Vodacom Fibre, 4 days of connectivity still unresolved

This complaint is directed at your Vodacom Fibre service centre and I hope it gets escalated to senior management where hopefully some resolution can come from it.

I logged a request on Monday 03-June for assistance in replacing the connector from my fibre cable to my Vuma fibre modem. In moving the modem to another room within my house the connector to the modem broke, resulting in the disconnection of my fibre connection. SR*** was logged by Jade Paxton September after I emailed her the attached photo of the connector to be replaced. Jade noted that I’d get a call the following day to arrange for a technician to be sent.

The next morning, Tuesday, I had an appointment scheduled, so I informed my domestic helper that Vodacom/Vuma may come around to the house and that she should direct them to my home-office for the repair to be made. I returned from my meeting just before 3pm only to find that no-one’s been around to the house and no-one’s attempted to contact me either. I sent an email to Jade to follow-up. Shortly afterwards she called me and noted that feedback from the particular technical division suggested that the cost for replacing the connector should not exceed R1,700 to which I expressed my surprise and noted that it was unacceptable. Jade noted she’s not sure of the cost, but that it would not exceed R1,700. I noted to her that I moved into the house a year ago and that I simply moved my account to the new premises with an existing installation, saving Vodacom/Vuma the cost of having to do a new installation, which they weren’t charging for anyway. So I expressed that they can take the charge from that saving. Jade noted she’d escalate it and get back to me.

On Wednesday morning I sent a follow-up to which I received a reply that I must give them an opportunity to review and feedback during the course of the day. The entire day I waited and still no call or technician.

This morning (Thursday) I note about 10 emails from around 10pm the previous evening suggesting the ticket had been closed. Naturally I sent Jade an email querying this as the problem had not been resolved yet, so how can the request be closed? Jade called and noted that she would investigate and get back to me. I asked that she escalate to a manager to contact me.

By 12pm still no further progress, so I called again and this time I spoke to Nkenda Carbel to whom I explained the matter. She took several minutes to read through all the information, get her supervisor involved and then informed me that the information and experience Jade provided, was completely incorrect and that I should not have been given an estimate at all. She noted that she would need to log a new ticket, SR*** and that her supervisor would take ownership of it to ensure I don’t have to wait any further. She noted that a quote with the exact cost would be sent to me and that upon approval of the quote, a technician would be sent out. I waited all day for this quote and now, 16:36 I’m still waiting. So I called in again, this time speaking to Sinazo who’s on a whole other level of attitude. She declined to provide her surname – not sure why that’s not allowed – is she hiding something or what? Anyway, Sinazo proceeds to read through all the comments and eventually comes back saying that Nkenda should have provided the quote when I called earlier this afternoon and everything that she did wasn’t correct and according to process. At this point in time I am so frustrated that I now only want to speak to a senior person. And do you think I’m able to? No chance. These guys are too high and mighty to speak to customers and they’d rather leave that to the call centre agents. What a circus.

So here I am, the customer paying a monthly subscription to Vodacom, not able to utilize the facility I’m paying for, and 3 agents I’ve dealt with since Monday saying the previous one did not follow the process correctly. If your agents aren’t following the process, who’s fault is that??? Is it a training issue, is it a general lack of customer service issue, or is the problem actually in management, or should I say mismanagement – what kind of business are you running over there???

My connection problem is still not resolved. Sinazo noted her supervisor would contact me by 5pm and that also hasn’t happened. What am I to do?

Lyonel Soekoe ***