Vodafone to offer mobile guarantee
CUSTOMERS who buy mobiles with post-paid plans from Vodafone will be offered a 30-day money-back guarantee on their phone and plan costs if they are dissatisfied.
Telecommunications Users Association chief executive Craig Young said the guarantee appeared new for the industry and was a positive move.
It comes as the country’s three mobile operators search for ways to distinguish their services on features other than price and vie for slices of a $50 million government fund to plug mobile ‘‘black spots’’ in tourist areas and along state highways.
2degrees said on Wednesday that almost two-thirds of the ‘‘tens of thousands’’ of customers who had compared plans using an online calculator on its website had found they would save a combined $6.8 million by switching to 2degrees.
Its chief executive, Stewart Sherriff, queried why more people weren’t shopping around the operators, saying there was ‘‘still a lot of consumer inertia’’ in the paymonthly and business markets, which 2degrees has increasingly been targeting.
Vodafone technical director Tony Baird said many factors influenced the value people were getting from their mobile plans, including the quality of the networks in different areas and overseas roaming options.
Its money-back guarantee for dissatisfied customers, which takes effect tomorrow, showed it was prepared to stand by its performance, he said.
Customers won’t need to prove any fault. The main proviso is that phones must be returned in like-new condition, in their original packaging. The cost of calls that weren’t included in customers’ original plans, such as calls made while roaming overseas or to premium numbers, won’t be refunded.
Vodafone had spent $14m improving its 4G network so far this year, Baird said. The investment included upgrading an additional 121 of its 1500 cellsites to 4G and building another 22 towers.
He said Vodafone had slightly broader 4G coverage than rival Spark, but said it was close and Vodafone would not labour the point. Earlier this year a billboard war broke out between the companies when both laid claim to the largest 4G networks.
Vodafone made a complaint to the Commerce Commission and Spark threatened to do the same, but the regulator declined to adjudicate.
The total volume of traffic handled by Vodafone’s network had jumped from 60 terabytes a month to about 1400 terabytes in five years, Baird said, due mainly to the increased uptake of smartphones.
The volume of mobile voice calls on its network had risen slightly to 500 minutes a month thanks to cheaper pricing and new ‘‘highdefinition’’ voice technology.