This shocked the hell out of me.

I was packed into a tube train on Sunday with thousands of others going to watch the London Marathon. Angus, a friend, was running. Support is the way ahead. I’m told that it’s inspiring to see your friends waving you on — so I was heading to the 11 mile mark to wave at Angus.

Whilst pressed against a hundred other bodies, I did what any self respecting Londoner does: Read the adverts.

I quickly located the T-Mobile one and had a look:

You what?

I had to look twice. Three times, actually.

US & European mobile/landline calls INCLUDED in your minutes?

The race to zero has begun!

It’s such a shock because I can’t even call internationally on my Vodafone account. I haven’t enabled it. You have to enable international calling if you’ve got a new contract. In fact, it’s SO expensive that Vodafone will take a real close look at you, check if you’re wearing new shoes, see if you’ve cleaned your teeth and the like, before deciding on whether to allow you to pay them ridiculous amounts of money to call internationally. I’m actually using RebTel to make my international calls at a whopping 0.8p per minute to the States (good deal, eh?) via an 0207 local London number. That avoids me paying the 135p per minute or whatever it would be, if I had international calls activated on my handset. So this is on extreme.

The other extreme is T-Mobile. Often the leader in market innovation, T-Mobile is now offering businesses (or those with a ‘business’ account), inclusive international calls.

So if you’ve got 1,000 minutes (for 20 quid a month, per line), you could, theoretically, use them to call the States. Or mainland Europe.

I’m assuming that ‘Europe’ means ‘Old Europe’ (as the US Whitehouse liked to call it — France, Germany, Spain). I reckon the more exotic European countries might not be inclusive.

So. Interesting.

That’s the first time I’ve seen a UK operator offering international calls as part of your ‘minutes’ bundle.

Yes, you have to be a ‘business’ customer, I think, in order to qualify, but that is phenomenally good.

It also makes sense. Global economy and all that.

It’s a rather good marketing ploy too. How long before I start staring at my Vodafone-branded Nokia E90 and think that I really am being screwed against the wall with my Vodafone price plan?

I obviously have to then remember the uber-annoyance I felt when my T-Mobile calls kept on hanging up all the time.

Vodafone has announced that it’s struck a five year deal with BT which will see BT’s wholesale arm providing connectivity between Voda’s base stations and its own network. According to the two companies, the deal comes off the back of predicted demand for high bandwidth mobile applications like photo sharing and downloading music.

The deal will see Vodafone linked up to BT’s 21st Century Network-enabled Ethernet service, which the telco says will mean backhaul speeds of up to 60Mbps.

Vodafone isn’t the first telco to get someone else to do the hard graft on backhaul - T-Mobile struck a similar deal with BT a while back - and it probably won’t be the last. If outsourcing backhaul means mobile operators can spend their cash on areas like dreaming up useful new services, boosting bandwidth and improving customer service, it sounds like a win-win situation for everyone involved.

Yes, triple arse. Quadruple arse. Somewhere amongst the bustling morning, I lost my Vodafone branded Nokia E90. Or it was stolen. I don’t quite know. One moment it was in my pocket, another moment it was gone.

What a total arse.

The moment I realised, I got out my 3UK handset and called Vodafone UK. They’ve barred the SIM from making outgoing calls. I rather helpfully put the phone on silent/vibrate so even if it’s lying somewhere (like, for example, in the back of that limo I was in this morning), it’s not going to be easy to draw attention to it.

I couldn’t speak to the insurance department because they were unfortunately closed. I have to phone back ‘first thing’ tomorrow — so perhaps later on this evening, my time, here in the States. I doubt they’d send a new E90 out to me in Las Vegas. I reckon that’s a little bit beyond the standard insurance plan I have. I’ll let you know how I get on. I’m not back in the UK until next Thursday so I think I will be E90-less for more than a week.

If you’re trying to call me, go ahead. It’ll go to Spinvox voicemail, hopefully. And I’ll get the message by email. If not, you can call/text my US mobile number courtesy of Microsoft: +1 702 445 3872.

Here’s the E90 yesterday, in better, joyful times:

Quad-Arse MacLeod. That’s me.

First arse: I flew out of the British Airways Terminal 5 this morning (Saturday morning, that is). Whilst I was sitting waiting to board, I heard a rather stressed sounding lady continually announcing that (”Er, check-in has, er, closed.”)

It seems that things are pretttttty bad with BA and their newly launched Terminal 5. So bad that they just ‘closed’ check-in. Luckily I was already at the gate waiting to board.

Second arse; About three plane loads of happy, eager Chinese folk had just landed in Los Angeles ahead of my flight. Unfortunately it was taking the immigration people about 75% longer (yes, I counted and calculated, the queues were that long) to process them compared to those flashing a British passport. I stood and read my book in the queue.

Third arse: My luggage wasn’t there. Nowhere to be found. Possibly in London, possibly… who the hell knows.

Fourth arse: Vodafone.

I don’t know WHAT I was thinking. I really don’t. For some reason I thought I was on ‘Vodafone Passport’ when I came to the United States. So I merrily called home after I cleared immigration and debriefed as I walked all the way to Terminal 7 in the pleasant LA sunshine. Then I phoned the BA ‘800′ helpline for reporting lost bags. I hung on for a good 20 odd minutes until… until I got that sinking shock of a feeling. You know the one. The one where you think ‘is this… is this? No, it’s ‘Passport’ right? 75p and my normal rates, yes? Or… let me just quickly do a Google and… oh shit.’

Yes. I’ve been blowing 125p a minute for quite a long time. Chump. YOU TOTAL CHUMP, MACLEOD!

I don’t know WHAT I was thinking.

Well, I thought that America is a first world country (Forgetting that debacle in New Orleans). I also thought that Arooon and his mates OWN Verizon. They OWN it. Vodafone OWNS one of the United States’ biggest networks. Yes it’s CDMA but you know, they OWN it, ergo they sorted out roaming, yes?

