Disgusting Service

Extreme DISSATISFACTION with the service and support of Vodacom.

I am the financial director for a company that has had contracts with Vodacom for staff as well as senior management for a long time.

3 Weeks ago we went to the Vodacom 4U Store at North Gate to find out about transferring the Cell Phone contracts for the Managing Director to the companies name. We were given an application form to complete and asked for supporting documentation. This was completed and submitted to the same store as before. We were told that because the contract needs to go to the business name reverse migration needs to be done to the older system where all business contracts are serviced. We were given a timeline of about a month for this to be completed.

On Tuesday morning, our Managing Director could no longer make any outgoing calls. This in and of itself is a HUGE problem as all projects incoming as well as currently running projects are routed through his number. At first we thought it was just a network issue, but then the other contract on the MDs name also went offline. Constantly showing "No Service".

This second number is used by one of our senior technicians. He has been unable to make calls, receive calls, text, WhatsApp, use data or anything else since Tuesday as well. This is causing immense losses to our company as the MD and technicians/assessors need to be in constant contact due to our service level agreements with a few big companies.

Yesterday both the MD and myself went into the Vodacom 4U Store in North Gate for the third time. We were asked who the consultant was who helped us and because we could not remember the name, as it was 3 weeks ago, they could not trace the incident. We were then asked if it was the same Vodacom Store where we delivered the original documents. We started doubting ourselves, even though I delivered the documents myself, and went to each of the stores in North Gate to check.

On our return to the Vodacom 4U store they started searching sent items on the consultants computers to find the email sent for the Reverse Migration. The search came up empty. We were then made to feel like fools as if we never brought in the documents, BUT when they checked on the system the new address as stated on the application form I submitted was already reflecting on the system. The manager was on the phone with Vodacom, being sent from one department to the next, without anything being resolved.

The MD's phone was restarted 3 times during our time in the store, the sim card was removed and placed in the phone of the Vodacom Consultant and still the problem persisted. Once again the manager got on the phone to Vodacom with no one being able to assist. We spent 3 hours of our day in the Vodacom4U store yesterday, only to have the email found on the back office computer as the previous manager had loaded the request on the system and not told the new manager who was assisting us presently. Thus we were made to feel like fools for no reason, as the documents were submitted where I said they were.

Even having found the “all important” incident Number, after wasting our time for so long, still nothing could be done about the MD's or the Senior Technicians phone. We were told that the migration was in process and that the lines are cut during the transfer and reactivated only after its completed. This was the first time that we had been told this and we were taken aback as these are income producing lines and they can never be offline as we loose thousands of rands per day if they are.

Each time we spoke to someone at either the store or the call center they made us feel like we had done something wrong or that we did not understand the phone. That is unacceptable. The new manager at the Vodacom 4U store in North Gate tried his absolute best to resolve the problem, but he kept running into massive hurdles regarding the call centers and the help that we were supposed to be getting from the Vodacom Support Centre. He was the only person who went out of his way to try and assist.

Once again this morning the MD was on the phone to Vodacom for an hour pleading for help, but the only response was that he needed to put the sim in another phone and try again. If this didn't work the first 12 times, why would it work now!!!!???

I have always been a fan of Vodacom as I myself have a few contracts with them, but I am absolutely APPALLED by this kind of service. We have lost a full production week because of this. The calculated loss is close to R100k for this period and no one seems to care.

At one point yesterday we seriously considered cancelling all our contracts with Vodacom, which we pay in excess of R8000pm for, and walking into MTN to just see what contracts they offer for businesses like us.

I am extremely disappointed as an individual consumer as well as a business as the problem persists and no resolution can apparently be found!!!

Now we are forced to continue waiting for the migration to complete to see if that really is where the problem is... All the while loosing money as we go.

Unacceptable.