What REALLY caused the customer service meltdown at Vodafone
Poor training. Outdated computers. Boss of phone giant reveals . . .
NICK J eFFerY’S w ide s mile slips. He leans forward and n arrows h is e yes. ‘ I a m t otally,
totally hell-bent on fixing these problems,’ he says.
It’s t he f irst t ime t he V odafone U K chief e xecutive h as a greed t o e xplain publiclywhatwentwrongatthet elecoms giant last year, when m illions o f c ustomers w ere l et d own by shoddy customer service.
And it’s clear he’s not taking the m eeting lightly. I’ve come to V odafone’s enormous headquarters in Newbury, Berkshire, to present dozens of your complaints to the man i n c harge. F or m ore t han a y ear, Money Mail has been inundated with letters from customers u nable to get even the simplest of problems resolved.
Many of you have been left out of pocket a fter b illing e rrors a nd t hen, when you’ve complained, spent hours on the phone without the issue being fixed.
The office campus spans some 30 acres, including seven car parks and even a lake.
By the main entrance are two small, fake flames made from strips of orange material blown by small fans. Inside there is a red F ormula One car on display, and written on the walls are the words ‘#wecare’.
As we head into a meeting room, Mr Jeffery explains the flames were put up to celebrate Vodafone’s plan to hire 2,100 customer service staff in centres around the country.
‘We’r einvesting £4 billion inthe network and improving customer service — andh opefully you’ll feel from me that I’m super committed and energetic in seeing thisthrough,’ he says, bringing his fist down hard on the table.
It’s reassuring for customers, many of whom are tied into phone contracts and feel p owerless as the firm bungles their bills and complaints.
Mr Jeffery, who has been at V odafone for 13 years and was p reviously in charge of growing the i nternational b usiness a rm, knows customers’ patience is wearing thin.
His appointment as chief e xecutive c ame l ast S eptember, around the time the firm was fined £4.6m illion by thet elecoms regulator for its t reatment of those hit by a computer glitch. And he inherited quite a job.
Call-centre staff felt handicapped-by their computer screens, which did not give them clear advice on how to help customers.Thea utomated call system was‘old a nd c omplex’; c ustomers would spend half an hour pushing buttons only to be cut off.
Many of the texts, emails and letters sent out to customers were n ot a lways c lear a nd o ften impersonal, he acknowledges.
At the time, Vodafone didn’t have a senior customer service team based in the UK. These vital staff were scattered e lsewhere around the world.
This meant that whenc ustomers tried to escalate a complaint — because it was a serious issue or hadn’t been dealt with properly — it routinely fell first throughmove Mr the Jeffery cracks. made So was the to set up a team of around 65 senior staff in Stoke. He says that by the end of this year ,50 pcof all of the firm’ scustomer service staff will be in the UK, increasing to around 80 pc by the end of 2018. Mr Jeffery also admits that in the past there have been instances where staff ‘didn’t know what they were talking about’ and have g iven o ut i ncorrect information. ‘From hereon out in Vodafonethat isnotacceptable,’he says. Staff needed extra training. And new employees will now have to train for eight weeks before they can speak to customers. It’s a cagey interview— MrJ effery seems torn between a pologising for past mistakes and i nsisting t hat n ew m easures will help Vodafone improve. But, he says: ‘You can feel the energy coming back into the system now customers feel they’ve been listened to — e specially in the past couple of months.’ He’s ordered more than 1,000 improvements tocustomer service systems in six months, i ncluding u pdating t he time computerthe and havethey Around phone lettersarein also15 ea si ers years .2,700 screens systembeenent to out texts,re writtenunderstand.and forby rV theepl ac in godaf one emailsfirstso Complaintschangessays,Mr Jeffery jabbingare marea king believesdownhis ad fingerif fer ence.50pthe sec, heat numerousslanting downwards.graphs with lines from ‘We consumersget 350,000 and calls of a those, week 4,000 are raising an issue or want to understand something better,andabout500haveacomplaint,’ he says. ‘Of those, 65 pc a resolved within 24 hours and around 95p c of ther emainder are solved within three days.’ When I point to the stack of complaints I’ve brought with me, his face falls. ‘I apologise to anyone who has a complaint that’s not been dealt with. This really matters to us. We are going to fix this.’ So is there a secret to getting your gripes sorted faster? Mr Jeffery tells me he reads every customer complaint sent to his personal email account — currently around ten to 15 a day — and ensures they are dealt with swiftly. The address, in case you are wondering, is nick.jeffery@vodafone.com. Do let us know how you get on. v.bischoff@dailymail.co.uk