No.

So that’ll look good on the bill..

Meantime, I’m pleased to say my Vodafone USB broadband modem is working perfectly (I haven’t had the balls to check what the costs will be yet). Lucky, because the shit-rubbish-crap T-Mobile Wireless Internet has gone ‘Bulgaria’.

My father’s had to travel to Bulgaria regularly for quite a while and he was initially really annoyed (and now delights in telling anyone) about the fact that the best hotel in the city — I think it’s Bulgaria we’re talking about — has wireless throughout the building. Just, the wireless router isn’t actually plugged into an internet connection. So, strictly speaking, the hotel has wireless. It does. Just, no *internet*. Exactly like Terminal 7 at LAX. Thank you Vodafone.

Gahhh.

So no sodding luggage, a hugely expensive Vodafone handset and LUCKILY I brought my iPhone running my 55p/min T-Mobile account. There’s life in the old girl that is the slightly bedraggled T-Mobile, yet.

After the sale rumours that followed Vodafone last year over its stake in Verizon Wireless, it looks like the decision to hold onto 45 percent of the US operator has paid off. According to the Financial Times, Vodafone has revealed it expects to start receiving dividends from its share in Verizon Wireless again from next year.

The paper reports Verizon Wireless last issued dividends back in 2005, it handed over £923 million, with the company deciding subsequently to pay down debt rather than issue dividends and quotes an analyst as suggesting that Verizon should indeed start paying out next year but at a lower level than previously.

So does this make it more or less likely that Vodafone will sell? After all, if it holds on longer, it’ll get to see some pay back for its investment. But, the resumption of dividends also means that its stake could fetch a higher price if Vodafone decided to put it up for sale. And then there’s the question of the 700Mhz spectrum auction, which Verizon Wireless emerged victorious from. While it got itself a juicy section of spectrum, it also shelled out a lot for the privilege. There’s got to be some heads being scratched at Vodafone right now.

After a lot of digging, I managed to find the right page to work out the costs of calling abroad from your UK Vodafone.

It’s like having a flash back to 1997.

125 pence a minute to call the States from a standard Vodafone connection. More than a quid a minute!

Buy the 2.50/month international call saver option — something I briefly considered — and you’ll only pay 25p a minute to America.

I reckon that’s far too high a premium nowadays.

It’s 30p a minute to call the States from a 3UK handset. No international caller option required. That’s .. well, it’s better than 125p.

How do you dial internationally from your handset? Or don’t you bother?

Got into Barcelona and thought I should phone my other half to let her know my status.

Vodafone Passport is pretty neat. 75p per connection and international calls are then made at your standard service plan rates. Really good if you’re making 20 minute calls. But they get you on the quick 20 second calls that you’re used to making when you’re back home.

And there’s a fair use policy:

For each call you receive that lasts more than 60 minutes, a 20p per minute charge applies from the 60th minute onwards. This is charged in per second increments.

So this was my first actual experience of Vodafone Passport. I sent a text message to her to check if she was available to receive a call.

Got a reply back saying yes.

I phoned her.

Voicemail.

Shit.

75p for caling her voicemail.

COME ON!

Then she called me.

Arse. 75p again.

So that’s 150p blown. Still, the clarity was brilliant and I felt I was able to relax on the call, rather than stressing at T-Mobile 55p/min rates.

What’s your experience with Vodafone Passport?

I’m off to Barcelona to meet with HP and discuss blog relations with them. I always thoroughly enjoy talking blogging and blog relations with people.

I would have used the on-board t-mobile wifi connection here on the Heathrow Express to connect to the internet, but instead, I thought I’d try out my new Vodafone USB modem. It’s performing well, even on this fast train. Faandabbydosey.

I posted a quick summary of James Whatley’s Vodafone experience just a few moments ago — just as this update arrived in my inbox… Over to James…

- - -
First up, if you missed the rant
on Friday, then you should go catch up or else none the following will make much sense.

HOLD MUSIC – BA BADADA BA BA BA DADA – BA BADADA BA BA BA DADA

Up to speed? Good.

Next up - I’m still with Vodafone.

Why?

Well. You’ll see.

Thing is, this whole episode has really got me thinking about a LOT of stuff. So there’s a lot to cover with this follow up post, it might turn into another long one… So once again, thanks for reading.

First up – let’s pick up from where we left off.

The early hours of Friday morning:

01:30 – I email my rant over to Ewan

01:45 – He hits publish

01:46 – I post on Jaiku

04:52 – Nokia Geek re-posts the story on
his blog

07:40 – The story re-appears over on the blog by iFelix

08:57 – An SMS arrives from a friend within the walls of VF:

“Would you like me to try and escalate your N95 problem internally? Or would you prefer the vanilla experience?”

I choose the latter, (thank you though for your kind offer – you know who you are).

09:30 – Steve Litchfield links back to the story over at All
About Symbian

Then, at 09:39, the phone rings:

“Hello, James Whatley…”

“Hello there Mr Whatley, my name’s Amy and I’m calling from Vodafone. I hope you don’t mind me getting in contact like this, I’ve just been reading your blog…”

[Note from Ewan: We're speculating that 'Amy' is indeed Amy Rose as covered before on SMS Text News]

“I see…”

“Yes, I searched for your name on our system and then cross referenced the notes on the accounts that I found with your written version of events to see which James Whatley it could be and.. well I found you!”

“Right you are.”

“Mr Whatley, I’m dreadfully sorry for everything’s that happened regarding your N95. We’ve investigated it as much as we can this end and it seems the insurers have rather a lot hoops to jump through to process these claims, something we’re trying to rectify. And you see it’s basically a lot of red tape that we can’t really do much about…”

“Ok…”

“However, I’ve been in touch with them and sorted everything out and we should be able to get a replacement phone out to you as soon as possible. Now this normally happens on the next working day, but I’m going to make a few calls and see if we can’t get it out to you today.”

