I have submitted numerous complaints over the last 14 months about the same issue, none of which achieved much. Communication is poor at Vodafone
I have had innumerable assurances and promises from customer service team members about them calling me back, the majority don’t bother.
After submitting a recent complaint, I have been sent text messages from an agent who simply doesn’t get what the complaint is about. Usually they text to say he will ring and then within a minute I get another message saying “I tried to call but didn’t manage to catch you”, this is a blatant lie as the phone does not ring. You cannot reply to the text but I figure this is a strategy for the ombudsman.
On the occasions he does ring, he has no idea of what customer service is, cannot offer any resolution and just mumbles sorry. He asks what action I want him to take, despite taking forty minutes and explaining it to him simply three times, he still doesn’t get it.
Yesterday I submitted another complaint explaining that the clock has been running for over a year and not to ring me, nobody does much to resolve the issue and I never receive any meaningful communications via E-mail which is how I want this dealt with. I am a business customer and my clients deserve my undivided attention, not anything Vodafone understand. In my written submission yesterday I wrote at the top *** DO NOT RING ME, E-MAIL ME AS YOUR TEXT MESSAGES CANNOT BE REPLIED TO AND YOUR CALLS RESOLVE NOTHING! ***.
Today at 15:39 I receive a text message from the same agent that cannot assist me stating “just to let you know I will be calling you today”, really, why?
At 15:41 he rang me, in a conversation that lasted ten minutes I established;
- He has received the latest complaint.
- He has read it.
- He acknowledges I specifically requested an E-mail response from a senior manager.
- He has no answer as to why he rang other than it’s a courtesy.
- I reminded of him of our previous conversations where I requested a senior manager to get in touch to resolve this.
To add insult to injury at 15:47 I received the usual text message to say “I tried to call but didn’t manage to catch you”, he had obviously forgotten that he spoke to me for ten minutes simply six minutes before, is this incompetence or something even worse?
Thus far I remain disappointed and have already investigated moving away from Vodafone after many years as a customer. The organisation has been voted worst network provider and had the worst customer satisfaction for the eighth year in a row. I have begun to appreciate why.
Is it really so difficult to get somebody with skills in customer service to;
- Actually listen
- Empathise rather than sympathise
- Ask well-reasoned questions to ensure they have elicited all of the facts
- Paraphrase to demonstrate their understanding
- Summarise their proposed actions to secure am acceptable resolution
It seems that it is! It's not that difficult, the process above is what my company teach to our employees to ensure they can readily deal with any complaint and sucessfully achieve resolution in a single call. I wonder why such a simple but sucessful methodology in not not in use at Vodafone? Vodafone comment invited.
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