Vodafone being abusive on sales line?

crazycanoeist

I could not beleve the conversation that I have just had with the Vodafone upgrade sales team. I have been with voda for around 12 years, I called today to upgrade to an iphone 4 for the girlfriend. I have just changed from T-mobile to Tesco and got an iphone 4 (very good signal from Tesco) but the girlfriend wanted to stick with vodafone. When I called the upgrade team I told them that I have just got an iphone from Tesco and told them what it cost me. He then said "you must be mental" so I said to him that I don't like people saying that I am mental. Just wondering if other people have had the same sort of abuse from them?:(

Buzby

There must be a good few hundred (thousand?) people selling Vodafone service - some of them even being employed by the company. If you want to complain, you need to discover who the person was who advised you, and more importantly, who his employer was. I'm not sure whether he was congratulating you on your good luck at a Tesco iPhone, or was commenting on his deal being considerably better, that said as an off-the-cuff remark, it's wasn't particularly appropriate. But looking at your member name, would it have helped if he said you were crazy?

crazycanoeist

He did give me his name and I requested a call back from his manager but I cant see that happening.

Cash-Strapped.T32

I don't work for customer services in my company, but sometimes there's days when even my phone doesn't stop ringing with customers, and tbh, I've said worse..

Ok, usually directed towards the company and not the customer personally, but yeah, I've definitely said worse things than that.
My personal favourite was when some irate woman called in the second time in 2hrs & I didn't remember her address from the first call - "I'm terribly sorry I've taken about 100 calls this morning so far & to be perfectly honest you all just blur into one after a while.. "

It wasn't to be rude on purpose, it just came out in sheer exasperation (I would have been mortified had I not been so busy & noticed what I was saying), but she actually saw the funny side & started laughing..

Not saying this to stick up for rude call centre staff, but I just wanted to make the point that even the most professional person can come out with a strange reply when some customer says something that's a bit random - You do get some extremely strange opening remarks & often your reply just pops out before the brain has processed what the customer is really driving at.


I handle all the legal & financial admin for our place, but by necessity I spend a lot of time dealing with customer's problems - We have a dedicated call centre but there's an awful lot of over-flow where older customers still have the landline number(s), so I do end up "covering" the call centre job if only by default, and to me, telling them "hang up & call this awful 0845-number" is far ruder.

I can tell you, when people *only* ever ring up to complain & say bad things, it does something to you after a while, & you tend to resent them terribly for all their niggly, petty little problems & just wish they'd go away & let you have a peaceful 10 minutes..

crazycanoeist

I have worked in customer service for around 13 years now but never had the urge to say that someone is mental. All I wanted to do Is to upgrade to an iphone for the girlfriend and she wanted to stay with vodafone and asked if they do a price mach. Also if ever I felt the need to be abusive towards customers I think it would be time to get out.

Cash-Strapped.T32

crazycanoeist wrote: »

Also if ever I felt the need to be abusive towards customers I think it would be time to get out.

Indeed, that's sort of what I meant by..;

Cash-Strapped.T32 wrote: »

Not saying this to stick up for rude call centre staff,

I have no time for outright rudeness, although I feel that we probably all have different definitions of what that means, particularly "abuse/abused", which is a very commonly used word nowadays, and can cover such a massive spectrum of behaviour I'm sure we all vary wildly in what we'd count as abusive.

Ps: 13yrs in CS? That would drive me crazy, thoroughly & completely. :eek:
I hope it works out for you, but I think you're probably right, even if the guy does get a telling off internally, they'll want to keep it quiet & probably won't ring back.

robbies_gal

you might think thats abusive id say it was an off the cuff remark i doubt he menat it perosnally sometimes i say that to people when theyve done something stupid

prowla

gabbyevs wrote: »

you might think thats abusive id say it was an off the cuff remark i doubt he menat it perosnally sometimes i say that to people when theyve done something stupid

Likewise - I would say it is a turn of phrase rather than a personal insult.
Nonetheless, it is unprofessional.

sdduk

He probably meant....are you mental going to Tesco we could do this or that.

Buzby

Just as 'cool', 'banging' and 'wicked' have alternative meanings for the sub-30yo, I'm away of many fok who use 'mental' as a verb for 'challenging', so definately not an insult or abuse.

Vodafone

Hi crazycanoeist,

I am sorry to hear that the advisors comment caused offense. This is certainly not how we want our customers to feel when calling in.

You can email me personally via the address here by putting WRT135 FAO Heidi in the subject. I can then look into this for you. Could you also include a link to your post.

Many thanks,

Heidi
Web Relations Team
Vodafone UK