“Oh well, thank you very much…”

“Only thing is Mr Whatley, we don’t actually stock the silver N95 anymore. We only have the 8GB version, is that going to be ok?”

“Well, er… I actually prefer the silver one if I’m perfectly honest, but I can’t knock it I guess. It’s very kind of you to reach out like this. Yes. Ok. I’ll take it. Cheers.”

“Right then, I’ll sort things out with the insurance company. You will still have to pay the £25 excess charge for claiming but I can just pop that onto your next bill. I’ll give you a call back in a bit to confirm delivery.”

Brilliant. Fantastic. Wonderful.
Or is it?

We’ll come back to this one. Moving on.

09:50 – I get an email from Colin over at Nokia WOMWorld:

“Hi James

Your two week trial period for the N82 has finished, therefore we need to organise the return of the device…

Just kidding! Read about your “kaput” N95, so out of the goodness of our hearts we will extend the N82 trial period. How about I send out a bluetooth headset too, make it easier for you to call/pester/complain to Vodafone whilst on the move?”

I very nearly spat my latte out laughing… This did make me smile. A lot. Cheers guys.

10:00 – Steve over at S60Blogger made sure he
mentioned it too – which, incidentally, then got picked up a few more times on some insurance aggregation sites

10:10 – Paul Sweeney of VoiceSage talks about the Expectations
of GREAT Customer Service

11:29 – I come back to my desk and I have a missed call plus one new SMS:

Hi James, it’s Amy calling from Vodafone. Just calling you back as promised earlier. Got good news the phone is gonna be delivered to you today. Should be with you around 2:30. I will give you a call back, I’ll try you again in a little while just so that I can have another chance to chat to you. Thank you. Bye. - Spoken through SpinVox

14:30 you say? Not bad at all.

Lunch time rolls around and the department head out for a colleague’s birthday lunch.

13:25 – The phone rings:

“Hi, is that James Whatley?”

“Yes mate.”

“Alright, I’m just on Marlow High Street, looking for Wethered House (SpinVox HQ), can you direct us?”

“Actually mate, I’m just on the High Street myself. In Chez Gerard…”

“Oh I can see that, I’ll come meet you.”

13:30 – Yours truly takes delivery of a brand new, never-been-opened Nokia N95 8GB.

Just shy of 12hrs since the original article went live.

So – What have we learnt?

First thing: Vodafone have some kind of ‘Forum Intervention Team’ who are happy to step up to the plate whenever things need fixing, (but we knew this already).

This I must say is a HUGE step forward for any operator/network and is something the rest of the industry can learn from.

To have a team in place monitoring the blogosphere for anything of this nature is a great string to Vodafone UK’s bow.
And it’s the exact same thing I used to do 18mths ago for Refresh Mobile, (way back in their Mobizines days).

So kudos to you Red; you came through and you delivered. Nice work.

BUT.

And this is a big BUT that was repeated to me over email, IM, Jaiku, Twitter, SMS and even over the phone from my friends and colleagues alike:

“BUT JAMES?! Well done and everything – But what about the average user? If this happened to your Mum she wouldn’t sit down and write two thousand words on how annoyed she was nor would she know the right platform/channels to use to air said grievances! So, what about your Normobs?!”

Well. There’s a few ways you can look at this.

Ewan bet me £5 that I could’ve got a replacement handset from in-store over the weekend and he was probably right. So did I get preferential treatment? Yes. You could say I did. If I was your average every day customer without access to a reasonably well-read wireless news site, would I have got my replacement handset on the same day? Doubtful, (don’t forget though, I still had to pay the £25 excess, just like anyone else – all VF saved me was time).

This however does not necessarily make Vodafone bad. Later that day I was contacted by another friend of mine, again within the walls of Vodafone. He told me about the Forum Intervention Team and how (in his opinion) they do a good job. Not least because they fix what they can online but because every problem they solve gets put back into the system to try and ensure that the same doesn’t happen again. My contact also told me that Vodafone has a ‘Voice of the Customer’ forum. Everyone within Voda has the ability to raise issues to VOC so they can be investigated.

They don’t take this kind of thing lightly.

The good thing (I’m told) is that this whole episode has highlighted the ‘outsourced insurers’ problem to the VOC which will hopefully mean that the end user experience will improve in the long run.

This is great news.

Short term?

If you’re a normob (or if you know one) then the best advice I could give you would be to never give up. Keep calling back, keep kicking up a fuss and keep on keeping on until you get the level of service you think you deserve.

Now in closing; let’s address some of the questions raised in the the
comments of Friday’s piece::

Quite a few of you mentioned that I should’ve taken the insurance girl’s hints and just told them what they wanted to hear. You’re probably right. But you’re gonna have to excuse my naivety on this one chaps; the thought didn’t even cross my mind. I’ve never had to claim on insurance before and well – I didn’t know the game was played as such. I’ll know for future reference… that aside – it’s still a sorry state of affairs if this kind of behaviour is ‘the norm’.

Hands0n had a cheeky dig at the state of my N95. What can I say? I USE my handset! I don’t care for fancy covers or belt clips. My phone is purely functional. Admittedly I use every function available but that doesn’t mean I should keep it wrapped up in cotton wool. I love the battle scars on my N95. It shows how much I’ve really got out of it, y’know?

Maybe I should send it off to some kind of mobile phone war museum… Hehe.

Joking aside, this whole episode has taught us a LOT about Vodafone.

Yes, their CS sometimes falters but it’s clear they do care about their customers.

Yes, they gave me preferential treatment, but it’s only through people venting their anger (online or otherwise) at poor levels of service that any big company has any chance of learning/changing anything.

