08-31-08

Vodafone *is* listening

Really chuffed today as Gemma (aka Gembo!) from Vodafone has responded to my previous lengthy rant/post about the recent crappy experience I’d had with Vodafone concerning using mobile broadbrand abroad.

She responded in the comments direct and emailed me too and to make sure that everyone who received the original via RSS gets to read what she says I’ve decided to do a fresh post, as well as linking to this in the next comment on the original post. Also, from my point of view, it really has highlighted the need for PR, customer services and other areas of the business involved in a brand’s online presence to be fully integrated and in sync. To be honest I thought I might get an email back from Vodafone’s UK PR agency, not from a forum host at Vodafone itself.

Anyway, here’s how Gemma started her response – which immediately put me at ease and made me feel like I was dealing with a human being:

WOW, what an experience you had there! Firstly I’m glad it’s all sorted out and that you haven’t had to pay that humongous bill.

Secondly I would like to show that Vodafone are listening and address the points you’ve made:

And here’s what she said: (to make things easier to follow, I’ve copied across the original bits of feedback I gave at the end of my post, Gemma’s response underneath point by point and a thought from me under that)

1. Sort out your website so the charges are made explicitly clear for using mobile broadband abroad and what the process is for doing so.

I will defiantly be feeding this back to our online team. I agree with you it’s imperative that our website makes things clear and easy to understand. We are currently in the process of upgrading our online help centre so this is the perfect time for me to give this kind of feedback.

Cool – hopefully you’re asking a lot more people outside the business for feedback too.

2. Make your charges as low as possible. We know you can do it. So do it, before another network beats you to it.

We regularly review our price plans and our call charges. These have recently undergone a big improvement which I see you’re already taking advantage of, £15 for 3GB. I assume here you are talking about our roaming charges for data? We do offer these as low as we can, what we all have to bare in mind here is that Vodafone pay the network you connect to abroad for any usage whilst you are there, we then pass this charge on to our customer. Let’s also remember that we are a business and will add a profit onto these charges. That said I will again feedback you comments and who knows it may just make the difference.

Thanks and yep, understand you’re a business and need to make money – it just seems like there’s a real opportunity there for someone to make the first move and get things sorted. Individually networks in local countries do great deals for people on data – it just feels to me like there’s a real need for collaboration across the borders to get the price down low. 10 years down the line we’ll look back and think how silly all this roaming stuff is I think.

3. Improve your Mac dongle software. There are loads of us using Macs these days. Including a disproportionate number of bloggers and journalists.

We fully understand that a lot of our Mobile Broadband users are MAC users. We do everything we can to support you and if you pop onto our own eForum (http://forum.vodafone.co.uk) you will find additional support, (one of our eForum hosts is a MAC expert!) And yet again I will be feeding this back into the right area of the business.

Thanks for the pointer – I’ve taken a quick look and it looks like it could be helpful. Why didn’t I know about it? Might be an idea to stick a link to it here at the contact us page, as well as on the help page and other places on the site.

You don’t do everything you can though as a business – otherwise the Vodafone site would be fully accessible using Safari, the Mobile Connect software would have exactly the same features on both PC and Mac and things like the problems with Leopard and the application hanging (a problem experienced by myself right now – so this link has been really useful) would have been sorted out much more quickly.

4. Think about using Google maps to showcase network coverage in different countries more effectively. I knew exactly where the villa was I was staying, down to the postcode. Your maps don’t work on a Mac.

I like this idea, a change like this is well out of my scope but I will do some digging to see how feasible this would be and find the right person/people to pass this idea onto.

Great – I’m sure it would work a treat if done right.

5. Use email signatures! Include useful links – I might even think about buying something from you or using one of your services when abroad

Our email customer services team use great signatures, that explain who they are and where they are from (department wise) and they also provide great links to various things, like surveys on our service, latest products, our eForum etc. I think the problem you had was that you had been speaking to a telephone based customer service agent and they aren’t trained or developed in sending emails. They were in effect doing something outside their job role, they probably chose to be a telephone agent for the very reason that they struggle with spelling, typing etc. Regardless of this fact if an agent is offering to provide details of a call by email or letter it should be of a professional yet friendly style. If you would like us to address this with the individual agents then please contact us and we can do so. (To contact us please fill in the required section on our contact us form and in put the code FIT135 in the body of the email, this way it will come through to the eForum Team.)

Both the agents I dealt with were friendly and I think did their job well – up until the point of sending their emails. I didn’t want to email as I had multiple questions and wanted an immediate solution as I was traveling the next day. I’m sure had I done it on email, then I would have had a second set of questions based on the first response, which means more time to arrive at a solution and more typing from me. Plus the original email would have been fairly lengthy I imagine. I understand what you’re saying about people being good on the phone but not so good on email – but I still think that a basic level of quality and the inclusion of signatures etc needs to be implemented. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say I want to initiate a customer service experience with a phonecall and back it up with an email. Also – if I do email – I don’t want to use a browser based form. I’d like to use my own email app (mobile/desktop) just in case something crashes.

