Poor Customer Service & Retention

I have been a Vodacon customer for about 10 years. I have four active contracts with them and even got my mother and a few friends to sign up. Two years ago, my contract was about to expire, and they matched a deal I had from Telkom. Without a device, I paid just under R700 per month for 20GB of data and unlimited calls (they even threw in an additional 5GB for free). Recently my contract came up for renewal again and this time I requested that we continue on the same terms, as Telkom has a similar deal. It has taken them almost two weeks to respond to my request and when they did their commercial team still came in R300 higher than the deal match I presented from Telkom. In order for Vodacon to match my deal previously, they had to retrofit one of their other packages. Now that the contract has lapsed, instead of shifting me down to my price point they hike up the cost and don’t say a word. I got their message loud and clear... they have other customers to “fleece”. Vodacon doesn't actually care about the service it delivers to customers, especially the ones who have been with them for many years. Their service promise is a joke because their retention teams lacks the ability to engage their customers in a way that would make you think twice about leaving and they are not empowered to offer any alternative solutions. The only team that responds quickly to queries is their social media team, but I'm assuming this is because the complaints are too close to the public, so they try and catch them before they get out. Their commercial team also seems too far away from their customer service teams and are only focused on meeting their sales targets versus customer retention. Vodacon… You have a long way to go in building trust with your stakeholders because your customer excellence is non-existent. For anybody looking for a good deal. Consider all your options…do some homework… and don't only go to the likes of Vodacon because they are bigger and supposedly better. Their size is their downfall and once you sign up you just become a number. Vodacon is brilliant at taking your money and also adding content services when you are not looking (this happened to me as well) …check your statements and question everything. Going forward I will unfortunately not be able to recommend Vodacon to any of my friends and family. As my lines come up for renewal, I will just move them to a better “customer service” provider… If they even exist.