Good call, Vodafone!
...but it’s a pity you didn’t settle my complaint BEFORE I called in the MoS
VODAFONE has been beefing up its customer service in the wake of last year’s £4.6 million fine for erroneous billing and woeful service. But some customers are still suffering.
ENDLESS calls made to Vodafone ‘helplines’ based around the world over the course of two years left Julie Engineer frustrated and angry. An all too familiar response to Vodafone’s inept customer service.
But a single call by Julie to The Mail on Sunday has turned her fortunes around. Julie sought the help of the newspaper following our high profile campaign which exposed Vodafone’s customer service failings resulting in billing mistakes, ‘phantom’ accounts and the dire handling of complaints.
Within days of us asking Vodafone to examine Julie’s case, which involved overbilling and the setting up of erroneous lines, it apologised, repaid the £1,624 taken out of her account in error and handed over an extra £300 for the trouble caused. The response was at a speed and courtesy that could only have been dreamed of by the battalion of customers who have had cause to complain amid the havoc that reached a climax at the firm late in 2015.
A record £4.6million penalty was meted out to Vodafone by telecoms watchdog Ofcom last October as punishment for its shambolic customer service – as well as its failure to credit money paid by thousands of pay-as-you-go custom- ers into their accounts. Despite action by Vodafone to step up recruitment and staff training, customer service problems continue to plague the company – and its customers.
Julie’s case is just one of many still emerging from the chaos Vodafone blames on a central mistake – switching both its customer service and billing systems in unison in 2015. The ambitious IT transforma- tion sent mistakes and complaints soaring.
Ofcom first called time on the phone company at the end of 2015 when it opened an investigation into a surge in complaints. Vodafone, which has 20 million customers in the UK, claims it responded by recruiting more customer services staff and implementing rigorous training. Complaints began to fall – by as much as half. But the provider still has serious problems. At the last count (third quarter of 2016) its gripes record is still three times the industry average at 18 per 100,000 customers.
New figures to be published later this month are expected to show some improvement.
Of all the irritations Julie faced, the most mystifying was phantom billing. Julie, 59, married to retired
Vodafone faces hefty fine over customer complaints after MoS campaign
cricket star Farokh Engineer, a celebrated player for both India and Lancashire in the 1970s, says: ‘The trouble began when we went into a Vodafone shop in 2014 to ask a simple question. To our shock we were told there were four active lines on our bill instead of two.’
Julie, who works for a fabric and wallpaper company and lives in Cheshire, says: ‘I only use one mobile and a broadband service for my iPad.’
Her problems were compounded by never receiving a single paper bill nor being able to go online to check the accuracy of bills because the passwords never worked. She says: ‘All I knew was a large amount of money was coming out of our bank account – about £130 a month.’
All attempts to get Vodafone to sort out the mess went unheard. She says: ‘We phoned call centres in Cardiff, Capetown, Egypt and Ireland but never got help.’
The couple describe helpline staff as ‘unhelpful, arrogant and disinterested’. But last week, Julie was full of praise for the ‘efficient’ resolution of her complaint.
She said: ‘It’s a pity it couldn’t have been handled this way in the beginning.’