Many thanks for your response. I do understand why businesses sometimes offer cheaper deals to new customers, but you must also understand how this makes existing customers feel. It is, no doubt, still better financially for you to continue to treat new customers better than existing ones, because very few existing customers will take the trouble to quit. It was partly for this reason that I thought it was my duty to make the effort, and to make it clear to Vodafone why I had made that effort.

It also didn’t help that, when I was enquiring about new phone options, I ended up asking the operator “so, am I right in thinking that the only way I can get this handset for free is by switching to another mobile operator” and he replied “that’s right”. Under the circumstances you can hardly blame me for following his instructions, even though I was subsequently offered the handset for free by Vodafone.

Thank you also for your description of the IVR system - this does go some way towards explaining it, although it’s still a ridiculous system. The O2 system is also far from perfect, but at least once I have keyed in my phone number I never have to repeat it to an operator. I believe there are also in existence voice-operated systems which should make it unnecessary to key in any numbers (keying in numbers during a call is even harder with some of the modern generation of mobile phones, which use virtual on-screen keypads that are sometimes replaced by a different screen or screensaver during the course of a conversation).

I can absolutely assure you and Vodaboy that I do usually end up speaking to more than one operator when I call customer services. This is not because I “don’t pay too much attention to detail” (in fact, quite the opposite I fear), or because I press the wrong numbers. Neither is it unique to Vodafone - in my (all too detailed) experience, customer-service-by-numbers very rarely takes into account the fact that human beings are complex beasts, and their needs can seldom be categorised into a simple “1, 2 or 3″.

Turning to Vodaboy: why do you assume that I would make things up and lie? As I said, I have been with Vodafone for nine years. You are still only a boy, and cannot fully appreciate the wealth of both good and bad experience I have had in dealing with Vodafone. I am sure that, as you say, my experience does not describe “business as usual”, but I have found that business is usually anything but usual. I estimate that in about 50% of my calls to Vodafone customer services I had to speak to two different people, in about 20% I spoke to 3, and on one occasion I spoke to 4 (admittedly, this was a cock-up by Vodafone because I had been transferred back to the beginning of their automated system). This is based on calling customer services an average of about once every six months over the last 9 years.

Your description of Vodafone Live is a lie (oops, sorry, I mean an inaccuracy - little slip-up in my attention to detail there). It only takes one click for me to get to Vodafone live. However, my issue is not how many clicks it takes me to get there, rather how long it takes me to find the content I am looking for once I am there. There was a time when I could occasionally find local maps and businesses using Vizzavi. My most recent experience of Vodafone Live (2 months ago) is that one now has to pay for these services, and they are not easy to find because the raison d’etre of the service now seems to be to make money through selling pornography, while any potentially useful links are hidden away at the bottom of the page.

(Perhaps ironically, I knew somebody fairly senior within Vizzavi when the service was first launched and, having seen how shoddy the system was, I offered my services as a usability consultant. Unfortunately, this did not fall within his remit and it seems Vizzavi were not interested in usability, and Vodafone still are not).

Also innaccurate is your description of O2 not matching Vodafone’s Internet service. On my O2 phone I have exactly what I want: unlimited and genuinely useful access to the Internet (the real Internet) without having to first fight my way through an operator’s vision of what the Internet ought to be like.

No, I didn’t do much shopping around for data tariffs. That doesn’t change the fact that they are ridiculously high. So what if all operators have ridiculously high data tariffs? Occasionally I would like Vodafone to confound my expectations!

Finally, I find that it is you who do not seem to pay much attention to details. There are many points to constructing a letter like this, posting it to the CEO’s office at Vodafone, and then also putting it on the Internet. I leave it to you to work out what they may be, but perhaps you could explain to me the point in “defending” a service (one which I am already less than pleased with) by calling me a liar and a fool?

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