If you haven’t already, you can catch up on part one here.
More Vodafone Broadband Issues
The new router got me stable broadband but I had another issue that this outlined. We were paying for 60mb broadband but speedtest.net was maxing out at just under 6mb. This meant another chance for me to experience the ‘customer support’ from Vodafone. What a joy!
Vodafone Customer Support
I was going to hate myself. I knew it. Every time I chat to the team it drains the life out of me. Even on Webchat. First of all I was able to log that I wasn’t getting the agreed speed but only after they made me plug in my Vodafone router. Which kept dropping connection. They asked me to keep it plugged in for 24 hours and it was a day of rubbish internet. We lost Internet for an entire day on New Years Eve to New Years day. Enough was enough, I wanted to complain.
No Customer Support
Complaining is not easy. The webchat team refused to give out an address to write a letter of complaint to. This left only one course of action I felt was acceptable. Time for an email to the CEO! Its not the first thing I do when I have a complaint but if I feel I’m getting no-where and people are stuck on a script or being unhelpful in their obfuscation, a letter to the CEO often helps gets someone’s attention whose job it is to make you happy, not to run the company line.
CEO Email Address for Vodafone
It may not be the flashiest of websites but https://www.ceoemail.com/ does exactly what it says on the tin. Typing ‘Vodafone’ in the search box bought up the details of Nick Jeffery – the current CEO of Vodafone. I didn’t want to call him, but I did want to email him so I started a new email and voiced my issue.
You can probably sense my frustrations but its important that if you complain you aren’t rude. I tend to allow the person I’m complaining to to set the time-frame and I did this on this email.
Will the CEO Reply?
short answer is ‘no’. In all my time of complaining, I’ve only ever once had a personal reply from the CEO. That was from Virgin Media many years ago. This time I fully expected to have someone ‘working for the CEO Office’ to reply. And within 2 days they did.
What happened Next
I received an email saying I would get a phone call from a particular number. This was a nice touch as it meant I knew to expect the call and I could make sure I answered it. I had a nice chat with a guy called James and he talked me through the process.
Same Old Same Old (not quite)
As James had access to my previous complaints and testing he could bypass some of the standard ‘tests’ required. He did need me to plug my Vodafone router back in for a couple of days, much to my annoyance. A day later James contacted me again, and hit me with something I’d heard before. They would need to send an engineer out to test the line in my flat. this had been done not 2 weeks before and I was annoyed that another engineer would need to be sent out to test and I’d need to be at home for it.
The Rules – You Set Them
I told James I didn’t think this was necessary as I’d had an engineer out already and my line was fine. He explained he couldn’t move on without it as there might be a line fault that the new engineer would find. I pointed out that we’d gone through this on previous tests and there wasn’t an issue. He needed to test. I said it would be a waste of time. We couldn’t move forwards until I agreed to the test however I explained that I’d be REALLY annoyed if the engineer finds there is no issue with my line and I’ve wasted another day waiting at home.
Who Could have Guessed?
The Engineer came and he couldn’t believe it. After testing our line, which was fine, he explained exactly what had happened. Someone at Vodafone had put a line-cap of 6mb on our line! So it was never a physical line issue in our flat and was entirely Vodafones fault. He also said this should have been one of the first things the customer support teams should have checked. In fact, there was no need for him to come out at all, if Vodafone had done their job correctly. What a pain! James was going to get both barrels when we next spoke (not really! Being angry doesn’t help any situation).
An Agreed Solution
I could tell James wasn’t looking forward to our call. He had read the notes and was very sorry that Vodafone had let me down. He said that due to this he would refund me the 3 months my internet speed wasn’t satisfactory and that this was the best they could do. I said, well seeing as I had purchased a replacement router to fix this issue, they could also refund me that cost also. James put me on hold to check whether he could. And it turned out he could. So I ended up with a £140 credit on my account. This was for the months of dreadful speed and the router I purchased. I could have pushed for more, like my time involved but I explained that I’d just prefer to not be ‘out of pocket’ rather than looking to make money. We left on good terms and I was happy to continue using Vodafone for my broadband.
The Reverend’s Final Thought
Customer Service and support shouldn’t be this hard. It costs so much more to get new customers than it does to keep an existing customer so why treat your existing customers so badly to the point they have to email the CEO to get any sort of appropriate support? All this could have been avoided so much earlier if the original customer support agent checked to see whether a limit had been put on the line. There shouldn’t have even been a limit on the line! Why have that possible and have no-one trained to check this?
Anyway…The issue is now resolved. Will I stay with Vodafone when my contract is up? Thats not something I can commit to. I do check around and get the savings I can when contracts are up so I could leave them or I could stay, depending on the offers out there. Don’t automatically stick with your supplier just because it is easier – you could save £100+ and get a joining bonus using TopCashback.