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Thread ID: 95135	2008-11-25 20:10:00	Paul is at it again	Digby (677)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
722938	2008-11-25 20:10:00	Vodaphone's Paul Brislen, said that it is great that New Zealand is top of the world when it comes to texting. (Herald on Sunday) He makes out this is some sort of good thing. In reality it is a refelction of his companies high charges for mobile calls which forces people to text. Vodaphone keep saying they want to get NZ into the top quarter of the OECD when it comes to low mobile call rates, yet they never reduce their rates ! So how can you have that goal if you are never going to try to achieve it. Come on Paul !	Digby (677)
722939	2008-11-25 20:21:00	And their best mate scheme has recently ended their text notifications when you don't have enough money to top up. And they didn't tell anyone. I always have my GF on bestmate, and the other day I completely ran out of money while on the phone to her. Went in to the store and they basically said, "Tough ****, buy more credit". And don't get me started on paying for support calls. I almost want to go to telstra, but the 24month thing is a ball breaker.	Thebananamonkey (7741)
722940	2008-11-26 00:01:00	Vodaphone's Paul Brislen, said that it is great that New Zealand is top of the world when it comes to texting . (Herald on Sunday) He makes out this is some sort of good thing . In reality it is a refelction of his companies high charges for mobile calls which forces people to text . Vodaphone keep saying they want to get NZ into the top quarter of the OECD when it comes to low mobile call rates, yet they never reduce their rates ! So how can you have that goal if you are never going to try to achieve it . Come on Paul ! Wasn't that an advertorial?	robbyp (2751)
722941	2008-11-26 00:21:00	Paul's just doing the job he's paid to do, putting spin on a corporate state of affairs to make the corporate look good. Unfortunately, I suspect Paul won't have a lot of say on pricing decisions - that's left to the bean counters... BTW Digby, do you have a better image of your new product than your avatar?	johcar (6283)
722942	2008-11-26 21:12:00	Ah, Digby. Glad to see you're as open minded as ever...! Can I just point out that the company name is Vodafone not Vodaphone? Thanks for that. So, where to begin. We broke into the top half of the OECD for pricing in January of this year. We put out a press release about it (www.vodafone.co.nz) and we've been in the top half ever since. We never spoke about the top quarter but we'll definitely get there in the years ahead. And how can you say we never reduce rates? You can can call, TXT and video someone as MUCH AS YOU LIKE for $6/month. Or you can set up a Family group of four people who can call and TXT each other as MUCH AS THEY LIKE for $20 a month. That's excellent value for money and the OECD doesn't even include those plans in its assessment of our plans. As for Thebananamonkey, sorry about that. We do send out the TXT but it's a nice-to-have reminder, not a hard and fast guaranteed send, so in this case it seems to have gone astray. My apologies. Cheers Paul	Paul Brislen (13625)
722943	2008-11-26 22:00:00	My impression of Vodafone's marketing strategy is: Keep base rates high, since this is where you make money. Regularly implement promotions that don't actually save people money. (AKA The 50c combo upsize McD idea). Excessively advertise them to keep attention away from the high rates. (reference Paul's above post as evidence).	shermo (12739)
722944	2008-11-26 23:01:00	The IOU thing costing money is a shady practice too. Why on earth you'd charge for service calls is absolutely beyond me. Do you think they've named their customer service team "get them out of my hair team"? Most people would refrain from making a complaint as it stands at the moment, and just wait until a better offer comes along. Complaints are an opportunity to improve service, and good service is an amazing thing. What they've got at the moment is a target audience that can't really afford to go anywhere else, if there were any competition they'd be in trouble.	Thebananamonkey (7741)
722945	2008-11-27 03:44:00	Hi Shermo: what do you base that on? Citation would be good then we can discuss it. Our base plans are incredibly good value for money and put us in the top half of the OECD for value. Hi TBM - we charge prepay customers for calls to the call centre and I don't deny it's a contentious issue. However we had wait times of 40 minutes or more because people were calling the call centre for the most basic of things (how do I turn the volume up on my phone. How do I change my ring tone. What do you mean I have to charge my phone up). By charging a dollar we get rid of these kinds of calls and we move those customers who can on to self service options (either on the handset itself or online through the website or through our forum (http://forum.vodafone.co.nz). Is it working? Yes. Our call volumes are down by 60%. Our wait time is now typically around 15 seconds. If you NEED to speak to an operator and HAVE to call you can get through. That's worth more, I think, than having a free call to an operator who isn't available to take your call. In addition, we're introducing a new methodology for the call centre staff. Instead of measuring them on number of calls per hour we're measuring them on "right first time" which means having a focus on quality rather than speed. So when you ring you should get the problem solved first time out of the box rather than having to ring back time and time again. That's still being rolled out. Hope that helps, cheers Paul	Paul Brislen (13625)
722946	2008-11-27 04:19:00	Hi TBM - we charge prepay customers for calls to the call centre and I don't deny it's a contentious issue. However we had wait times of 40 minutes or more because people were calling the call centre for the most basic of things (how do I turn the volume up on my phone. How do I change my ring tone. What do you mean I have to charge my phone up). Hey, how about you support your damn customers ***, and stop with the bull****. Why write crap?, It makes you look worse. we can see you don't want to pay staff to provide the sort of service people deserve. You want to serve up crap, and back it up with crap, and charge people for gold. How the hell did you get your job?, I wouldn't leave you in charge of a coffee machine.	Metla (12)
722947	2008-11-27 04:36:00	I think that it is only fair to put in a good word for Paul. While dealing with Vodafone can be a very frustrating process to say the least, I've found that Paul is actually very helpful when you have an issue that needs to be sorted out (I know that without his help, I would certainly never have got my contract sorted out). :)	maccrazy (6741)
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