Hi,
Please reach through this account patiently. It is a long one but demonstrates the complete incompetence of your customer service organization.
I have been having issues with my internet for the past few months across bangalore. Either i get no internet, or if i do, it is a few kb at a times and then nothing. The situation is so bad that i an unable to book cabs, complete payments etc. Expecting to access youtube or. Facebook or download anything over the vodafone internet – is something i have forgotten to expect out of my internet connection. I am supposed to have a $g add on pack with 2gb download limit. For the past few months my internet connectivity has been so poor that i haven’t used more than 10-20% of this limit.
This is a basic summary of the problem i have been facing.
On 4th july, i lodged a complaint[protected] and told the associate that i was having this problem and gave him the details he requested, which included locations where i was having this issue and other information he sought. I was told my issue would be resolved in 48 hours. On 7th july, around afternoon, i made a follow-up call for resolution and was told that a member of the “technical team†would be calling me. I needed the internet since i was traveling to mumbai, i mentioned clearly that i would be traveling to mumbai and would not be accessible between 7-11 pm. The person told me i would receive a call before 7pm to resolve the problem. I did not get a call and as i learnt later on, my complaint was resolved because the technical team called me on 7th and i was not available. It seems this call was made during the time i was flying. Naturally, i could not have received this call. What surprised and upset me that the complaint was resolved without solving for the issue.
I gave a good 3-4 weeks hoping for a resolution call. But none came.
On 31st july, i made a repeat complaint –[protected] – and was very angry to find out that my previous complaint had been resolved without a call back. When she told me that i had been called on the evening of 7th july (When i was supposed to be in flight) i told her that i had specifically informed your associate about this and he did not pass on this info to the technical team which also irresponsibly closed the complaint to meet their sla. She provided me with this email id and opened the new complaint. Someone from the technical team called me and told me a bunch of steps which involved selection of lte and restarting my phone. The steps did not help resolve my problem. I asked for instructions to be sent to me over email. I was told that is not an option. I was in a hurry and asked the person to call me after 2:30 since i had stepped out of a meeting to attend to this call. The person never called back.
On 1st august, i called again to check why it is so difficult to send me instructions over email or call me back at the requested time. I was told something to the effect of the technical team being available at certain times only. I said fine, forward to technical team now. They said no one is available. I asked for the status of my 31st july complaint, i was told it is resolved. I said why was it resolved without solving my problem, they said we called you. I said the solution did not work and the repeat call never came? After a lot o[censored]nnecessary yelling on my part, i was forwarded to a technical team person (I don’t know how one was made available when earlier in the call i was told no one was). By this time, i had completely lost my cool and i had a feeling that i was being harassed and degraded because i was not available at the beck and call of your tech team. I am busy at work most of the day and my requests for resolution steps over email were being shot down consistently with a “we don’t have that optionâ€. The few steps which were being communicated to me over call, were not working!!!
The call on 1st august took 45 min of my time and i was forwarded to a technical team member who asked me to select 2g, restart phone, then once that works, select 3g and subsequently lte. I tried these. I got the signals but my google search/other normal internet apps did not work. I told this to the technical team person and he asked me to call back if it doesn’t work. He asked me to call from an alternate number so they could help me with the step-by-step. I tried the step-by-step and it did not work. I also found out that the pincode information i had communicated earlier (Residential 560045 and work 560055 had not been captured). I gave my full address (Both locations) to this person so they could exactly pinpoint the problem. I asked him if given my usage and the issues, the amount unfairly charged to me could be refunded to me. He said it can’t be done for bill cycles gone by.
On 3rd and 4th august i was in delhi for full day business meetings and i was called some 3-4 times by different people – each of them equally clueless about my problem and they asked me to repeat the problem every single time. Stepping out of meetings every time, it was such a sorry state of affairs, i actually wanted to weep at the combined incompetence of your network of associates. I repeatedly asked for instructions over email. I was now told the problem was the “access point†and a new set of settings would be sent to me. My problem was still resolved, i either saw no signal or the internet did not worked, or i had a slow trickle of data packets coming to my phone - sufficient to only run watsapp. I was surprised because my problem was the same as the one on 4th july and now i was being told that a different thing is the problem. Either the first set of people did not know what they were working on, or i was being annoyed for no reason understandable to me. I asked for a clear set of all fathomable steps to be sent to me over email so i could try them out one by one (When i had the time) and respond back so it could be reviewed by your technical team (When they had the time). Clearly these two time zones were not matching and i was fine getting instructions over email. But vodafone can only call customers in the middle of the day at vodafone’s technical staff’s convenience.
I got some instructions yesterday over email which i am yet to try. But today i got a call from one mr. Pradeep which really put me off. He first of all spoke in a speed and accent which i found hard to follow. Asked me to follow steps after inserting my sim in a different handset (Which i don’t have) and when i told him that i don’t have a different handset he said that he is trying to help me out but i am “not co-operatingâ€. He said this twice during that call.
I find this deliberate maligning of customer very hard to stomach and i feel compelled to call this out as the worst example of customer service i will ever see in my life. I was finally asked (In a very impatient and impolite tone) to go to a vodafone store. When i asked him for the nearest store, he quoted my residential pincode as 560008. This got me really annoyed since i had given this information atleast 2 times that i could remember. And here there was an associate rudely telling me that i was not co-operating when my basic address information was not getting captured across multiple contacts.
1. I am deeply harassed and disappointed with your staff and their rude attitude and their inability to even understand basic english and address issues in a timely fashion. My problem should have been resolved before 10th july.
2. If your team can’t call me at a time i ask and i am not available when they call, i can’t see why i cannot be sent an email with instructions.
3. I will never understand mr. Pradeep and his brilliant approach to customer service. He should get an oscar for being the rudest customer service associate ever.
4. I was wondering why i cannot be refunded for a service i had signed up for but one which i was unable to use because of connectivity issues.
5. I was wondering why address and pincode information communicated over calls is not captured and why the same information has to be repeated to 20 people to finally lead to no resolution.
Put yourself in my shoes, see how exasperating this is. All i am asking is for email instructions. You want me to get a second handset (Seriously!!) or step into a vodafone store after not acting on my problem for over a month.
Bsnl treats it customers with better respect and offers multiple modes to communicate if you are not available over call.
If i have to step into a store finally to solve my problem. I was wondering why i wasn’t told this in july first week to start with. I was wondering if given my experience with vodafone, it would be better to walk into an airtel store instead.
Vodafone India customer support has been notified about the posted complaint.
