Vodafone deserves to be recognised at the National Customer Services Awards
The National Customer Service Awards are coming up shortly. I overheard one of the Vodafone team mentioning this when I was with them a while ago and I asked them if I could send them a quote to go with their entry. I’ve been thoroughly, thoroughly impressed with the way Vodafone have implemented their Forum Intervention Team both here at SMS Text News, at their own forum, on blogs of our contributors and readers and beyond.
Whilst Vodafone are trailblazing and leading the way, more companies must adopt these new mediums collectively known as ‘social media’ — blogs, forums, social media networks, the whole shebang.
I’m oft critical of Vodafone where I reckon there’s an issue (for instance, my brother was staggered and annoyed to find out the hundreds of minutes he was using up in the States this weekend were actually 120p+ per minute and not covered by Vodafone Passport.. his error, but he’d been led to believe this by the Voda advertising). However when it comes to both proactive and reactive management of blog and forum posts, Vodafone’s Forum Intervention Team are the best I’ve seen.
I hope they win the category and show the wider industry the way ahead. Here’s what I wrote for the submission and I hope the organisers of the Customer Service Awards are reading.
Vodafone has consistently astounded us over the past year with forum intervention team. I and the SMS Text News audience are accustomed to tales of woe when it comes to mobile operators who simply aren’t listening — but when it comes to Vodafone, their new strategy of engaging with their customers (and potential customers) on a wide range of platforms, forums, blogs, social networking sites — it’s nothing short of fantastic. To see just how useful this is, pop on to the Vodafone Forum — you’ll find it filled with hints, tips and complaints, as one might expect. Notice that each complaint, no matter how small, trivial (or, frankly, how irrelevant and unrelated to Vodafone) they are, there’s a response from a Vodafone staffer posted promptly, continually demonstrating that the Vodafone team is listening.
The forum intervention team, led by Amy, ferociously devours commentary, opinion and complaints from all sources (not just their own forum) before rigorously replying with a comprehensive zeal that I’ve never witnessed before from an operator. They’re not just fixing problems that inevitably fall through the cracks when you’re dealing with millions of customers, they’re actually getting out there, interacting with their customers and — crucially — passing their learning (both positive and negative) straight back into the company which is resulting in real change.
An example, perhaps?
At 2am one Friday, we published a story about one of our contributors losing his Vodafone handset and encountering a bit of resistance with Vodafone’s third-party handset insurer. By 3am the story had been picked up by the American blogs (who were still awake) and by 9am, our 250,000 strong audience was waking up to a familiar ‘my handset is broken, but they won’t replace it’ story. At 915am, James Whatley, the contributor, got a call from Amy of Vodafone. She apologised, asked for specifics on his experience and passed that back to the team who looks after Vodafone Insurance. By 1pm, James had a new Nokia N95 8GB in his hand so by the end of the day. Phenomenal service.
I’m willing to bet that no other entrant at the Customer Service awards has deployed their team in such a configuration, covering not just blogs, a myriad of social networking sites and their own live online forum, in the manner that Vodafone has done. They should be applauded, congratulated and, more importantly, their efforts should be highlighted to the wider business community to demonstrate just how companies should handle their customer service. For too long, customer service has been the domain of an under-valued and under-resourced team, struggling for relevance in an ambivalent organisation that views their existence as a necessary legal and comparatively useless evil. No more, please. Customer service shouldn’t be restricted to post and an 0800 complaints line. Customers exist in a multitude of online locations and have highly valuable, constructive feedback to deliver — if only companies would seek it, just as Vodafone have done — and proven.
Top work Vodafone.
