Pathetic Vodafone service. Review on Vodafone Mobile Operator

My parents have been using a prepaid connection for past 11 months from Vodafone. My parents stay in a remote location in Goa and Vodafone is the only service provider with a good coverage in these remote places.

All of a sudden without any prior notice the number was deactivated in the first week of December without giving any prior notice or intimation to the customer. When my parents contacted the vodafone store in Ponda and were told that due to expiry of documents the sim has been deactivated. They could not tell which document had expired. The document that was submittded was a copy of election / voting card which to my knowledge does not have any expiry. I don't understand if there was any problem with the document that was submitte how is that the connection was active for past 11 months?

We were also told that the same number cannot be allocated even if we resubmit the so called expired document. We tried inquiring as to why the service provider did not bother to inform the customer before deactivation. The responses we got from various Vodafone executives at different points were totally incosistant and baseless.

The Vodafone store in Ponda told us that they would have sent an SMS 15 days before deactivating the number. We said we did not receive any such SMS. The guys must be really smart to say that the INBOX must be full and we did not receive it.

On that note I asked them if they have the proof of delivery of the SMS which they can share with us. Obiviously they did not have it. I also showed them the other messages from the INBOX and tried to convince them that there was no such message communication  received.

I asked the executive if they had made an attempt to speak to the customer and requested them to submit the document. To this the reply from the store as well as call centre executive was that they would have called 10 days before deactivating the number. I again asked for the proof that a call was made to customer.

The Ponda Vodaphone store executive went to the extent of telling me to file a complaint with police if I want to get the call log details. On telling them that I'll file a case in consumer court, the lady finally realized that I wasn't going to give away so easily. She said she does not have the authority to give me the details I requested and asked me to get in touch with the regional office in Panaji.

I was also told at the Ponda store, that vodafone had received a list of 10000(Ten Thousand) customers who had to resubmit the documents. They could not call each and every customer. Its a pity that the executive did not even think twice before making such an irresponcible statement. If Vodafone can't service 10000 customers, how can they even think of servicing lakhs of customers in their wildest dreams?

In the mean time I tried getting the details from customer care and they told me that it could be beacuse the minimum recharge of 200 rupees might not have been done in last 6 months. I asked them to pull out the details related to the number and verify this possibility which again proved to be wrong. The customer care folks told me to get in touch with the nearest Vodafone store.

So finally I landed at the panajim office. The state there was really pathetic. The systems were down due to power outrage and the executives were just not willing to understand the problem. I tried explaining the problem. I asked them to tell me the exact reason why the number was deactivated and how was it informed to the customer before an action was taken to deactivat the phone. I got a completely different reply this time that an IVR was set since 1st December 2009 and evertime an attempt was made to make a call from this number, cutomer would have been informed about the documents. This was again a false claim. I don't know since when IVR became the official form of communication. And the IVR was suppposed to be a 2 minute message. I wonder even if it was set how many customers would wait to hear it for 2 minutes before making the call.

There was no consistancy in the kind of replies I got from all these useless executives who had very little idea about the agony my parents had to go through.

If all these wierd things were not enough, the Ponda Vodafone store executives even went to the extent of giving a noble advice that if we want the same number, we need to convert it to the postpaid number. After 3 months we could revert back to prepaid. I don't know from where all these stupid ideas come into their minds to increase the customer base. They couldn't give proper service for a prepaid customer and were expecting us to convert to postpaid. I am just waiting for the Netowk Number Portability to come into effect. I'll definately switch over to some other provider witht he same number.

In the end nobody knew what was the exact reason why the phone was deactivated. Finally they agreed to consider this as a special case and reactivate the number upon submission of required documents again. I was told it will take 3 days time to reactivate the SIM. I was really disappointed with their service and false promises as it finally took a week to reactivate.

The executive told that the previous balance had been transferred to the new SIM which was issued with the same number. In reality that was not done.Vodafone executive as well as office have been repeatedly ignoring our calls.

Overall I would say the service and the knowledge of handling the customers for these executives is pathetic as far as Goa region is concerned.

I would like to cite two example of cutomer service and how it helps to build customer loyalty. In the Mumbai rains last year, Reliance Communication lost the documents submitted by lakhs of cutomers. I was one of them as I was using their CDMA connection since last 5 years. Reliance called each and every customer to inform that the documents have been damaged / lost and we need to re-submit them as per government rules.

Second example I would like to give is that of Airtel. I have been using Airtle broadband services for past 2 years. Any time there is a problem and we contact the customer care, we get very precise and to the point replies to the queries. They also inform the customer an ETA for the resolution of complaint. If the complaint is not resolved within that time Airtel gives a waiver on the next bill. From whatever experience I have had with Airtle, I can rate their service as EXCELLENT.

The Vodafone executives have a long way to achive the maturity levels of an industry leader like Airtel. I have been trying to reach the executive with whom I interacted in Panaji office of Vodafone. But the gentelman has been ignoring my calls repeatedly. I have even tried sending SMS and this person doesn't even bother to respond to that.

Going by the experience I had with Vodafone I would never suggest anybody to go for it. Only one rating comes to my mind when I think of Vodafone service in Goa and that is PATHETIC.