6. Be human. In both cases the call centre staff were really friendly, this didn’t come across in the emails. Also – apologise if you screw up. The fact I was told that it was a gesture of goodwill really wound me up. Let people in call centres use their names.

Our call centre agents are allowed to be themselves and it is fact encouraged. We want the contact you have with Vodafone to be a relaxed and friendly one. Again this is another issue I will report back on. I would like to say a big “SORRY” to you at this point for the screw up. I know it may not mean as much as it was prompted but I promise you I mean it. J

I appreciate that. And believe you. As I said, both agents were really friendly and human – the lady I spoke to about the billing error just chose the wrong phrase in the situation and I think this was prompted by a manager she spoke (at length) to. She then unfortunately further annoyed me with the email.

7. Train your staff how to use email and don’t be afraid to use it. Most people want confirmation that isn’t sat on your system and it represents a great chance for engagement with customers.

I agree with you here, I like to have confirmation by email. What I would say is that if you do prefer to have contacts in writing then you are probably best suited to our email contact centre. (Use link above for this.)

See above. I think if you asked, there’s a lot of people like me that like to speak to a person to get an issue resolved immediately, then want confirmation of information given on email as a back up.

8. Just like the banks do – don’t let huge abnormal bills run up on people’s accounts. Call them (or email them!) to ask them if everything is OK before those thousand odd pound bills happen and you create unhappy people like me.

We already have a system in place that prevents high bills from occurring. Clearly in your case this didn’t work. We have a department call “Credit Alerts”, their job it to monitor account usage compared to past usage and alert customers, by call, text or voicemail when the usage is unusual. If we don’t get confirmation from the customer a restriction is placed to prevent further charges being run up. At times a part payment towards the bill can be requested to reduce the charges back to a more reasonable rate. This service is supplementary and is not guaranteed to prevent high usage. Networks have a delay of up to 72 hours in the UK and as much as 3 months when outside of the UK, this means that we may not receive the call data in time to warn you.

Fair enough. It didn’t work this time. Next time it might I guess, if you fix the system and make it better.

9. Train more of your staff on mobile broadband/data. Or have a crack team that all calls get passed over to, if so make that team big enough for the number of people now using it.

This is already in place, our staff are undergoing further training on all of our data products and we will continually review and develop knowledge in this area. We also have what we call “product wizards” who know everything there is to know about a particular product/service and are on hand at all time to supports our agents.

Great. Everyone should be a product wizard really if they are in customer service for a product, right?

10. Listen, using social media and simple things like Google Alerts. We’ll see whether or not I’m right on that one. Over to you, Vodafone.

Nice suggestion and again something that is already in place, my team search through Google alerts, online forums and our own eForum to provide help and support through social media channels. I hope you agree with me when I say we’re doing a fantastic job.

That’s great that you do so – evidenced by your response I guess. I really appreciate the fact that you’ve responded to my post and as such feel a lot warmer to Vodafone now. You’ve put a human face on things and made me feel like my whinge was just a little bit worthwhile. Beyond Google alerts and monitoring forums – have you tried stuff like Twitter Search? (check out this global search of “hate vodafone“, this one one for all mentions of “vodafone” within 100 miles of London or this one for all negative mentions of “Vodafone” within 100 miles of London complete with a sad face!)

Also – if you can, try and respond to something as soon as you see it. We’re on Sunday now and I posted on Tuesday – that’s a lot of time in web time. To a highly cynical person like me – it makes me think either someone has emailed the link to you by stumbling across it, you’ve had to spend ages crafting a response and get it signed off and approved by a gazillion people (which strips the ‘human’ out of it a bit) or that you’re dealing with such a volume of complaints and other issues like this that you’ve only just got round to dealing with me. All bad things that are avoidable with a slightly quicker response.

Responding early and getting into the conversation as it is happening also means that you get to have your say while people are listening. I’ve posted since and the only way people would see your response if I hadn’t done this post is if they stumbled on the post via Google, if they subscribed to the feed for the comments on the original post or remembered to come back and check to see if Vodafone had responded.

All the above aside, I want to thank Gemma for spending the time to respond to me in such detail. I’m a decent human being (I hope) and am up for things being constructive – so I’m really glad that I heard back from Vodafone and that someone so ‘human’ got back to me. A great example of how to engage with people online I reckon.

08-26-08

Using Vodafone 3G mobile broadband abroad? My £2,579 experience

Over the last few weeks I’ve been away a fair bit and because I run my own web-based business (Shed) I need to have fast, reliable broadband whilst I’m away. At the beginning of the year I went back to Vodafone (after leaving for T-Mobile a few years back after getting sick of the often unpredictable and always high monthly charges) and signed up for a 12-month mobile broadband contract at £15 a month for 3 gigabytes of data.