And the less said about the N95 4GB variant the better…

Last Friday Whatley was, if you recall, seriously unimpressed at the Vodafone Insurance people after his N95 developed a fault with it’s screen.

It wasn’t Vodafone who screwed up, per se. Whatley just had a bit of a negative experience with Vodafone’s outsourced insurance people.

Well, Vodafone contacted him, if memory serves, at about 945am on Friday morning, about 7 and a half hours after I posted his original update.

A new Nokia N95 8GB was placed in his hands, thanks to a particularly impressive courier, by 1pm that same day.

Smart.

We interrupt the scheduled programming to bring you a Whatley on Friday exclusive…

- - -

AAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!

So – Those of you who follow me on Jaiku (http://whatleydude.jaiku.com) or on twitter (http://twitter.com/whatleydude) may have seen this message appear late last night:

“N95 – kaput :’(“

What follows is an account of two hours of my life from the early evening of last night (Thursday).

Vodafone have pissed me off. Their insurance company more so – they are CLEARLY a 3rd party with nothing to do with Vodafone and as such, let them down on an almost spectacular level.
That aside – VF’s CS has seen better days.

If this issue is not resolved by the weekend, I am off to 3.
You heard it here first.

So - What happened?

Well, over the past few weeks the N95 has taken a bit of a beating… it’s, how we say in the UK, ‘been in the wars a bit’. I’ve dropped it left, right and centre and even tossed it here and there too.

Note – it was camera tossing – see here.

Anyway - The phone has been fine. I went to a meeting yesterday afternoon, switched the phone off. All fine. I leave the meeting. Switch the phone on. All fine. I get to the station and, whilst waiting for my train, I decide to check the timetable… This is not possible. Not properly anyway. Because… every time I clicked one of the right sided centre keys, the screen went blank. Bugger.

Train arrives. I get on. I test it again. Same thing; Right centre keys make the screen go blank. Left centre keys bring it back. Bugger it.

I’m just off into town for a couple of drinks with the lass and all of a sudden I have no phone… Damn.

What next? I do what any other Vodafone-loving man would do, I call Vodafone.

Here I have to pause. Here for a second, if merely for sheer dramatic effect I must take a moment… and breathe…

I have waxed lyrical about Red’s amazing customer service before, quite a lot actually; online and off.
Thing is with GOOD customer service, you become used to it.
It becomes “the norm”.
Anything less than above average is… well… just average.

I make the call. Bear in mind that as a ‘card carrying member’ (remember?) of Vodafone’s ‘best care’ program I have come to expect the following to happen:

“Hello Mr Whatley, how can I help you today?”

“Hello there, my phone is broken.”

“Ok Mr Whatley, we can get a replacement out to you with 24hrs, where would you like it to be delivered?”

And. That. Is. It. Job done.

This is what I expected to happen. What I got was something COMPLETELY to the contrary.

CALL 1 (bodes well doesn’t it?)

“Hello Mr Whatley, how can I help you today?”

“Hello there, I wonder if you can help actually. It’s my phone. The screen really, it started to go off and on earlier and now… well now it won’t even come on at all”

“And what phone do you have Mr Whatley? Says here you have the N95, is it the 8GB version?”

“No no, I’ve got an old school original N95.”

“Ok, and did you buy it from a store or over the phone?”

“Over the phone. I NEVER go in store.”

“Ok Mr Whatley, and what do you think may’ve the problem on the phone?”

“I’m not entirely sure to be honest, I do USE my phone. I mean REALLY use it. But I know I’ve definitely dropped it twice in the last two weeks…”

“Oh ok Mr Whatley, no problem. It sounds like you may have to make an insurance claim but that shouldn’t take a minute… Well I’ve just checked and it looks like we don’t actually have any N95s in stock anymore, but that’s ok. The insurance will just send you an 8GB instead… is that ok?”

Leaving aside my N95-1 preferences for a second…

“Oh.. er.. ok, can’t really complain! Yes, I guess that would be fine, thank you!”

“Ok Mr Whatley I’ll just put you through to the insurance department.”

“Thank you very much…”

HOLD MUSIC – BA BADADA BA BA BA DADA – BA BADADA BA BA BA DADA

“Hello you’re through to Vodafone In-sure-antz… *giggle* …”

Note – the giggling – the girl that I was put through to was clearly having some kind of joke on the other end of the line and was finding it hard to control her laughter. Hilarious.

“…Before I go on.. *giggle* stop it *giggle* ..can I just tell.. *giggle* …can I just tell you that callsarerecordedfortraininperposeees…” *muffled laughter*

I’ve worked in a call centre myself. This happens. You just get the giggles sometimes.
However, I wasn’t in the mood.

I hung up and re-dialled 191.
I get through to the woman sitting next to the first woman I spoke to the first time round.

“Oh, sorry to hear what’s happened Mr Whatley, I’ll try and put you through again…”

HOLD MUSIC

“Hi Mr Whatley, I’ve explained all your details and told them what the situation is, I’ll just put you through now…”

“Hello you’re through to Vodafone In-sure-antz, can I take your name please?”

“Haven’t you got it…? Ok. James Whatley”

“And how can I help?”

“You mean you weren’t told?”

“You want to make a claim sir?”

“Yes. The screen on my N95. It’s broken. I need to get it replaced.”

“And when did it break sir?”

“This afternoon.”

“As a result of what sir?”

“Well, I’ve dropped it recently.”

“When sir?”

“A couple of times. RECENTLY”

“Oh. So the screen was working today then sir?”

“Yes.”

“Did you drop it today sir?”

“No, but I think it’s an issue of overall wear and tear if you will…”

“But you didn’t drop it today sir?”

“Well, no but…”

“Well then the screen failure can’t be down to you dropping it Sir, *sigh*, it’s a warrantee issue. I’ll pass you back to customer care.”

