Endless Service deficit by Telco

 aka Highway to Hell. We are all dependent on continuous telecommunications service these days. Partly this is our hunger for more efficient ways to communicate and entertain ourselves, and partly it is driven by the 'powers-that-be' in terms of their technology and business agendas and strategies. I feel like a pawn in a sick chess game.

I experienced a loss of all telecoms service; that's phone and internet, earlier this month. Apparently my streaming use had used up my generous data allowance but that didn't explain why my separate phone plan was affected. To suddenly find you can't lead a normal life with a basic service we are all 'required to have and need' hits home immediately. I thought I had better top up. This is impossible if you have no phone service. I was obliged to go to a neighbour and ask for help with contacting the dreadful Vodafone customer care staff hiding behind a ghastly voice recognition/AI mindless voice that understands nothing and sends you on a continuous loop of menu options. Eventually I managed to top up my account to receive some phone and internet.

I'd had enough and figured I'd better avoid running out by changing my plan to a more expensive endless phone calls and internet data plan. Oh dear! I dared to change something and I went from pillar to post. My frustration with their call centre system prompted me to send an email to the CEO of Vodafone NZ, Jason Paris. You can't email customer services. That option no longer exists.

11 August 2022

Dear Jason

I am in the process of converting from wireless broadband to fibre. My home is modern and there is some fibre in the street and the outside of my house. I placed the order 04 August and have still not received the modem to complete the installation. My current wireless broadband modem is not compatible with fibre.

 

Over the past few days I have been shuttled between Philippines and India with the usual accompanying difficulties of communication and looking things up at their end. I have been informed by India that I cannot have a modem until Enable say the connection is completed.

The Enable guys say the opposite, that they cannot complete without the modem (logical). What is going on? After spending hours on multiple days trying to find the right person overseas who can action something the best I can expect is a modem to arrive in 72 hours. Who knows how to set it up? Not sure I do and if it doesn't work what do I do then?

There are three issues here that need your attention:

1. The nightmare of an automated phone menu that can't behave intuitively. Sure, you don't have to pay staff but the service is awful to deal with. I just go round and round with the voice telling me it doesn't understand and giving me a menu which doesn't match my enquiry. I have very good diction.
   

2. Something is wrong with your installation process. The modem should arrive BEFORE Enable plugs it in. I have a garage full of Enable guys who can't finish their job
   

3. You said publicly more than a year ago that you were bringing back the customer care call centres within a year. I say bullshit. I only get to talk to the Philippines or India. What is your personal assurance worth?
   

As an ex Communications and PR specialist I would say this whole Vodafone customer experience is sub-standard and you are losing credibility when you fail to deliver on your public promises, which were key issues in 2021.

Quoting your good self... Feb 26 2021."

He says the Vodafone Business call centre has “100 per cent been brought back to New Zealand”, acknowledging that while the company has “great people overseas” the accent barrier has proved “really difficult”, often leading to miscommunication.

The same is true for the consumer call centre, which he says by the end of 2021 will also largely be based in New Zealand." https://www.1news.co.nz/2021/02/25/our-service-hasnt-been-good-enough-vodafone-boss-touts-big-changes-call-centres-coming-back-to-nz/

I call bullshit on all those meangless promises. They never delivered for domestic customers.

Thirty minutes after sending him the email, a nice underling who handles complaints called me and said he would help sort things out. He checked my top-up had gone through and said the modem had been ordered back on the 4th but that the order had stopped for some reason so he would reactivate that so my modem should arrive in 72 hours. It did. I called Enable and got the guys back a couple of days later to complete the installation. They couldn't shut the cabinet door as the electric plugs are too bulky to fit the connection inside. I would have to get a small trianglular double adapter, unplug and re-plug in the fibre box.

I discovered my internet was still constantly dropping out to the point where streaming and using YouTube for my music practice became impossible. I checked the internet speed. It was very slow. I went through the horror of the Vodafone customer call centres off-shore to eventually be told the fibre had not been activated their end. This is despite me previously calling them the day of completed installation to update their system and cancel my wireless broadband as I would now be on the fibre contract. They assured me I now had fibre service. no aplogies and no compensation for days of not having the service I was now paying for.

The speeds still seemed slow, in fact worse. I also received a text message telling me I had reached my credit limit and could no longer have phone or internet until I gave them my credit card details. I thought it was just an admin error but no... there's more. The next day I had no phone, nor internet, again, yet I was on an endless monthly plan. 

I tried to have a bot chat with Vodafone just before my telecoms service cut out but they told me to disconnect modem and cable and fibre and WAN cable and power to reset things. When I reconnected the fibre box it would not light up again.

I jumped in my car to seek help from a friend with a mobile. He wasn't home so I had to drive home and hope the neighbours were now awake and able to use their phone to call Vodafone OMG call centre. Within 20 minutes of waiting there was steam coming from his ears as he tried to get a PERSON to answer and help. More waiting and then a woman with an Asian accent no doubt in Mumbai said she could not proceed unless he would verify his account. But he does not have a Vodafone account. He had already given them my account details. She insisted. My neighbour replied it had nothing to do with his non-Vodafone account. We could get nowhere, she couldn't understand us and put us on hold. We hung up and with my neighbour's phone I contacted the complaints guy in Auckland via his smartphone. He rang me back to say my disconnection was all due to a system they had years back where new customers were limited in the credit they could rark up. I said I had never asked for that, in fact knew nothing about it and it should never have been applied to me as I was on an endless monthly contract. He spent ages tapping on his computer and after getting my password was able to disactivate this antiquated admin. He also said he would lodge a work order for Enable to come out but that I too should call Enable about it, just to make sure. He did not apologise. No responsibility was acknowledged. No compensation was offered.

An hour and a half after I spoke to Enable's customer service with yet another 'accent' though she assured me she was based in Christchurch, The Guys from Enable arrived at my door. Their third visit to me, we get on well now.

Ron and Frank were great. They responded promptly and checked and corrected every element that could be giving me fibre problems including internet speed via modem direct and wifi on my laptop, also power plug configuration in the Telecoms cabinet in my garage. They discovered a switch impossibly hidden behind plugs had been knocked to the off position when I reconnected power to the fibre box. They checked my TV was set up correctly for me since moving to fibre. Some of this may not be strictly in their job description but it is necessary to rule out interferences to fibre connections. However, not so impressed with the woman from Enable customer service who said I should never have switched off my fibre box, despite Vodafone telling me to do that for a reset and also being previously told to do that by Ron and Frank in order to change the plug configuration for electricity.  

I eventually got there but the interface between Vodafone and Enable is not so great (mostly the fault of Vodafone). I shudder to think of my fate if I had not had the cellphone number of that guy from Vodafone HQ as a result of my email to the CEO. They just don't care. I have explained that no amount of new sales staff they are currently recruiting is going to stop them losing customers from all this shit. They have no credibility. Their CEO tells 'pork pies' to the media when Vodafone are getting flak through poor service. I had better stick with them for now but I desperately want to be the customer of a telco that is responsive, easy to deal with, cares about customer care and can liaise with Enable with intelligent English-as-a-first-language speakers based in NZ. PLEASE. This has dragged on with hours of stress for three weeks now.

I am also dubious about their statement that I had orginally used up all my phone data as here is a graphic showing my useage up to last month on my old Lite plan. Who knows what to think. My phone useage behaviours have not changed.