Friday, July 8, 2011

VODAFONE - DAY 120


Approaching a hundred and twenty days since my HOME PHONE LINE(s) and BROADBAND SERVICE went OFF.

I kind of figured with the rebranding and change in management of Gh. Telecom to Vodafone that the service they provided to their customers would be improved. Like everything in Ghana that undergoes rebranding, indeed for the first few months and if you are lucky up to a year, you would experience exceptional and over the top service. But like a new product when all the hype about it is gone, that is when you experience its true nature.

My home phone lines(s) and broadband service have been down for nearly 3 and half months. Like every loyal customer, I called the customer care line as soon as I realized the service was down. The person on the other line was so convincing and assured me the problem would be rectified immediately after reporting the issue and that I would receive a call from their field technicians.

I waited a few days and nothing happened so I decided to call one more time to find out what was preventing them from sorting out my issue. Once again the customer care officer reassured me the situation was being handled and since it was in the system, in no time it would be handled.

One week passed, same scenario. Two weeks passed, same problem. Three weeks went by and I picked up my phone once more and made a complaint. This time the response was quite different from what I expected. Apparently the complaint I had made for a while now magically had been resolved without my knowledge. Crazy Huh!! How can a problem I had just reported, be showing on their system as being resolved. What kind of system do they have. If it was resolved I would know. So why am I calling the customer care help line? Is it because of the lovely lady picking up the phone to talk to me or is that I have nothing doing.

So once again another report was made and an apology given. After that I kept calling every other day, even sometimes as late as 10pm only to be given the same response by a semi sleepy customer care personnel. Now the frustration level rises. I then decided to acquire the mobile broadband service. Life get easier and for about a week or two my expenditure sky rockets, that’s when I decided to start calling the help line again. Why is it even called a help line when what you get is added problems. This merry go round got even worse. They kept tossing me from one help line to another help line. Each help line explaining to me they can only report the situation but beyond that they cannot assist me. How can you have a customer care center and the employees over there don’t even know how to help the customers. Do you really want the customers to move to another service provided.

SERIOUSLY it’s approaching a hundred and twenty days (120) since I lost the dialing tone for the house phone and connection for the broadband service. All hope is lost. I guess their slogan “Vodafone is the only total communications solutions provider” isn’t so true after all.