A big thumbs up to Vodafone customer service.

I’ve been meaning to post about Vodafone’s customer service, which has really impressed me.

Now, mobile phone companies don’t have the best of records for taking care of their customers, I’ve had some shocking customer service issues with T-mobile in the past, having to deal with Indian call centers not understanding me, being told one thing by one person, another by someone else and generally spending ages on hold paying for the priviledge.

So far though, Vodafone have been superb. Each time I’ve phoned with a query the call has been promptly answered and my problem resolved rapidly. For example, the other week I was having lunch with James Whatley and others and wanted to access my flickr account from my phone. Turned out I couldn’t, for some reason Vodafone deem flickr to have adult content and I’m not allowed on it until I prove I’m over 18. Switched to their website and there’s forms and credit card details needed etc. Can’t be arsed with that so I phone customer service.

Around me there are comments about ‘but we haven’t got that long to wait’, or ‘you’ll be lucky to get anything done about it this side of christmas’. Well, the call is answered inside of a minute, I give them my security details to prove who I am, explain the problem which is promptly followed by ‘one moment sir’, and then a moment later ‘that’s fine sir I’ve lifted the restriction, your phone should now let you access any content you require’. 5 seconds later a text arrives informing me of the same thing.

Colour me impressed.

Another example is that I don’t like having a phone that’s locked to one carrier. I used to travel a lot and had sim cards for half a dozen different countries that I would put in as the plane landed in whichever country I was travelling to, giving me a local phone number as I left the airport. Very convenient. Most phones sold through a contract in the UK are locked to the service provider and you have to pay to have them unlocked either by the phone company or by one of the shops on the high street.

Not with Vodafone any more. All new Vodafone handsets are being supplied unlocked and if you want your locked vodafone handset unlocked you only have to phone them and ask. I did this and they gave me the unlock code straight away, told me how to use it and then called me back 5 minutes later (exactly when they said they would) to check everything had worked. 

I believe that O2 also supply unlocked handsets as well. Hopefully this will be a continuing trend amongst the companies.

Vodafone’s network has been one hundred percent solid, never dropped a call or missed a data connection, gets me a line when other peoples phones can’t and so far has been a near perfect operator. The one mistake they made, which was a piece of incorrect information I was given when I first joined, was rectified as soon as I contacted them, and the charge refunded immediately.

Given that I’ve had a mobile phone for going on 17 years, I can safely say this is the best service I’ve had by miles. If they keep going at this rate, they’ll have a customer for the long haul.