Dan's open letter to Vodafone UK

Earlier, I posted a note pondering whether Vodafone UK have actually implemented a blog relations strategy because a good friend of mine, Dan Sumption, posted an open letter to Vodafone — only to receive a response directly on his blog within 24 hours, pupporting to be from a Vodafone staffer.

I thought I’d record Dan’s letter for posterity below…

Link: Open letter to Vodafone at Life Less Literary

Dan writes…

I am writing to you as somebody who was a Vodafone customer for 9 years, but who has recently switched to O2 to due increasing dissatisfaction with Vodafone. I hope that you will be able to learn from my unhappy experiences, and improve your service to remaining customers.

The final straw which led me to abandon Vodafone was being asked to pay for a new handset which Vodafone offers free to new subscribers, even though it was more than 2 years since my last phone upgrade and 9 months since my fixed monthly contract expired.

I might have been tempted to avoid the hassle of changing operators, had I not just endured the hell of Vodafone’s ‘customer service” line. I assume that you have never used this ‘service”, so allow me to talk you through it.

On calling the ‘customer service” number, the customer is asked to key in their mobile phone number. I can only assume that the person who implemented this procedure has never used a mobile telephone: a mobile telephone is generally a small self-contained unit, with a keypad that is somewhere between the mouthpiece and earpiece. It is usually used by holding the device to the ear. This tends to preclude use of the numeric keypad, except for those lucky few who have fingers growing out of their ears.

Having keyed in one’s telephone number and waited for an indeterminate length of time, one is then put through to an operator. Without fail, this person will then ask the caller to give their mobile telephone number (the same number as was just keyed in using one’s ear-fingers). It is almost inevitable that this person will not be able to assist directly, but will transfer the call to another person, who again requires the caller’s mobile telephone number. Sometimes, before being allowed to speak to this second person, an automated system demands that one first key in one’s mobile telephone number. Often the second person will not be able to deal with the query, and so (after keying in one’s mobile telephone number) the caller will have to tell a third operator what their mobile telephone number is and, hopefully, finally get an answer to their query.

If you ever visit Sheffield, I would like to introduce you to my local minicab office. They have some sort of space-age system in there, I believe it’s called Caller Line Identification or somesuch, which means that as soon as they answer the phone to me they can tell me my telephone number. Talk about rocket science!

Joking aside, a company which claims to be involved in telecoms really ought to have an understanding of CLI. A company that repeatedly asks its customers to first key in and then recite their telephone number is not a telecoms company, it is a fly-by-night cowboy outfit. I would not trust such a company to drive my minicabs, let alone rely on it for my telephony services.

The final reason why I left Vodafone is its clumsy and antidiluvian approach to the Internet. In the days of Vizzavi, Vodafone’s Internet service was a very poorly structured ‘walled garden”. I assumed that things would get better with Vizzavi’s demise, but they got worse and have continued to go downhill from there. I now find it impossible to use ‘Vodafone Live”, as it takes me an eternity to navigate past screens full of adverts for ringtones and downloadable pornography. The whole site screams out that this is a company who lost its shirt gambling on 3G licences, and is trying to recoup its investment by fleecing its customers in any way possible. Even the recent deregulation of Internet services on Vodafone was overshadowed by the ridiculously high data tariffs.

As you can gather, I am no longer a fan of Vodafone. I am sorry to leave a company that I have had a relationship with for 9 years, but I am no longer willing to stick around in the hope that things will one day improve. However, I hope that you will take seriously the comments made in this letter, and that perhaps they will help you to improve the lot of Vodafone’s remaining inmates.

Yours Sincerely,
Dan Sumption

– – – – – – –

So that’s Dan’s letter, right? Well, now the response. This was posted on to his blog within 24 hours of his post going live.

Good morning Dan

I’ve read through the letter that you’ve written and sent to the CEO of Vodafone and I’d like to respond to your comments.

Firstly, I’d like to begin by saying that it’s disappointing to hear that after all the years of being a Vodafone customer; you’ve decided to move to 02. It’s evident that you’ve been truly loyal, and as such, we really should learn from the feedback you’ve been good enough to give us.

With regards to the 1st issue raised about the cost of upgrading your phone, I understand your frustration from how you’ve described your experience.

Firstly, it’s worth pointing out that there are often more lucrative deals offered with new contracts, as this is an incentive to try & gain more customers to the network. As a business this is a reasonable rule to follow.

When an upgrade is worked out for an existing customer, it’s based on numerous things such as the cost of the phone, the length of the new agreement and the new tariff that you’d be going on to. With this in mind, it doesn’t always mean that it will be the same as an offer that could be given on a new connection.

It doesn’t however mean that we don’t value our existing customers and it’s a shame to learn that on this occasion we’ve lost you to another network.

Secondly, moving on the subject of our IVR system, I’d like to agree that your experience of having to repeat your telephone number numerous times and having to be transferred numerous times must be rather annoying.

The system is designed so that when you enter your telephone number into your keypad at the beginning of the call, it works out what customer base you’re on (i.e. pre-pay, business, post-pay), after this, the options on the IVR should route your call through to the correct people to deal with your query. If your call was answered by the wrong agent and had to be transferred, this suggests that the wrong option was selected on the IVR. What we as a company can take from this is the fact that the options may not be clear enough for customers to understand, and to make the correct choice from the stated options.

Finally, with regard to your comment about Vodafone’s Internet Service (Vodafone Live!), your thoughts on this matter have been heard and provide basis for feedback to the project team who deal with all Vodafone Live! issues.

I can reassure you that when your letter to the CEO is received, it will be dealt with by our Customer Relations Team who will address the issues that you’ve raised, but most importantly will use your comments to feedback into the business to improve things for our customer. We have an official feedback mechanism where we identify the route of the problem, and how this affects our customers. We’ve got steps in place to make improvements to the business based on this type of feedback.

Again, I’d like to say that it’s a real shame to lose you as a customer and I wish you all the best for the future.

Amy Rose
Vodafone UK

This sort of personal engagement does wonders for Vodafone’s brand image. Reading Amy’s text, I certainly felt a pull toward Vodafone.

I would drop a note to the Vodafone press office to ask about Amy and to check her validity… but the chances on getting an answer are near… oh ok. Benefit, doubt and so on. Right. I’ll email them and ask if she’s real.