More on Customer Service

I feel that I ought to say thank you to Chris from O2 for taking the time to read and comment on my last post.  It was a more thorough response than I got from Vodafone via Twitter and makes for interesting reading.

Of course, some of the extra touches are nice, but the price differential was just too great for me not to move.  After all, if Vodafone’s deal is just for new customers only I’ve still got two years before I need to worry again, and moving networks these days is a cinch. 

The thing is, however, I had made the reasonable assumption that some things should still be expected, no matter how much (or little) I chose to pay for my phone.  After all, even on RyanAir I’m not sure that passengers pay for a flight to Venice and expect to fly to Oslo a day later instead.  Do they? 

So why did Vodafone not send me the phone when they said that they would? Why did they have the wrong deal on their system when my SIM arrived? 

Also, it’s one thing to get irate with a non-UK call centre when you call them.  In some small way you have chosen to partake in the experience.  But I’ve never had them call me before, at least not in the way that someone from Vodafone called last week.

The day before my phone and SIM arrived, I spoke to an advisor who wanted to check a temporary number whilst my existing number was transferred to O2.  He read out a mobile number, which I wrote down, to check that it was one my dad or I had been sent.  I explained that I hadn’t been sent a SIM yet, and he then expressed concern that the number had not yet been activated.  I suggested that this was because I didn’t have a phone or handset and I was put on hold for a bit.  Then I had to read the number he’d given me back to him, and I was put on hold whilst he tried to find out why the number I had was unlike the one he had on his system. Really.

Eventually I told him that I would wait until I had a phone and SIM and go from there.  To Vodafone’s credit, the phone arrived first thing the next morning and the number transfer from O2 had happened without a glitch.

There have still been some questions about the price-plan, which I am not fully able to sort myself given the nature of the family/friends deal.  But I am a) delighted with my phone and b) on track to be paying less than half of what O2 wanted.  So maybe all is going to end well after all.