Vodafone opinions?

youandiaredominoes

Considering switching to Vodafone but heard mixed reviews regarding customer service.

Is any one willing to share their experience of their 4G services and any customer service issues? Please try to be fairly balanced... I think all companies have their good and bad points

MK55

Hi, I had some bad service with them last year over incorrect direct debit,s how ever over the last 9 months they've massively improved. I have just took out 2 contracts with them at renewal and i've always got 4g and not had to contact them once about anything. so for me well worth it!

Zebrdee

My opinion is that they will be bought out by AT&T. Personally I don't think their coverage or price plans are competitive. Things could change dramatically next year.

UncleZen

I think they have good coverage generally. But you can do better with some price plans. Personally I switched to TalkMobile which uses the Vodafone network but has generally cheaper price plans.
The Vodafone website is very slow and is often down for maintenance (lately that is).

youandiaredominoes

Thanks all

I get the impression they're ok until you experience a problem.

Their price plans are ok for me because they include spotify which I pay £10pm for, so having this inclusive In the price could be useful for me...

Johnmcl7

I've been with Vodafone for many years mainly because their coverage along with O2's is the best up here and because their eForum team have been extremely good at sorting out issues I've had. I find their phone customer services to be generally very poor although not worse than other networks but at least it's been possible to get the eForum team to look into it on the official Vodafone forum.

My only annoyance is Vodafone have a completely stupid system that texts your phone and attempts to send a configuration message every time you put your sim card in a different phone. I have a large phone and a smaller one and swap between them regularly so these messages are getting very annoying particularly as they can arrive in the middle of the night but Vodafone stand by them as being useful (despite being almost completely pointless since both phones configured themselves) and it's currently almost impossible to disable the service.

John

MataNui

Customer service is bad. In fact my post would be censored if i said what i really think of it. I have been a voda customer for over 12 years. Most of that without issue. The last 2 years though have been terrible. I have been charged for all texts (even though my contract includes unlimited texts), then refunded, then again the next month, then again. 4 months in total before they stopped. I have been without service at my home address for 14 days. in that time i caught customer services reps lying several times during web chats. Which is totally stupid since web chats are written and recorded. Promised a refund in writing (i am still waiting). My minimum term is up in Jan, cant wait to get shut of them.

Vodafone

Hi MataNui,

I'm sorry to read about your dissatisfaction with the level of service you've recently received.

For further help with network related queries I'd recommend following the troubleshooting guide on our eForum, which has been linked to here.

If you'd like to discuss your other concerns further could you email me with your details via the link in our profile here?

All you need to do is copy and paste the link into your web browser and it'll take you to the Contact us form on our website. To make sure it reaches me could you also quote the code WRT135 - MSE in the subject line?

Once sent you'll receive an automated reply with a reference number. So I can make sure I've got it could you update the thread with this and I'll get back to you as soon as possible?

Kind regards,

Lee

Web Relations

Vodafone UK

Supatramp

I'm sorry to have to say this, but don't touch VF with a bargepole. Maybe once sufficient people leave them they'll eventually come to their senses!!

Imho, over the past few years they have basically turned their back on their home market, preferring to deal in billions of pounds buying and selling companies in other parts of the world.

Of course, if you're lucky enough to be in the right place you'll no doubt be able to get their new 4G service, while much of the UK is only still on 2G. I regularly spend time in a town just 18 miles from the oil capital of Europe, and the 2G signal is poor.

Here at home, I've been having regular outages on an almost weekly basis, and the reason? Don't laugh now, it's the rain!!!!!!! Never mind leaves on the line, when it rains the local transmitter goes 'down'!! You couldn't make it up!!!

And for the sake of the VF reps monitoring here, check it out for yourselves, 8381.

MataNui

Thanks for offering vodafone representative but there really isnt anything you can do. As i said the billing issue was sorted (although it took them 4 months) and i cant really see what you can do about the general treatment at the hands of your customer support department. As for my refund of 14 days, the amount of money i would get back is peanuts compared to the problems it caused and the nightmare of dealing with your lying, dishonest and rude customer service staff.

Also since the question is about vodafone in general this should give some indication of how comited (or not) vodafone are to customers. I live in North Wales, its not the back of beyond by any means. When i took my first contract with vodafone it was because they were the ONLY provider with any service where i live. Since then lots has changed, 3g came along to start with. In 12 years my signal has not improved at all. In fact it has probably got slightly worse and certainly has got less reliable. Vodafone have done nothing to upgrade the network. I cant get any 3g within 10 miles. In contrast my wife (on Orange) now gets 3g thats faster than our home broadband connection. So thats vodafone for you. While other networks have spent a fortune on upgrading infrastructure vodafone have just been taking the money and doing nothing. This and the awful customer service is why there is nothing vodafone would every be able to offer me to stop me leaving next month.

Supatramp

MataNui wrote: »

Since then lots has changed, 3g came along to start with. In 12 years my signal has not improved at all. In fact it has probably got slightly worse and certainly has got less reliable. Vodafone have done nothing to upgrade the network. I cant get any 3g within 10 miles. In contrast my wife (on Orange) now gets 3g thats faster than our home broadband connection. So thats vodafone for you. While other networks have spent a fortune on upgrading infrastructure vodafone have just been taking the money and doing nothing. This and the awful customer service is why there is nothing vodafone would every be able to offer me to stop me leaving next month.

I've highlighted in your post what I believe is the nub of the matter. Other companies have invested in their networks while it is pretty obvious that VF have done little.

They had to provide a 3G network, and now they're having to provide a 4G one, but only in very high population areas. Meanwhile, they've left their core infrastructure as it was, and as time passes this neglect is showing up all over the place.

It has been reported at least twice recently in the Scottish papers that an area in West Lothian, not a million miles from the capital city, Edinburgh, had been without a VF signal for a MONTH!!! Nothing, zilch!!! How on earth can VF justify something like this?