Ten hours (so far). That’s how much time it’s taken me to get my mobile upgraded and (almost, kind of) working. I’ve been bounced around call centres like pass the parcel, I’ve spoken to people in three different countries, I’ve mediated internal arguments between departments and I’ve nearly lost the will to live.
It shouldn’t be this difficult. I suppose it started because Vodafone have been convinced for the last five years that I’m actually running a small business and couldn’t understand why I might want to talk to customer services outside working hours. Changing over to their consumer database required me to leave the network entirely and start a new contract with the same company and took a mere three weeks to arrange.
Then they lost my records, mislaid all details of my upgrade, sent me a phone that needs a PhD in electronic engineering to set up and forgot to send my new charger.
I think the highlights were being on hold for 15 minutes only to discover I’d been transferred to the dealer support team by accident and finding myself with no idea whether old or new or neither phone would be working when I was about to set out on my own, in my car, in the snow.
Of course the problem for Vodafone is that apparently satisfied customers tell three friends, angry customers tell 3000. Or in my case everyone on my RSS feed. How do you think they’d take it if I sent them a bill at my agency hourly charge out rate for ten hours of my time?
update: 20 hours, an entirely new phone, phone insurance I didn’t want or ask for and I’m STILL not properly up and running..