Turns out ‘pass you back to customer care’ is a euphemism for ‘hang up on you’.

If you’ve made it this far – thank you – I applaud your reading efforts. By this time I had travelled from Oxford to Paddington and I’m now at Paddington Station when I make call number 3.

“Hello there, I don’t have time to go through this again. I just want to complain about the poor standard of service that your insurance company provides. First they lack professionalism and second they show no real willingness to help and/or cooperate…”

“Of course Mr Whatley, what is the problem?”

I explain. THIS TIME ROUND I’m advised that I will have to take the phone IN STORE to have it examined…

“Look. I don’t have time to do this now. I called to complain. I need to get on the tube. I’ll call back later…”

By now I am seething. I get off the tube at London Waterloo and the lass is running a little late. “I’ll try again” I think… CALL 4

“Hello there, I’ve had a rough time with CS so far this evening. I understand this isn’t your fault so I won’t scream and shout. My N95. It’s broken.”

“Ok sir, which one do you have? The 4GB or the 8GB?”

“Pardon?”

“Which N95 do you have sir? The 4GB or the 8GB?”

“Er… There isn’t a 4GB.”

“Yes there is Sir, it’s ok, you’ve probably got the 8GB, the black one right sir?”
(this time in a slightly condescending kind of ‘it’s ok sir, you don’t know about your silly little broken phone’ voice)

“Look, I don’t have the 8GB version of the phone. I have the silver one…”

“..The 4GB.”

“NO! THERE IS NO 4GB N95! I work in the bloody industry and I know this phone inside and out and unless you’ve started shipping them with a 4GB MicroSD card as standard then it does not exist. The original N95, the silver one, the one IN MY HAND, comes with 160MB internal flash memory and 64MB RAM. Not 4GB.”

“I’m sorry sir but…”

“Look, let’s no split hairs. I know I’m right on this. It’s not why I called. I called because my phone is broken…”

“Yes Mr Whatley, says here you’ve been advised to take it in-store to have it examined?”

“Yes, that’s right. But that’s not good enough. I need a replacement as soon as…”

“That’s ok sir, if you hand it over in-store they will pop it in a jiffy bag, send it off to be repaired and it will be back with 7 days tops.”

NOTE – I’ve been here before – it NEVER takes seven days. THIS is why I stopped going in-store.

“I doubt that. Plus what am I to do without a phone?”

“They’ll have a phone you can borrow sir…”

“Have you ever had to borrow one from in-store before?”

“They have the Sharp device range sir…”

“Yes. I know. Horrid devices. They’re not nice. Listen. You don’t get it. I’m a mobile phone blogger. It’s what I do. Not having a decent handset in this business is quite frankly a ridiculous notion and I REALLY need to get this sorted ASAP!”

“Yes sir, if you take it in-store tomorrow I’m sure they’ll be able to…”

At this point I gave up. I am SO mad. The phone, FOR WHATEVER REASON, no longer works. Actually, that’s incorrect. The screen no longer works. The phone works fine. In fact, I know my N95 THAT WELL, I’m able to send texts and make calls… in the dark if you will.

Fortunately I am lucky enough to currently be in possession of a Nokia N82 (kindly supplied by those lovely folk at WOM World (http://www.womworld.com/nseries), this device however I have been using as my work phone. That reluctant was I to give up my N95 as my main device I opted to switch out the E61i for the duration of the loan period.

While I’ve been typing up this tirade I’ve been backing up/restoring/sync-ing each device to switch the N82 into my main device and the E61i back to my work device.

Incidentally – I’m not even touching upon the review of the N82 yet, or the amazing differences between the Nseries and the Eseries range of devices that I uncovered by making this switch… they can all wait for another post.

This post - THIS ONE THAT YOU’RE READING RIGHT NOW – is about how disappointed I am with Vodafone. You may call me fickle, but have a read of it again. See if you’d settle for this kind of ‘service’.

I am NOT a happy customer.

And do you know what makes it worse? It’s happened before http://whatleydude.vox.com/library/post/rip-n95.html - same problem(s) http://whatleydude.vox.com/library/post/my-faith-has-been-tested-1.html

This time though there has been no resolve.

The issue is still open.

I genuinely do not know what to do next. My instinct tells me to call VF again - To keep on keeping on. This issue has happened before and I got a replacement within 24hrs.

Why is it any different now?

Why is Vodafone’s customer service so inconsistent?

Why do they allow such a shoddy experience when it comes to their mobile insurance – which, by the way, I PAY EXTRA FOR!

If I don’t have a new N95 by the end of the weekend, or at least, on its way to me by the end of the weekend – as I said at the beginning of this post – I’m going to 3.

And I’ll tell every soul that I ever sold onto Vodafone that they made a mistake and that Vodafone don’t care about their customers, nor do they care for their (outsourced) insurance – that’s not worth the paper it is written on.

With that, I am spent. If you made it to the end, thanks.
If you’ve got a spare N95-1 lying around, let me know – I’m open to offers.

- - -

I have, incidentally, bet Whatley five pounds that if he takes his handset into a Vodafone store tomorrow, they will replace it there and then for him.

But the more I think on it, the more I wonder if actually, that’s not how things work. I wonder if the handsets in store are for ‘brand new customers only’ and not for replacements? We shall see.

Got a call from the FTC today.

Michael Becker of iLoop reckoned I should sit in as a panelist on an upcoming Town Hall meeting that the FTC are putting together on the subject of mobile commerce (and with an emphasis on consumer protection).

The Town Hall will explore consumer protection issues arising in the rapidly expanding world of M-commerce. Topics will include:

* The use of mobile-messaging services as instruments of M-commerce;
* Consumers’ ability to control mobile applications;
* The adaptation of advertising to mobile devices, including the challenges presented by small screen disclosures;
* M-commerce practices targeting children and teens;
* Industry best practices in preventing fraud, disclosing costs, and resolving billing disputes;
* Evolving security threats and solutions; and
* Next-generation products and services.

