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Just over a week ago I switched to Vodafone, the drawcard being the ability to get a HTC Desire HD phone (and what an amazing phone it is!). Vodafone being the sole provider of them in Australia (although you can get the standard HTC Desire from Telstra).  This morning my phone stopped receiving service… Emergency calls only… tried to call work as I was running late – but no – sim card not working… The message I got was ‘Your sim card does not allow a connection to this network’ when I try to connect to Vodafone.

So I called Vodafone, 33 minutes on hold just to get through, whats more beforehand you have to speak to Lara – their automated phone answering service… she doesn’t understand hardly anything I say… I have spoken to these types of systems before but this was just impossible. Already upset that my phone wasn’t working and now the phone system wouldn’t let me through… although eventually getting her to understand… so after 33 minutes the phone is picked up and I have to tell the operator all my details again that I had already told Lara… what is your phone number? what is your pin? come on guys why do I tell Lara just to tell the ‘real’ people who answers the phone again?

So the man that answers the phone tells me to turn my phone off… I have already done that I say, and taken the battery out and tried the sim card in another phone… well you will need to get another sim card then…. you will have to go into a vodafone shop… then call back to activate it or they can do that for you in the shop…

So I headed to the shop, and I must admit that I got quite decent customer service although I was upset with the lack on answers in the end… I got a new sim card, the customer service person entered it onto the computer and transferred my information from my old sim card to my new one… we put it in the phone… it didn’t work… re-looked it up on the computer – the computer had a sim-fail error message… service person called service centre and apparently someone will look at it in the next 24-48 hours…  No answers about why or if they will be able to fix just someone will eventually look at it – no you won’t have phone service to who knows when…

So being enraged and missing my phone I logged a complaint about my still not working phone – I know it has only been like 20 hours without it – but what if someone has been trying to call or something has happened to one of my kids. My phone is my communication channel… Anyway… so I logged a complaint and it obviously picked up a few words and suggested that I needed to activate my sim card… thought it was worth a try – had to speak to Lara again… oh my – after completely mucking it up the first two times she finally got it right and after me telling her my phone number and pin she told me that this could not be processed at this time of the day and to call back tomorrow! What the! Make me suffer the pain before telling me that I have no hope to have my phone service tonight! How rude!

So will vodafone pick up their customer service – time will tell – Is this how they treat all their new customers…  Will they make me pay for these days of service with no service… Are they breeching their contract by not providing me service?

How long do we have to be on hold Vodafone?

What do I think they should do in this situation?

• Provide a customer with a temporary sim card with another number on it (ie: prepaid) and divert their number to it.
• Compensate the customer with a bonus for their wasted time in solving this problem and the lack of phone service.
• Let the customer know exactly when the situation will be addressed and give them a phone number to call that does not have a 33minute wait time.
• Delegate responsibility better to shop staff – they should be able to change sim cards and fix all this and help the customers without having to call someone – surely a happy customer is the best outcome.
• Have better quality sim cards – this should not happen in the first place!

Tags: bad customer service, customer service, mobile phones, vodafone

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