Credit: VHA
Vodafone has been flagged by the industry complaint body Telecommunications Dispute Resolution (TDR) as the most complained about telco per 10,000 connections for mobile and broadband services over the six months to 31 December 2020.
For mobile connections, Vodafone was the subject of 100 complaints and enquiries in the third quarter and 77 in the fourth quarter, representing 0.43 and 0.33 complaints and enquiries per 10,000 connections during the two quarters, respectively, according to TDR’s Biannual Report - 2020 Part Two.
The report, which compared participating members at the parent company level with connection data provided by analyst firm IDC New Zealand, stated this was above the industry average of 0.28 in Q3 and 0.26 in Q4.
As a point of comparison, 2degrees registered 0.20 and 0.25 complaints and enquiries per 10,000 connections across Q3 and Q4, respectively.
Spark, meanwhile, registered the lowest level of complaints and enquiries per 10,000 connections, coming in with 0.21 and 0.20 over the two quarters.
The broadband category is where the range expanded, with Vodafone seeing 100 complaints and enquiries in Q3 and 81 in Q4, coming to 2.33 and 1.91 complaints and enquiries per 10,000 connections, respectively.
This was, again, higher than the industry average, which was 1.49 for Q3 and 1.37 for Q4.
In Q3, coming closely in second place was 2degrees with 2.8 complaints and enquiries per 10,000 connections, followed by Vocus NZ with 1.4, Trustpower with 0.79 and Spark with 0.75.
Meanwhile, Vocus NZ came in second during Q4 with 1.66 complaints and enquiries per 10,000 connections, followed by 2degrees with 1.52, Trustpower with 1.16 and Spark with 0.59.
All of this comes from 1,008 total complaints and enquiries to TDR in the last half year. However, most of these cases were sorted out shortly after TDR stepped in.
"The vast majority (993 cases or 98.5 per cent) were resolved or closed directly with the provider after initial assistance and referral by TDR," the complaint body said.
"For the remaining cases, 9 were resolved through facilitation and mediation (0.9 per cent), and only 6 (0.6 per cent) required TDR to make a decision."
Customer service issues were the top complaint or enquiry category, cropping up in 452 cases, or 45 per cent.
Second place was billing, in 273 cases, or 27.2 per cent, followed by faults with 73 cases, or 7.3 per cent.
The ranking of customer service complaints as the top issue follows Vodafone announcing its intentions to use Amazon Connect to improve its contact centre experience back in November 2020.
At the time, Anthony Welton, customer operations director at Vodafone NZ, said there has been a 35 per cent improvement in the solving of customer issues after being contacted only one time.
“Customers can expect to see the technology progressively rolled out over the next ten months and we’re confident they will benefit from a superior customer experience," he said.
