which will be one of these two emoji 😀 or ☹️ to inform the user if it is working properly. Then when you call the helpdesk they will connect via the backdoor and make adjustments that you cannot see.

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To be honest, that would suit most users fine, assuming anyone would answer when they call.

[gipjon]

The issue is not if anyone answers, The issue is a lot of Vodafone staff have no idea what they are doing or even how to use the system. last week it took me and the daughter 2 days to get the routers provisioned, The daughter had moved house and had an Openreach appointment. Openreach can't do anything because Vodafone has not provisioned the router .we rang Vodafone up and after spending about 4 hours talking to stupid staff over 2 days who have no idea what they are doing. We Finally got this sorted. The last advisor said, don't understand why someone else could have not simply sorted this yesterday on your first call. He said the router needs to be provisioned and that's all. so can I just have the serial number to check we have the right one and I will get it provision straight away, a couple of minutes later all working. so it is not the best idea to leave it to Vodafone to change the setting 

[alwaysreading]

I always thought the idea of this forum was so customers communicated direct with Vodafone but why don't Vodafone ever reply to questions asked . no wonder customer's rating are bad 

[Tash]

Hi everyone,

The changes with no longer being able to manually change channels hasn't been driven from a cost angle. Our firmware was deployed on our routers with auto channel selection to adjust depending on the customer's needs without the need for any manual intervention.

We found there are more benefits to auto channel selection when compared with manually selecting channels, and it's a part of what we're doing to help improve home connectivity during one of the most challenging periods.

The option was removed as we're using a platform (Wi-Fi Doctor) which optimises Wi-Fi dynamically for the router, as well as our Super Wi-Fi extenders with our Pro Broadband plans, to provide the most optimised wireless experience we can. 

While most customers would view Wi-Fi as just their home network, we'll be competing with neighbouring properties and their connected devices. By dynamically managing Wi-Fi through optimising the channels, we're actively avoiding congestion and impaired connectivity.

[Cynric]

.@Tash

I really cannot agree with your statement.

1. " depending on the customer's needs without the need for any manual intervention", they why are some users not happy?

2. "We found there are more benefits to auto channel selection", yes YOU did, WE didn't

3. " improve home connectivity", but many here say that it does not, particularly 2.4GHz devices that do not see channels 12 or 13

4. "(Wi-Fi Doctor) which optimises Wi-Fi dynamically", which means frequently dropping devices

5. "Super Wi-Fi extenders with our Pro Broadband plans", which is a confession that the standard plans are no good

6. "competing with neighbouring properties", which is where WiFi Doctor is inadequate to the task and manual adjustment found to be better. 

7. "we're actively avoiding congestion and impaired connectivity" except where the router is not in the precise centre of the dwelling and/or for building structural reasons incorrectly measures the neighbouring signals. This is why so many people are using WiFi extenders and powerlines.

8. "we're actively avoiding congestion and impaired connectivity", but everyone else in the street is (a) got a device doing the same thing, so they are all dancing round the maypole, (b) purchasing bigger and stronger WiFi boosters so it's like a cold-war era arms race.

[gipjon]

@tash 

Sorry dont believe a word of that . 

If that was true and you did it to improve customer satisfaction then you got it wrong big time you should have gave users for what ever reason to improve customer satisfaction be able to change channels and turn off wifi doctor.  Who ever decide this needs sacking . When is vodafone going to wake up and stop being voted for having  the worst customer service 

[Jayach]

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@Tash wrote:

Our firmware was deployed on our routers with auto channel selection to adjust depending on the customer's needs without the need for any manual intervention.

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You/your firmware can't possibly know if the customer has devices which are unable to use the full number of channels, many devices are unable to use channel 12/13 on 2.4Ghz for instance, and some don't like the high channels on 5Ghz.