Before I left I checked in on the Vodafone website to see what the costs of using the dongle abroad (in Portugal as it happens) would be and much o my frustration, it wasn’t really clear. There was (and still is) also much talk of these costs coming right down for roaming data charges so I thought I’d call Vodafone customer services to make sure everything was 100% crystal clear and I was set up to pay the least amount possible.

After lots of discussion on the phone (there were lots of pauses and moments of uncertainty left, right and centre about mobile broadband in the UK, let alone using it abroad) I established that the best thing for me to do is as follows:

1. Change my contract temporarily for an extra £10
2. Pay £10 (£8.50 + VAT) for every 24 hours of use
3. Don’t go over 50MB in that 24 hour period

But – that came with the big caveat – you have to make sure that you are using the Vodafone Portugal network otherwise you will be charged at £10.28 per MB! Now I’m using the dongle on a Mac and somewhat predictably the software that comes with the dongle in a bit flakey – meaning that to access my modem I click on the app icon a few times, watch it bounce but not open, then open the network connection via network preferences. So, a question: “How am I supposed to know what network the dongle is connecting to?” Answer – “Take the sim out your dongle and put it in a mobile phone to see what network it connects to”. Response: “But, I am on T-Mobile and my phone is locked so I can’t check”. Answer ” Call T-Mobile and ask them for an unlock code”. Fail. In the end I used my wife’s phone (she’s on Vodafone) to check when I was out there.

Just to cover my back, because I’ve seen loads of issues with data before (including Ian’s CPW debacle), I asked for a confirmation email from Vodafone and this is what I received.

From: Customerservice@vodafone.co.uk
Date: 1 August 2008 10:45:14 BST
To: hopkins.jonathan@gmail.com
Subject: Vodafone Customer Services

on preferred network, vodafone potugal telecel the charges for using your mobile bb abroad is 9.99 p 24hrs as ive changed your pp to mobile bb roaming @ 30 p m. if you wander onto a different network the charges will be 10.28 p mb from vodafone

Yes, that’s official communication from Vodafone to its customers. No Dear Jonathan, Dear Sir, Dear customer. No email signature. No helpful links. No ‘have a great holiday’. Just the words. The absolute bare minimum number of keystrokes. And to make matters worse, despite trying to get off the line, I had to sit and listen to it being typed.

Anyway, appalling email aside, I get to Portugal, check that the network is Vodafone Portugal and fire up the dongle. Nothing. Absolutely nada. So, I call up Vodafone and because I recently changed contracts, a bar has been put back on my contract preventing me from using it abroad. Doh. I called to change contracts to a roaming one and they put a bar on. Ok, onwards and upwards, the bar gets removed and everything works fine. So, I use my mobile broadband and feel all good about mobile broadband again and the fact I can sit in the mountains of Portugal by the pool and do all my favourite web stuff.

Then, I get home. Everything is still working fine until yesterday my dongle stopped working. It wouldn’t connect to a carrier and I called Vodafone. After a big long winded explanation about the problem, I found out that my account was suspended and the person on the other end of the phone went a bit quiet. She said she needed to check something and need to put me on hold. So, there I am on hold for what seems like an eternity, I actually started to wonder if she’s hung up on me but then she came on the line and said very sheepishly “I’m sorry to have to tell you this but your current bill stands at £2579.77″. Yes, that’s right. I owed Vodafone over two and a half thousand pounds. It was surreal.

I then obviously outlined the whole situation and explained I’d done absolutely everything as instructed and she disappeared again. More hold music. More waiting. She then comes back on the line and tells me that ‘as a goodwill gesture’ Vodafone is crediting my account and reducing the bill down to £45.44. I then ask for an email to confirm everything discussed on the phone, partly for peace of mind and also to see if it’s from the same mickey mouse school of email that the last one came from.

Which it was:

From: Customerservice@vodafone.co.uk
Date: 25 August 2008 20:40:14 BST
To: hopkins.jonathan@gmail.com
Subject: Vodafone Customer Services

Dear MR Hopkins This is a confirmation email reg what we have disscuessd on your call earlyer to vodafone. there were charges accourde on ur broadband usage while you were roaming in Portugal. The charges where 257.977 but then that have been reversed and 2434.88 has been taken from that bill. the out standing balance now is only 45.44 and your price plan has been changed back to mobile broadband 3GB 12 month contact for 15. Thanx Vodafone

This time at least I got a ‘Dear MR Hopkins’, some more punctuation and a ‘Thanx Vodafone.’ But still no signature, horrendous typos and a glaring error on the first amount. Just for clarification, that figure was £2579.77.

