Vodafone drops 178k customers in 6 months

The Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) union continues to be plagued by customer leakage, after the company's recent results saw it admit 178,000 users abandoned the carrier in the last six months. The JV now sits on 6.8 million customers, a new two year low, following the 2010 season of network meltdowns. The carrier has …

[Phil Kingston]

They've a long way to go until they're even close to the worst of the UK operators.

Coverage isn't their main issue (although that's leagues below even the worst UK operator) it's just that their network simply doesn't do data very well. I've just sat for nearly an hour in a state capital, handset indicating full signal strength but just couldn't establish a data connection. And that's not unusual.

They'd have been hauled over the coals long ago if they operated that way in the UK. In Australia, it just seems to be accepted that it they will be a disappointment.

[Miek]

Well, you have pretty much just summed up my experience with Vodafone UK and their data connectivity. Best connection I ever had was in France in the Mountains. I can barely even get to a Google search page on Vodafone UK when using their mobile data connection, in just about any location I have ever been to.

[Bill Posters]

Optional rear end

Optarse aren't much better when it comes to contention.... same journey everyday, sitting in the same spot on a station - 2 out 3 days, bad or no connection. - with full bar signal 'strength.

Contract up shortly....'

[Simon Pilling]

Not Surprised

Not Surprised

This made me laugh when I read it; we are fairly new reseller to mobile phones; Mainstream is IT and Services but the crossover to mobiles now we thought we’d sell the mobiles as well.

Every other major supplier will quote any contract at any time for any number of phones; A current Vodafone client with 20 handsets is due for renewal next month and in preparation the client is shopping around to ensure they get good value. Long story short Vodafone will not talk about the clients current account or about what offers they can offer them until the contract has finished. Client is gob smacked that Vodafone simply do not want his business and the lack of support from them is outstandingly low. Client was giving Vodafone preference to stay with them for less hassle. Now he seems more determined to move away like the other 180K users have done. Maybe Vodafone will start to give a t0ss if clients show with their feet.

[GeekBoy3000]

Exit Stage Left...

Can't wait to exit off their network. If nothing else it's been a valuable lesson in "you get what you pay for". I'll gladly pay more for a Telstra contract in December after the shocking experience I've had with Vodafone.

Phone Coverage - Poor

Data Coverage - Fail

Customer Support - Fail

Enough Said...

[kokoro]

yeah, more needed

i recently left vodafone for a few reasons after shifting over from 3...

they just seriously do not seem to have it together yet. eg...

- a prepaid pocket wifi brand new in an area just finished with the 'upgrade' could not do more than 10kb/sec downloads. no knowledge of the issue at customer service and after 5 days of this for overseas visiting clients and still no clue I just took the thing back.

- with my own paid monthly i switched from 3 and they did give me an awesome deal after 6 years 'loyalty' (well stupidity after they forced a manual network upgrade on my blackberry that stopped me being able to manually roam on telstra so i could no longer make stable calls at home).

- once i switched they were still sending me crap in the post around switching offers and are still emailing me this stuff 2 months after i left them. on switching the reception was just the same as 3 so they gave me 2 months half price. then they upped that to another 6 months half price and then later someone told me that only 1 tower was left to update some 15km away from where i live in october so i bailed. their website still suggests a heap of work to be done in my area, but no one seems to be able to give any clear answer on what that may be and every store or phone person says something different.

so switched to virgin which is basically optarse without the price and crap marketing and the experience is so hugely better. vodafone's customer service was actually really really good for me (apart from a $700 final bill error) but they really seem bogged down in their archaic old service and billing systems, network that has improved but has miles and miles to go and seemingly no internal communication or clear idea where things are going. So really, they're all crap but at least i didn't have to switch to the arrogance of telstra. I was told the focus at voda is now on customer retention with delays to network improvements. They need to get a wiggle on