Vodafone and Expresso must stop cheating me
I have been a customer of Vodafone in the United Kingdom (UK) for over 10 years. Some of my family members in the UK have also been the company’s customers for a number of years.
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Our long-term customer status with the company is based, particularly, on the company’s customer service and not necessary the quality of the products, as there are other telephone companies, including British Telephone (BT), with superb and sometimes better product quality.
With competition becoming stiffer and stiffer, Vodafone is losing some of its customers because other telephone companies are improving both their customer services and product quality and, therefore, taking away a chunk of Vodafone’s customers.
Vodafone, with its headquarters at Newbury, the principal town in the west of Berkshire county in England, is currently facing stiff competition from the many telephone companies in the UK. Last year, the company’s revenue in the UK from sales of voice and data plans declined 4.4 per cent from its 2012 receipts.
Shares
Vodafone shares also fell 0.2 per cent to 204.25 pence on the London Stock Exchange on Wednesday. This means the company’s stock has lost 17 per cent over the last 12 months. This is a clear indication that all is not well with Vodafone in the UK because customers there demand the service they pay for, and when they do not get it, they switch companies.
Back in Ghana, I was forced to become a Vodafone customer on April 16, 2009 after 70 per cent of the shares of Ghana Telecom, whose landline (fixed line) I was subscribing to, was sold on July 3, 2008 for $900 million to Vodafone. On April 16, 2009, the company was rebranded as Vodafone Ghana, making Ghana Telecom customers automatic customers of Vodafone. From October 2011, I reluctantly became a customer of the company’s mobile service.
Before the takeover of Ghana Telecom by Vodafone, the company’s engineers, who were extending service to a new customer at Adenta in Accra destroyed my telephone lines, thus terminating service to my line. For over three years without any service, the company billed me for line rental and I paid because I had lodged a series of complaints and was hoping the company would restore the line. After going to the Vodafone office at Circle in Accra for more than four times to lodge complaints after complaints, the last being in 2012, I had to abandon the case, as no official was interested in me. My landline is still not restored though the destruction to the line was caused by Vodafone’s own engineers.
Poor service
With my mobile service, I have the poorest of service from Vodafone Ghana, compared to the service the same company provides to me in the UK. While I have paid the company for Internet service to my mobile phone, I experience ‘no service’ almost every day, sometimes continuing for over two days.
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From Monday to yesterday (Friday), the Internet on my mobile phone had worked for only two days, while I had enough data. Vodafone has no clue as to the inconvenience it puts me through and, therefore, shows no concern.
The most annoying part of Vodafone’s disrespect for me is that I have been receiving unsolicited text messages for which the company charges me. I have complained to Vodafone on many occasions that I do not want any unsolicited text messages and yet the company doesn’t have any regard for my wish as a customer here in Ghana, while it would respect the same wish from me in the UK.
Last year, one of Vodafone’s sales personnel, Mr Victor Acheampim Anon, came to sell a mobile fixed line handset to me at my workplace after convincing me that even though the over 10 years case with my old landline at Adenta was still pending, the new handset was the best on the market. I had problems with the handset after I started using it and complained to Mr Acheampim Anon, but I had the worst customer service ever in my life from this man.
When I called and complained to him that the handset was not working, he told me he was busy so I should call him after 30 minutes. I asked him whether he had to call me or I was to call again but he wouldn’t listen to me. When I called again within the time he gave me, he never picked the call. I sent him a text message and to date he has not responded.
I had to take the handset to Vodafone’s Circle office after about two months of talking to customer service staff on phone without a solution. At its office, it turned out that the problem was a very little one which a less-than-five-minute-talk on phone could have solved.
Vodafone sends me a text message each time I top up my credit that I have certain amount of bonus credit, yet while I still have more than enough of that supposed bonus credit, I cannot use it to call Vodafone’s own mobile phones. So what kind of bonus credit is that? But is it actually a bonus credit, when I’m charged about GH¢3.00 a month for the double offer service with which comes the so-called bonus credit?
In October 2011, I bought an MTN modem and loaded it with GH¢60.00. I was told by the sales officers that I could bundle whatever amount I wanted for any period. I made them bundle GH¢20.00 for 30 days. Strangely, less than 15 days, the whole GH¢60 had gone. When I went to one of the MTN offices in Kumasi to complain, one of the staff members dismissively told me I had been downloading large files and so I should not raise any argument. I threw away the modem and that was the last time I had anything to do with MTN, and since then, none of its adverts or promos attract me because, to me, MTN totally lacks customer service.
I thought a Vodafone modem could be better, so I bought one at its Circle office. The sales girl explained to me how to top up the credit when it was finished, but when it was finished and I tried to top it up, her instructions did not work. Units I put on the modem ran faster than Usain Bolt on the tracks. Many phone calls to Vodafone never achieved anything. I abandoned the modem.
I have since been using an Expresso modem which for a long time was superb. However, late last year after recharging the units with GH¢15 for 33 days, I used it for less than 10 days and was given a notice that I had ran out of units.
I started speaking to customer service staff of Expresso, and despite the fact that I had to make several attempts to get through the so-called 24-hour customer service line, for four weeks, none of the customer service staff could solve that problem. One even told me to send the modem all the way to her office at Dansoman to check what was wrong with it.
A colleague directed me to speak to one Expresso staff by name Felicia, who showed great customer service skills by assuring me she was going to investigate my complaint. She kept on calling to update me on every step she had taken and eventually restored my unused units which I had complained of. Again, she said she had proposed to her bosses to compensate me for the inconvenience, for which additional units were added to my account.
Despite this excellent customer service from this Expresso staff member, there seems to be something wrong with the engineers of Expresso. The same problem I went through last year keeps coming back. Four months ago, I had to go through it again, and after several calls, customer service staff at Express could not do anything until eventually one staff by name Hillbegard, like Felicia in the first case, excellently and patiently listened to my complaint and eventually resolved it. She kept on updating me with her discussions with the engineers until the problem was resolved.
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Questionable charges
Regrettably, however, last month, I recharged GH¢15 for 33 days from April 29, but by May 8, Expresso informed me my units were finished. I have since been talking to more than five customer service staff and nothing has been done. I had to buy another GH¢15 to ensure that I could use my modem, though my problem was still pending.
It is a fact that all the telephone companies operating in Ghana also operate in other countries, and a company such as Vodafone cannot for one day provide the shoddy service it is providing to Ghanaian customers to its customers in the UK where it has its headquarters.
The question, therefore, is, what is the National Communications Authority doing to stop the poor services being delivered to Ghanaians by telephone companies? We deserve better services.
PS: Mr Inspector-General of Police, having openly accepted that the Police Service had done some wrong in recent past, would you please respond to the children and widow of Adjei Akpor, the 22-year-old man your men killed at Adenta on January 6, 2014 and give them justice? This is the 19th week since the man was killed. Sir, I’m still waiting.
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The author is a journalist and political scientist and Head of the Department of Media and Communication Studies, Pentecost University College, Accra. - fasado@hotmail.com