THe reason Vodafone gave for the error was that the network in Portugal had charged them for the data and they had passed that charge directly onto me. Or something like that. Once I had confirmation that the charges were to be dropped, I wasn’t that interested. Vodafone screwed up, they didn’t even really apologise for doing so and to make matters worse, if my two emails are anything to go by they’re communicating with their customers really badly.

So, Vodafone, if you’re listening, here’s some feedback:

1. Sort out your website so the charges are made explicitly clear for using mobile broadband abroad and what the process is for doing so.
2. Make your charges as low as possible. We know you can do it. So do it, before another network beats you to it.
3. Improve your Mac dongle software. There are loads of us using Macs these days. Including a disproportionate number of bloggers and journalists.
4. Think about using Google maps to showcase network coverage in different countries more effectively. I knew exactly where the villa was I was staying, down to the postcode. Your maps don’t work on a Mac.
5. Use email signatures! Include useful links – I might even think about buying something from you or using one of your services when abroad
6. Be human. In both cases the call centre staff were really friendly, this didn’t come across in the emails. Also – apologise if you screw up. The fact I was told that it was a gesture of goodwill really wound me up. Let people in call centres use their names.
7. Train your staff how to use email and don’t be afraid to use it. Most people want confirmation that isn’t sat on your system and it represents a great chance for engagement with customers.
8. Just like the banks do – don’t let huge abnormal bills run up on people’s accounts. Call them (or email them!) to ask them if everything is OK before those thousand odd pound bills happen and you create unhappy people like me.
9. Train more of your staff on mobile broadband/data. Or have a crack team that all calls get passed over to, if so make that team big enough for the number of people now using it.
10. Listen, using social media and simple things like Google Alerts. We’ll see whether or not I’m right on that one. Over to you, Vodafone.

08-18-08

Qik Football Reports

Just seen this via the Journalism.co.uk blog – the Express & Star using Qik for post-match video summaries from their reporters at the match.

Done just after the final whistle, still with lots of stuff going on in the background, I love seeing free web tools used in a wider variety of applications like this. The gap between consumers and producers really is getting pretty tight now (actually it’s pretty non existent in some places) and the use of Qik here makes perfect sense – to get video reports that capture the atmosphere of the match out super quick as possible for next to nothing. Bring it on.

Oh and while we’re at it, Qik (now with iPhone 3G support)should talk to SpinVox (now with social networks support) and enable on-the-fly video transcripts to be converted and posted alongside videos. That way, it’s text and video heaven, complete with SEO loveliness and the potential for comments, quoting, jump links to different video sections and all sorts of other nice open access stuff and maybe even the dirty word – ads.

06-26-08

Chrysler Car Clouds?

I saw this headline, got VERY excited, then clicked on it and was only a little bit excited. You see, I immediately jumped into thinking that all you’d have to do in the near future is make sure you’re near a Chrysler car to be sure of getting a WiFi connection. And not just your own car as it turns out to be – I mean any car. Surely this could be an option though, as a kind of mobile version of Fon using cars to share their WiFi connections?

Anyway, as ever, the future looks pretty cool but one full of questions that are often unanswered. Personally, I just want to pay one amount of money for my data stream and then be free to connect whatever I like to it and use it how I like. Not pay separately for everything and be told how to use it.

More here at USA Today.

03-23-08

La Times on Lifecasting/Qik

The LA Times reports on lifecasting and Qik.com, the software I got all excited about earlier this week when a live video stunt took place in Norway using Qik.

Jason Calcanis is interviewed in the piece and besides calling himself a “nerd who builds websites” he predicts that “The worst moment in almost everybody’s life is going to be captured on film”.

That’s lifecasting for you.

03-19-08

Behave yourself: Guitar Hero on the DS?!

There’s something a bit odd about this (just check out the video, me thinks they look a bit silly) – but, I just can’t resist even more music and DS action. This time Guitar Hero makes it’s debut on the DS using a nifty little plug-in-device-type-key-thingy. Looks a bit clunky if you ask me, but then again, I guess it means you can rock out anywhere. I think I’d be too conscious of looking like a bit of a tit with that thing plugged in. With something like Electroplankton or the Korg DS 10 (covered before) at least you can go a bit covert. Hmmmm, see how it goes – it’s out later this year. Video below of it in action.

03-19-08

Qik – live video stunt

Right now (and I mean as I type) there are some guys in Norway spraying the Qik logo on a wall and broadcasting it via a mobile phone using Qik. People are watching as they “talk” to the Norwegian police and generally have a laugh doing something very cool using mobile technology. They’re also using their laptops connected via 3G to keep a check on comments and also engage with people further. Paul Walsh even got them to spray segala.com on the wall too. (Nice hijacking there for him). Live and engaging guerilla activity for a brand. It’s the way forward.

PS I asked for a smiley face too and by the sounds of it, they’re about to do one (will update if it happens).

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