James Trilling, one of the Attorneys supervising the formulation of the meeting, arranged to call me with colleague Ruth, who identified herself as a regular reader. Nice one Ruth!

I’ve got quite a lot of opinions on mobile commerce. In fact I’m overflowing with them, particularly real experiences since I’ve been out using a lot of American mobile commerce services recently. James tentatively asked my perspective on mobile commerce and consumer protection and within moments I was venting forth on PhonepayPlus’s Fine Day, the STOP command and how I was really impressed at being able to buy a ham sandwich via text with Noah’s Gomobo.com service.

I’m not sure if I’ll qualify for the panel, particularly given my realistic experience and direct approach. I can just imagine how some industry players — the Motorola-RAZR-bearing 55 year old tanned mobile industry executives who’ve only just got to grips with this new ‘texting’ lark — might not be that impressed at my highly reality-based perspective on the industry.

It will be interesting to read the results of the panel.

If you’d like to send some viewpoints for consideration the FTC site notes that…

Interested parties may submit written comments or original research until March 17, 2008.

You’ve got a good couple of days to knock something up and send it over. If you’re working in or around the American mobile industry and you’d like to have a say, I recommend you do so. More details on this page.

To Vodafone. I can’t tell you how delighted I was to receive James’ call. Because I’d have been panicking big time if I was using my T-Mobile handset. On an international call you want the clearest line possible. And since I was actually standing in Liverpool Street Station when James called, there was a lot of external noise. And James and Ruth were on a conference phone. It was just brilliant having what felt like a ‘full signal’ to be able to talk to them without worrying about:

a) the call dropping (on my end)
b) poor general audio quality
c) unpredictable scrambling of the audio

Such a relief. Delighted with my Vodafone connection.

Kudos to Tom Rushton of the Vodafone Forum Intervention Team. They really are doing a brilliant job at scouring the internet for people having problems with Vodafone, correcting any misunderstandings and doing their utmost to rectify issues.

Although I do think the name of the team, ‘Forum Intervention Team’ — it’s a little bit functional, isn’t it? A bit KGB. ‘Internet Relations Team’ perhaps? Still, doing a good job.

Tom was having trouble posting a reply to my ‘I can’t add any text bundles to my account‘ post so he knocked me over an email with it instead.

First, here’s a reminder of the key issue I was having:

Eventually Saj phoned the call centre and found out that, since I’ve got ‘unlimited landline calls’ on my account, I cannot purchase more text messages in a bundle.

Both Saj and I were a little confused.

“Would you like to swap to unlimited texts?” came the question from the call centre.

“No,” Saj explained, “The customer wants unlimited landlines and wants to add extra texts,”

We both waited. I rolled my eyes. I could already see what was coming.

Welcome to Vodafone, land of the binary. It’s one or zero. One or the other. You can’t have both. You’re either screwed for 35p/minute calls (after your bundle) or you’re nailed for 12p texts (after your bundle).

Vodafone wouldn’t, I was led to believe, let me add text bundles to my account. Both the chap in the shop and the chap at the call centre weren’t having any success.

Tom solved the problem for me. Here we go:

Hi Ewan,

We at the Vodafone Forums team were ever so disappointed to see that you’ve had a problem with your account. I really don’t understand why it’s been stated that you can’t change the texts on the price plan that you’re on.

On all of our current price plans (excluding ones with the Unlimited Texts offer) you can choose from either 100, 250, 500 or 1000 texts. You just pay extra to jump up to the next level from whichever one you’re on with your current price plan. I’ve checked on our systems and the Unlimited Landlines offer you have shouldn’t affect this.

Would you mind getting in contact with us via email? I’d love to get your account fixed and get you onto exactly the price plan you wanted. If you go to the URL pasted at the bottom of this message, enter your account details and a brief explanation of the problem we’ll look into this. Please include the code [removed] in your message too; this will route your query to the Forum Team.

I’m sure we’ll be able to get this sorted for you, and I have my fingers crossed we’ll see some blogs on here in the near future about how well things are going with your Vodafone account,

Tom, Vodafone UK

Right on. I’m going to sort that out shortly. Thanks for taking the time Tom.

I’ve added Vodafone to my how to do good blog relations presentation.

I am absolutely loving the fact that I can talk to people … on the phone… on the go… it really is just brilliant.

Obviously you can do this with any mobile phone account, just not consistently in my experience. My 3UK account is generally reliable, but my two T-Mobile accounts are nothing short of disastrous when it comes to audio. So much so that I have spent — on reflection — years waiting until I got ‘home’ or ‘back to work’ to make phone calls that I could ordinarily have made on-the-go, were it not for the ridiculous audio quality.

I really abhor people telling me ’sorry, this is, er, a very bad line’ when I’m phoning their office landline from my T-Mobile account. It is such a pleasant change to be able to transact business continually and without issue via my Vodafone handset.

I’m delighted too with the unlimited landline calls option on my price plan. That is pretty neat indeed. Hugely neat. I call a lot of landlines, particularly when it comes to public relations professionals who very much operate from their desks. I haven’t looked to see what the terms and conditions are relating to this. There’s probably a fair use policy of a few thousand minutes.

As for text messages, I signed up with a paltry 250 text messages.

I always do rough mental arithmetic when faced with a text bundle to work out how ‘good’ it is. I try and divide by 30 to see how many texts are available daily. So in the case of 250, that works out to about 8 text messages per day.

Shit.

