4 ms·

The ‘sadmin’ after my mother’s death was hard – then I encountered Vodafone

5 points by sandebert 4y ago

raxxorraxor 4y ago
> We are conducting a full-scale review and have refreshed the training we provide to our customer care colleagues This is a management issue. Vodafone makes billions in profits, there is no excuse to have customer support this bad. Perhaps their customer service is even a profit center? I have my own experience here with countless referrals. I believe it is indeed a strategy to minimize contract terminations. Companies like this are the reason we need tight regulations and rules. Even more tight than the rules they have deployed in their own customer service. And it has to directly influence their bottom line. A good start would be online terminations. That will cost them significantly more than the money they saved in customer services and hopefully this loss will be attributed to bad management because this is the reason why it is needed in the first place.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  The telecoms industry is rotten to the core - this is not specific to Vodafone by any means. This situation involving the death of the account holder is an extreme case, but contracts and the threat of ruining one's credit is a routine way they use to extract more money even when they don't deserve it and may be in breach of the law (billing for services not rendered, etc). Unlike an actual credit agreement which is overseen by the FCA and gives you avenues to complain, there is no such regulator for normal contracts without a credit agreement involved. A good first step would be to just prohibit contracts altogether (for the devices themselves, a separate credit agreement can be set up independent of the network service). There's no reason a service that can be started & stopped automatically without any upfront cost nor physical intervention should require a contract. Sadly, it won't happen because the telecommunications regulator is in bed with the carriers.
  - simonblack 4y ago
    Sadly, it won't happen because the telecommunications regulator is in bed with the carriers. Some countries do have Communications Ombudsmen that can be effective. In those countries, just the information that you are speaking to the Company about "Case no. 999999" is enough to pull those companies into line. Just by having a case number, they know that the Ombudsman has definitely been brought in to the situation. The Ombudsman's office also has the direct phone numbers of the upper-level complaints echelons of the Company's customer service officers, so you don't get obstructed by the normal customer service centre. I've only had to use the Ombudsman once. I was quite impressed by the action it produced.

5 points by sandebert 4y ago

> We are conducting a full-scale review and have refreshed the training we provide to our customer care colleagues This is a management issue. Vodafone makes billions in profits, there is no excuse to have customer support this bad. Perhaps their customer service is even a profit center? I have my own experience here with countless referrals. I believe it is indeed a strategy to minimize contract terminations. Companies like this are the reason we need tight regulations and rules. Even more tight than the rules they have deployed in their own customer service. And it has to directly influence their bottom line. A good start would be online terminations. That will cost them significantly more than the money they saved in customer services and hopefully this loss will be attributed to bad management because this is the reason why it is needed in the first place.

Nextgrid 4y ago
The telecoms industry is rotten to the core - this is not specific to Vodafone by any means. This situation involving the death of the account holder is an extreme case, but contracts and the threat of ruining one's credit is a routine way they use to extract more money even when they don't deserve it and may be in breach of the law (billing for services not rendered, etc). Unlike an actual credit agreement which is overseen by the FCA and gives you avenues to complain, there is no such regulator for normal contracts without a credit agreement involved. A good first step would be to just prohibit contracts altogether (for the devices themselves, a separate credit agreement can be set up independent of the network service). There's no reason a service that can be started & stopped automatically without any upfront cost nor physical intervention should require a contract. Sadly, it won't happen because the telecommunications regulator is in bed with the carriers.
- simonblack 4y ago
  Sadly, it won't happen because the telecommunications regulator is in bed with the carriers. Some countries do have Communications Ombudsmen that can be effective. In those countries, just the information that you are speaking to the Company about "Case no. 999999" is enough to pull those companies into line. Just by having a case number, they know that the Ombudsman has definitely been brought in to the situation. The Ombudsman's office also has the direct phone numbers of the upper-level complaints echelons of the Company's customer service officers, so you don't get obstructed by the normal customer service centre. I've only had to use the Ombudsman once. I was quite impressed by the action it produced.