Upgrade Pains

<p>I haven't upgraded services in a few years, and ole trigger, my mobile handset, is starting to show signs of age, time for a review and probably an upgrade.</p> <p>Given the relative ubiquity of online channels, with mobile telecoms implicitly being one of these, I would expect a reasonably well working portal to apply for said upgrade.</p> <p>Wow, hey vodacom, retro, you rocking a website like it's 1997 or what? Using this thing is like a leaky catheter installation =(!</p> <p>I did place an order for an upgrade, still waiting 8 days later. I tend avoid call center voice interactions as the agents typically aren't the most sentient beings, and I prefer they resolve any difficult words/sentences in their own time, hence trying the online interaction mechanisms, not unrealistic given it's 2017. My experiences are:</p> <p>- Tried checking on the portal, no upgrades in place<br />- Device not registered on portal<br />- When I try to resubmit, message is that I am not elegible for upgrade until October 2015, so the web application can't calculate this properly either<br />- No response to email<br />- No agents available on the chat multiple weekdays when checked between 08h00 - 17h00, as well as on weekend days as per the times given, even though the times given for the chat window period is relatively poor</p> <p>Eventually forced to go to voice, with the following results:<br />- Tried the customer care 082111, eventually just hung up in frustration<br />- Eventaully found a number that is for upgrades. When I told them about the ******* portal, the response was along the lines of "Ja, we know about it."<br />- They can apparently see an upgrade, delivery is 3-5 working days, this is already exceeded<br />- More interest is to get the rating at the end of the call<br />- The quality of the call is not checked, just did you get an answer. Vodacom should check the quality, it's poor</p> <p>I have started checking out the competition in the meantime, some seem to have well working portals and an interest in customer service.</p> <p>As such, I'll wait a couple of days to see if vodacom will deign to deliver on it's service commitment, if not then look at initiating a number port, as Vodacom seem to really not give a damn, and I believe there are better options available elsewhere.</p>