The arse with text messaging is that when you text someone, they usually text back — and it’s often only polite (or required) for you to text a reply. To which you might get another reply. That needs a reply. So one ‘Are we on for today’ interaction could actually ‘cost’ 10 text messages. No problem when you’re on a T-Mobile Flext 75 price plan that let’s you use as many texts, MMS or minutes as you wish. Serious issue when you’re using Big Red and you’re about to get whacked for 12 pence per text.

Vodafone continually tell me that this isn’t a problem. They paint an idyllic picture of text message usage and always immediately counter with ‘Ahhhh yes, but Ewan, listen Ewan, old-chap, that’s the OUT OF BUNDLE price… No one ever pays that, no one ever goes over their bundle, you see… it’s fiiiiiiiine.’

Bollocks, is it.

The first thing I thought I’d do when I got my new handset was text everyone in my address book with my new number. That’s at least 800 people. Not only would that wipe out my 250 ‘bundle allowance’ but it would actually cost 550 x 12p (66 pounds). Ridiculous.

Firstly why does Vodafone not do a ‘move in tell-your-friends-your-number’ text service?

Secondly, why don’t I just increase my text bundle and stop whining? Good idea.

I popped into a Vodafone store, back, actually, to the place where I originally purchased the account. Saj remembered me. Good man. “No problem,” he said, when I asked for a text bundle, “You can buy them in 500 or 1,000 chunks,” (I think it’s about 6 or 7 quid for 500, and roughly double for 1,000 texts).

I asked Saj to hit me for 500 extra. That’d give me 750 a month. Good enough, right?

I waited a few minutes.

Saj began to look more and more pained as he operated the Vodafone terminal showing my account details.

Eventually Saj phoned the call centre and found out that, since I’ve got ‘unlimited landline calls’ on my account, I cannot purchase more text messages in a bundle.

Both Saj and I were a little confused.

“Would you like to swap to unlimited texts?” came the question from the call centre.

“No,” Saj explained, “The customer wants unlimited landlines and wants to add extra texts,”

We both waited. I rolled my eyes. I could already see what was coming.

Welcome to Vodafone, land of the binary. It’s one or zero. One or the other. You can’t have both. You’re either screwed for 35p/minute calls (after your bundle) or you’re nailed for 12p texts (after your bundle).

So came confirmation.

“Sorry,” said Saj, shaking his head.

Ridiculous.

I phoned up the call centre at the weekend and upgraded to pay the highest possible monthly tariff, which, unbelievably is sixty odd quid (excluding VAT). That gets me unlimited landline calls, 3,000 cross network minutes and … 500 texts.

Can’t upgrade my text bundle any more. I’d have to swap to unlimited texts and give up my landline calls. Gah.

I am going to absolutely 100% NUTS if I am charged twelve pence per text message by Vodafone. Absolute NUTS.

Last Friday I made the ultimate switch over.

Oh yes indeedo.

After quite a long on-off love affair, I have committed to Vodafone.

I decided that, whilst I am a huge fan of data services, and in particular, 3UK’s X-Series Gold/Silver offerings, I prized call quality and the Vodafone spectrum above all else.

The sham that was the X-Series blog really struck home to me. Yes 3UK were always just a mobile operator — but the blog there gave me the impression — the absolutely false impression — that the people there ‘lived it’ — that a small dedicated ‘X-Series’ team really believed in open data, smart applications and so on. Then, come January, they just switched the blog off, catapulting them from my ’shit hot’ to ‘how not to do it’ slide on my How To Do Blog Relations presentation I regularly give. So I was freed from the dilemma of switching to 3UK full time.

The only other decision in my head was whether or not to consider the other networks. I gave serious consideration to o2. I didn’t bother thinking about Orange.

T-Mobile… meh… well, I think it’s only fair that I finally dump them after the amount of ridiculous, ridiculous reporting that I’ve done on the site here over the years.

Data is good and it’s really nice to have unlimited data — but the nail in the coffin for T-Mobile came when I phoned up to ask how I could get a proper unrestricted all-ports-free data service (I wondered if Web’N'Walk Max would let me use IM, properly), and the helpful yet entirely, entirely unknowledgeable customer support lady mangled the issue. She didn’t understand what I meant by unrestricted. Not her fault at all. Network policy. Next.

My decision was ultimately made when, sitting in front of the very helpful Saj, in the Vodafone Oxford Street store, I discovered that my credit check with Vodafone had been approved. After three or four years of wrangling, the system has finally forgotten the issue we shared. I paid up fully after running up a 1,200 data bill … my attempt to object to it caused goodness knows how many problems with Vodafone’s credit people — so much so I was persona-non-grata for years. All fixed now.

Instead of getting a 30-day rolling contract, as I originally intended, I made an executive decision with Saj and hopped on to an 18 month contract. Unlimited landline calls. A paltry 120mb of data per month. 250 text messages. We. Shall. See.

This wasn’t a half baked switch. Oh no. I even took out a 15 quid a month USB broadband modem (3gb allowance). Done.

Here’s Saj sorting out approval for my new modem:

I am lock, stock and barrel Vodafone. And I love it. You can actually PHONE me and you will, provided I’m around, be able to speak to me without crackling, hissing or my calls inexplicably dropping.

I didn’t bother taking my existing number. I thought it would be an interesting experiment to see just how well Plaxo works. If you’ve got me in Plaxo, you’ll already have my new number (Add me to your plaxo by searching for ewan@smstextnews.com, I’ll approve you).

If you don’t have my new number, here it is: 07769 658 104

Or, if you’re international, you want: +44 7769 658 104

And what handset did I get?

LONDON, 16:00 —

I’m sat in a Big Red (Vodafone) Shop right now. Saj, the sales chap, is briefing me…

Whatley picked up this tip earlier today. I never knew that Vodafone were shipping unlocked handsets to their contract customers.

