Tag Archives: Vodafone

November 21, 2012 · 4:57 pm

There is one good call-centre employee at Vodafone after all!

Following my recently highly critical rant about the appalling customer service that Vodafone ‘provides’, I was delighted at long last to ‘meet’ someone who was not only polite and could speak English that I could understand, but who was also able to resolve the latest problem in our relationship.  Her name is Mia. I suggest that anyone calling Vodafone explicitly asks for her by name – I guess she is based in India, and she does speak with a slight US accent, but don’t hold that against her!

I know it is not Mia’s fault, but Vodafone’s website is still not functional for some users – I wonder how many more weeks it will take before I can access my account?

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November 17, 2012 · 10:15 am

Appalling ‘service’ by Vodafone

I don’t usually use my blog to illustrate poor customer service, but an e-mail I received this morning has infuriated me so much that I am putting fingers to keyboard!  Vodafone has to be one of the very worst companies for customer service in the UK! Why does anyone still use them? For that matter, why do I?!

I renewed my contract with them a couple of weeks ago, and upgraded my phone.  Since I could not do the necessary change-over online, because their website was down, I took my new phone in to a Vodafone shop (in Hammersmith) to ask them to activate the SIM and transfer my data across.  “Of course”, the assistant said, “It will only be a couple of minutes”.  Half an hour later, when the assistant was unable to do it, his manager came over and managed to get most of the issues sorted.

However, not all of the data was transferred, and I could not access WiFi from the hotspots because of a problem with my account, which they said would soon be activated.  A week later, nothing had happened, and so began a series of quite bizarre phone calls with ‘customer service staff’.  None of theme were able to resolve the problem.  Unbelievably, three out of the four staff could barely speak English, and I kept having to ask them to repeat their questions – really simple things like “What is the first line of your address?” were completely unintelligible.  Eventually, I was told that I could not access my account because of a problem with their website that they were fixing, but that they would give me a £5 refund on my next bill because of the inconvenience.

Still nothing happened – I could not access my account online, and still could not use the WiFi hotspots because I could not sign into my account!  So, I sent an e-mail, and two days later received the message below:

“Thank you for contacting Vodafone Customer Services
I have checked the online account and can see that you are not able to access the online account however if you are unable to access the account; hence I have escalated this to the online escalation department they will look into this matter.
Your patience will be appreciated in this matter
I trust the above information is helpful.
Kind regards,”

This is unbelievable.  First, I am appalled that an e-mail can be sent by a company based in the UK that is so illiterate!  Second, I am not told that the problem is being fixed, but merely that the matter is being escalated to the escalation department!

I wonder how many more weeks it will take for them to get this fixed?!

 

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April 30, 2010 · 9:56 am

Ash aftermath – Finnair and Vodafone charge exorbitant rates when trying to rebook flights

I’m sure that other people caught up in the air traffic chaos must be finding out now just how much their ‘phone bills have been charged when trying to rebook their flights!

I’m appalled to discover that it has cost me more than £600 in ‘phone charges – as a direct result of Finnair’s policies.  To rebook or try to rearrange flights, Finnair gave a number that people in Finland had to call – +358 600 140 140 .  What they did not say was that users were going to be charged even when their automatic statement that the lines were too busy and so could not even be answered was playing (in multiple languages)!  Yes, the Finnair site did say that there was a small charge per “answered call” – but not even getting in the queue to have a  human answer does not seem to me to count as an “answer”.  So, every time I placed a call and I could not even get into the queue, it cost me £5.50 – even for 6 seconds!  Then, when one passed that hurdle, and actually got into the queue to be answered, they kept charging.  Every time I waited to be able to book a flight home, the call was being charged. And they were so busy, that callers had to wait a very long time. Eventually, waiting for 39 minutes before being answered, and then having a 6 minute and 6 second call cost me £246.53.  At least I did get a flight home….

This is absolutely outrageous.  Vodafone, my ‘phone provider refuse to do anything about it, and likewise Finnair.  Let’s hope my insurers are feeling sympathetic. Under such unusual conditions, Finnair should have provided a freephone number, or at the very least have informed people that they were being charged even when waiting to receive a human answer.  But what else were passengers expected to do?  People who wanted to get rebooked onto another flight had to call that number.  This is unquestionably profiteering at the expense of stranded customers!  Guess I will therefore change my ‘phone supplier and never fly Finnair again.  What have other people been charged by their ‘phone providers and airlines?

…….

Now I am really angry – I wrote to Finnair about this, and this is the e-mail reply I have just received “We have had a lot of customer contacts in recent days, so we regret any delay in responding to your feedback. We will reply to you as soon as possible.The estimated answering time is 2-3 months. All the contacts will be handled in order of arrival. Thank you for your patience”.

Am definitely never flying Finnair again if I can possibly help it!!!!

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