Vodafone welcomes ‘Reconnecting the Customer’ report

Sept. 18, 2011 - PRLog -- “We’re working hard to improve the clarity of all pricing and pre-sales information and continuing to pay very close attention to our customers’ experience of our network, our service, and our products,’” said Cormac Hodgkinson, Director Customer Service and Experience at Vodafone.

“We’re building a new, better, faster, stronger network, we’ve created plans that can be easily understood, we’re developing tools that give customers the power to keep track of their mobile spend, and we’re offering more flexible customer service capabilities. In fact, we’ve been reviewing every aspect of our service and have already implemented some big changes,” explained Hodgkinson.

“There is more to do, and we look forward to working with the ACMA to review their recommendations and implement further positive improvements to our service,” he said. “We will also continue to work closely with the ACMA and the Communications Alliance to improve customer regulation through measures such as the Telecommunications Consumer Protection Code.”

Some of Vodafone’s most recent changes and improvements include:

Making plans easier to understand

• We are seeking to strike the right balance between giving our customers a good selection of plans that allow them to choose the right plan for their needs, while not putting so many variations of plans into the market that it make the decision-making process confusing
• Vodafone’s Infinite plans are based on a flat rate that gives post-paid customers infinite standard national calls, infinite texts to personal mobiles here and to overseas, and unlimited social networking on a range of sites so they don't need to curb the time spent talking, count the
number of SMS they send, or worry about how much time they spend on Twitter or Facebook.
• Vodafone’s All-time plans offer similar options to our pre-paid customers.

Simplified billing & tools to reduce possible bill shock

• Customers can monitor their spending on their handset or online with My Vodafone. It’s a free service that gives customers access to balance and usage details and how much they have left to use in their allowance for the month.
• Customers can call, or send a blank text to 1512 to retrieve their balance.
• Customers can set an SMS spend alert service to let them know when they have reached a specified spend threshold.
• We also Rate Plan Health Check customers who look like they may be on the wrong plan based on their usage habits – and changing plans is free.

Improving customer service

• Vodafone recognises that customers want to get in touch with us easily, when they want and how they want.
• We recognise that customers want to contact us in a range of different ways: in our stores, by phone, online and through our social media channels. We have made some big improvements to be more open across all of these channels, and have additionally extended our Twitter and Facebook customer support hours to 8am until midnight (AEST), weekdays.
• An additional 300 staff were added to our contact centres earlier this year to reduce customer service wait time and expedite the resolution of complaints.
• When it’s busy, customers can opt to get a call back instead of waiting on hold. Soon customers will be able to book a time online, specifying when they want to be called.
• We’ve empowered our customer-facing staff to resolve customer concerns without having to refer it to other parts of our business.
• We’ve introduced a new Vodafone Community for customers to connect and share information and hear the latest from us (community.vodafone.com.au)

Building a better, faster, stronger network
• Earlier this year, we announced a $1 billion program to improve the capacity and capability of our network. The program includes:
• Upgrading the current Vodafone 3G network to deliver better call quality and faster data speeds
• Building a new 850MHz network to improve performance for smartphones and mobile broadband devices.
• Adding 500 new network sites to improve signal strength and coverage.
• Replacing equipment across our radio network with the latest kit, 4G ready.
• More detail about network improvements at the postcode level for our customers.