Vodafone UK Improves Customer Support with “Just Ask Once” Service
Broadband and mobile provider Vodafone (VodafoneThree) has today launched a new service called ‘Just Ask Once‘, which will essentially see “one person deal with a customer’s query from start to finish, until it is sorted“. The operator claims this will mean no more waiting on hold, no more transfers between agents and no more repeating yourself.
The goal of this seems to be to remove “well-known bug bears such as waiting on hold, repeating the problem to multiple different people, and the need to chase for an update“. Instead of that, customers can load up the feature via the MyVodafone app and respond to messages when it’s convenient.
In fairness, this is how a lot of online support / ticket systems already work, but Vodafone claims to be going further by ensuring that related requests are handled by the same agent. If the query can’t be resolved straight away, the same person from Vodafone will proactively message the customer with updates until it is solved. But if, after all that, they still can’t provide the service they’ve promised, then “customers can leave with no exit fee“.
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Rob Winterschladen, Consumer Director of VodafoneThree, said:
“When it comes to customers, our ambition is simple: we want to be the best. We want to set the gold standard for customer service and that’s why we’re launching ‘Just Ask Once’.
’Just Ask Once’ is based on a really simple principle: when a customer needs help, they ask us once, and we will sort it. Customers can simply and quickly message us through the My Vodafone app at any time and importantly, they’ll only deal with one person until their query is sorted. There’s no more waiting on hold, no transfers between agents, and no more repeating themselves – allowing customers to get on with their day, while we get on with solving their problem.
If we can’t resolve a query immediately, we’ll proactively message the customer with updates until it is sorted, so they aren’t left worrying or having to chase us. What’s more, if we exhaust all avenues and can’t provide the service we promised, then we will let them leave with no exit fee. ‘Just Ask Once’ will level-up customer care and give our customers the most convenient and reliable support in the market.”
The idea of essentially having a dedicated manager for a specific issue or account is not a new one, although it’s usually considered more of a feature applied to more expensive business connections and not residential ones. This is because maintaining the assignment of a specific agent to a specific customer can be quite tricky and isn’t always the most cost-efficient way of using support staff.
The announcement doesn’t say it, but we strongly suspect Vodafone may be making use of AI and automation for this system to be viable at the consumer level. In that sense, a lot of the updates may end up coming from a computer rather than a human, since automation can be used to tackle a lot of the more laborious elements in this sort of process. But that’s just our speculation.
However, despite the PR spin about not being passed to different agents, Vodafone does say in the small print that some queries may require a “specialist team” (i.e. not your assigned agent). For example, if your query relates to a complex technical issue or home broadband premises/move, Vodafone will direct you to this other team over the phone. For customers who are in debt, the collections team will handle your query.
‘Just Ask Once’ is also available for small office/home office (SOHO) business customers with 1-9 employees via the same app. Customers who don’t want to contact Vodafone customer service using the My Vodafone app can of course still get help by calling 191 on their mobile or through the Vodafone website.
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Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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EE have introduced something similar using what would seem to be an AI fronted system. The last time I contacted EE was in September, so the call I made last week went via the new system and was a bit disconcerting at first. The upside is that you get a link, valid for about a week, that will take you back to the person that you first engaged with.
The Vodafone feature in question on the article seems to be a live chat feature accessible through the MyVodafone App, and not when calling CS.
I find the new EE Digital system when calling to be much better than the phone options as you can drill down into what you need and if they’re busy it books a callback.
Some people simply don’t listen and get confused when it hangs up and sends the text and cry “I can never speak to anyone, it’s all robots”…
@Far2329Light: This sounds good, great to speak to the same person with your problem, as opposed to having to explain everything over and over to different people. Many a time I wanted to speak to the orginal person I spoke with first, and couldn’t.
Average call handling time for customer service is about 6 minutes, so around 10 calls per hour, allowing for breaks and other loss of output, maybe sixty calls per day. If you phone back in ten minutes the person you spoke to likely will remember, a day or two and a hundred calls later and I’m unconvinced. I suspect it’s primarily a marketing gimmick that delivers some value for some customers, but isn’t going to really shift the needle on Voda’s customer service, which was .
I used this service and I’m afraid to say it wasn’t any different to the usual CS experience. Was told there were no issues in my area despite call fails, crackling calls, and no usable data.
I guess the business case is:
1. Keep the profitable customers who don’t have any problems
2. Allow the customers with “hard” problems to exit their contracts – i.e. let some other ISP deal with it!
So get lumbered with a not-so-good customer support agent (one that doesn’t understand the issue being reported, or just doesn’t know how to solve it) and you’ll get nowhere. Had the same experience with an energy company that assigned a person to an issue (which became a complaint), only when it got to the ombudsman that someone more senior picked it up and eventually resolved it (and only after I’d left).
So probably good idea in theory, but not so convinced in practice.
We’ll see, I’ve been with Vodafone over twenty years now and the only reason I have stayed with them is the quality of their actual service, I have never had a problem with that, BUT as for their customer service it’s useless and from a financial perspective they need to give their existing customers some much better deals. So let’s wait and see how this “Just ask once” improves their customer service, I won’t hold my breath !
This is nonsense.
It’s still their useless chat bot tobi that they’ve had for ages, that can’t deal with a bunch of things and also won’t take a message to pass to a human if, say, you want to cancel a service. You have to still talk to customer services in real time – if they’re available. “Don’t worry” – tobi reassures me – “you can try again later.”
At first I thought I was missing the point somewhere, but no, if you check the vodafone KB, it confirms that “Just Ask Once” is via tobi.
What an incredible amount of puffery for absolutely zero apparent change or improvement. Just ask once, my foot.
I complained to Vodafone Broadband two weeks ago, concerning none payment of £54 cashback and £155 voucher. These were shown as part of my contract and I had screenshots of the whole signing up process.
My assigned agent rang me promptly, did absolutely nothing, and closed the case. Better of talking to Tobi all day.