Apparently, if we’re to believe Vodafone blog rep, Peter Edward (posting on N95users.com), Vodafone started shipping network unlocked handsets out to contract customers earlier this year. Here’s his comment:

Good afternoon everyone,

moshah is correct- we can now unlock contract handsets for free.

From earlier this year all new handsets sent out on contract accounts are network unlocked, so it’d hardly be fair for us to still charge existing contract customers to unlock their phones.

The £19.99 inc. V.A.T. charge does still apply to Pay As You Talk handsets, unless they’re over 12 months old in which case we can issue the codes free of charge as before.

Happy to help,

edwardpeter

Vodafone UK

I’ll confirm shortly.

If you’d rather lose your right arm than your mobile email, Vodafone has some news for you: the operator has signed up with Neverfail to provide “continuous availability” and disaster recovery for BlackBerry users.

In short, if anything goes wrong with your BlackBerry, Neverfail will spot the problem before anything drastic happens and wake up the appropriate IT guy or switch to another email server, so there’s no downtime with the BlackBerry service and no emails going missing.

The service also works for Microsoft and Lotus Notes too, and Vodafone says it likes the Neverfail system so much it uses it in-house.

Sounds good - but will it be able to keep mobile email going when this happens?

If you’re fed up with talking to Vodafone customer service staff in an attempt to fix a problem with your phone, you could soon find yourself solving the issue all on your lonesome: Vodafone has signed up with SNAPin SelfService software to put customer service directly onto handsets.

Vodafone customers using SNAPin’s software will be able to automatically resolve common problems directly from their mobiles, like diagnosing and resolving configuration errors and make account inquiries.

According to Vodafone, trials of the service boosted customer service. I bet - after all, who likes battling with customer service staff to get a handset issue fixed if they can fix it themselves?

Here’s a cool idea, though I’m skeptical of how it might be implemented. IntoMobile is reporting that it looks like Vodaphone is going to be using SNAPin Software to setup self-help channels on subscriber’s handsets. Starting out with smartphones, the system will offer customer care and billing, but also step-by-step walkthroughs for things like using the internet browser and the like.

Sounds cool, but my question is, if the user is having trouble with the handset, how is a handset-based ’solution’ going to help them? In particular, I’m picturing a Windows Mobile handset, where the user is trying to learn about surfing the web. It’s not really all that easy to switch between the tutorial and the browser, is it?

Perhaps it’ll be better in practice. Props, at least, for putting the customer first, Vodaphone.

(I’m paraphrasing the ’stink’ bit.)

Link: Vodafone rejects EU call for caps on data roaming charges - International Herald Tribune

The Vodafone chief said he was aware of consumer discontent with high wireless data charges, and Vodafone had been responding by lowering charges.

“Just look at our prices,” Sarin said. “Nobody has to tell me what our customers are telling us. We are talking to our customers every day.”

Should that reply from Arun actually be:

“We are talking to our customers every day and telling them to stick it.”

I wonder.

There’s not much use having a ‘dialogue’ when, simply, customers want much, much cheaper data roaming fees. This opinion is based on the 1,200 pounds I inadvertently spent in Cannes last year, thanks to Big Red.

But if I was Vodafone, I’d listen, smile nicely, tell the regulator to stick it, raise the inclusive amount of roaming data a little to placate the heavy users and do my best to avoid lowering the prices until market pressure absolutely positively requires price adjustment. Exactly what Vodafone appears to be doing — and, well, they’re a business. Fair play.

It’s just not fair

My best mate Arun speaks on the Vodafone MWC blog…

- internet on mobile beginning to happen
- data revenues growing at 40%

Still no hint on what phone Arun uses…

Mark Street over at the Vodafone blog has posted up a new video featuring Jens Schulte-Bockum, Vodafone’s Global Director of ‘Terminals’ (or, ‘handsets’, as we say on SMS Text News), waxing lyrical about the company’s announcement of new handset initiatives. Key points being the introduction of Vodafone OEM handsets (one in six, I think Jens said, of all Vodafone handsets retailed are their own-brand devices) together with perspective on greater alignment between handset manufacturers (e.g. RIM).

I’m very much enjoying seeing Vodafone people talking — and, shock horror, displaying a degree of passion for their company and their activities — on this blog. There’s no media outlet in between cutting and editing away at what they think are the best bits. So when the chap, the interviewer (I’m afraid I still don’t know his name) asks if Jens reckons the Vodafone own-brand handsets are stylish, you can see Jens’

It’s particularly exciting seeing such a huge company experiment with the medium. I’m trying to think of another example of a comparable company doing this kind of thing. SMS Text News reader Ant reckoned I was a bit harsh on my comments about 3 dumping their X-Series blog (read his comment), especially when I described Vodafone as ‘leading the way’. 3 did, as Ant points out, ‘get the blog ball rolling’ only to dump it when they couldn’t be bothered to resource it. I’m very impressed that a behemoth like Vodafone is dipping a toe in the water. It’ll be fascinating to see how they manage and measure ROI and whether they consider introducing a continual blog.

In the meantime, I’m enjoying watching and reading.

Link: Mobile World Congress - Blog Archive - Vodafone Picks BlackBerry

Fans of BlackBerry devices will be pleased to hear that we have strengthened our relationship with Research In Motion (RIM) by selecting the BlackBerry platform as one of our preferred consumer platforms. This essentially makes it much easier for Vodafone to roll out new services and applications to the devices.

This makes a lot of sense, particularly, given Vodafone’s focus on small to medium sized businesses.

Here’s a quick heads-up on Vodafone this week….

1. Vodafone extends range of own branded handsets and rolls out brand design guidelines for all Vodafone handsets. One in six phones shipped by Vodafone is from its own brand range

2. VODAFONE DEEPENS STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP WITH RIM. Vodafone Selects BlackBerry as a Mass Market Consumer Platform

3. Vodafone Group trials 3G Femtocell Technology