I guess I should start at the beginning.
I recently moved to the Auckland area after many happy years in Wellington. After years of good experiences using Vodafone as my mobile provider and Teltraclear as my internet provider when Vodafone gobbled up Teltraclear I stuck with them.
Then I needed to setup a new account at our new house in Auckland.
And it started.
Firstly I rang, spoke to a lovely lady whom signed me up for unlimited broadband and their vodafone tv services. This was months before we were to move in as I wanted to book the technician whom was coming to install the services well in advance as we had 6days to move in and unpack before we needed to be back at work.
Should be simple? right? I gave them plenty of notice and a 6day window to complete the work.
She confirmed the date shouldn't be a problem and it was all signed up and booked in.
Well first hint of a problem came a few days before we were to move in.
I received a email saying that I already should have received a package and that installation was booked 2 weeks after the date we agreed.
This was weird as I had explicitly explained the date we moved in therefore couriering stuff to a house we didn't own or live in seemed silly.
After sometime on hold I wasn't now able to speak with the nice lady whom I signed up with, no I needed to be transferred to the maintenance team based out of the Philippines.
Now I'm not a racist person, but I couldn't understand anything this lady was saying. She just kept repeating herself. After spending sometime getting absolutely no-where I hung up and rang back to speak to someone else. Clearly someone had changed our booked technician and my diligent forward planning had gone to naught.
Again I wasn't able to speak with anyone I could understand to where I told them to cancel everything, if Vodafone wasn't going to live upto their promises before I had even signed up what was the point.
Looking back I really should have just called Telecom.
A quick call to sky had sky installed and running the next day. Brilliant service from skytv. At least we had TV.
A few days later I was called out of the blue by the Vodafone complaints team based in NZ. Whilst we weren't able to get the original day agreed to install, he did offer to provide us mobile data card for the 2 weeks until the technician was able to come. I had to take another precious day off work but it was booked in we would be back online soon.
fine.
Installation happened 2 weeks late, but we were away.
Due to the problems with setting up the complaints team offered to cover our first months bill.
Nice touch as I didn't get a chance to take them up on the datacard offer.
Well this sounded good until I got the first bill. Another 20mins on hold to speak to someone to explain this should have been waved. It still wasn't. I had to speak to someone else. I believe I spoke to 4 vodafone staff members none had any idea what I was talking about. I was forced to dig up the email to the complaints team got this sorted. Eventually they emailed me back, apologizing explaining the mix up and confirming everything was sorted as promised.
Then another bill came. This was for again, broadband for the same period as well as vodafone tv services that we never had. Seems they never cancelled the initial sale, of course why would they. I was now in their system twice with two customer numbers getting double billed for the same service I later found out.
After several calls to Vodafone to explain this where no one was able to help me I had to email another complaint to the complaints team before I got the appropriate response that they had closed the other customer number and I wasn't liable for the second billing.
This has to be the end I thought.
No. Not even fruggin close.
Next was setting up my vodafone profile and billing.
I wanted to setup a direct debit for the vodafone bills, to do this I had to fill out another form and return it. That's ok. Except it seems to never have been actioned. 4 times I've called to check this had been completed. 4 times I was assured it was setup.
3 times I had to call to setup the vodafone profile as the password that was given wasn't then accepted by the website to change the password, even tho the site prefilled it automatically and accepted it to get to the change password page.
Then I couldn't setup my wife on the account as it rejected her landline number as being invalid. It wasn't I've called her on it. I don't know why you want her landline number in the first place if you then reject it.
Even changing my bill to online from paper statements took 3 phone calls as the website wouldn't allow me to do it. Again 3 staff told me they had changed that to online. Yet still the statements hit my mailbox. I was still charged for the pleasure.
I honestly was thinking for awhile there that their staff were just sitting there on facebook chatting to their friends. Never actioning anything customers request.
Never once had I had my request completed in the first call. Everything takes several calls and alot of time onhold.
Then at the worst possible moment, out internet went down. Right when we had 15 family staying for a funeral.
Now the modem dying isn't Vodafone's fault. Nor was the unfortunate timing needing the internet to make funeral arrangements.
But i've never experienced such poor service from anywhere, even 3rd world governments get things done more efficiently.
Calling for technical assistance was a farce, so I reset the modem to see if that resolved. Then it wouldn't allow me to connect without an update file from Vodafone. I was stuck.
No working modem, no way to speak to anyone at vodafone.
Over 4 days I rang 8 times. 4 times I waited on hold over 40mins to just be disconnected.
Twice I used the callback service for it to call me back and hang up on me. Seriously.
I tried to email the complaints team but that page woudn't load on my phone.
The only way to contact Vodafone was to call the sales line and refuse to be transferred, because if you agreed to that you get transferred to a number that just rings for 30mins before cutting you off.
Eventually on the 4th day my wife tweeted vodafone. Action. Social media contact resulted in a new modem sent out. Another half day waiting by the phone I was able to speak to a technical consultant and we got out internet back. I estimated I was on hold nearly 7 hours to their technical team over the 4 days for what eventually took less than 10mins setup.
Along this journey I was advised they were experiencing telephony system problems and we chronically understaffed in the technical support department.
NO KIDDING VODAFONE.
Your customer service centre is incompetent, in the best description yet you make your customers wait hours on hold calling over and over to speak with them.
Today. I get a automated call from Vodafone. My bill hasn't been paid. The direct debit that I was assured was setup, after calling 4 times. hasn't been.
25mins on hold to vodafone, the lady that answers can't help me, of course she can't. It's a billing inquiry and she's on the billing inquiry line. What was I thinking.
But, she will email a colleague to call me back.
I'm not holding my breath.
Why don't you complain I hear you say? well I have. I recon I've lodged at least 4 complaints about the service. One I just chronicled my ordeal to them for their own information.
If this wasn't getting so ridiculous I probably would have had a breakdown by now. I've been onhold for so long I can now list all the songs on the vodafone hold music play list and actually get pretty accurate at picking which ones next.
Hence I think it's healthy for my personal sanity to chronicle my experience as a valued vodafone new zealand customer.
I await on some form of response from vodafone.....I got nothing from them for 4days when my service was down. Lets see how long it takes them to get back to me when my bill hasn't been paid.
