back to article Vodafone to spend £100m on 150 new Brit phone shops

Vodafone has said that it plans to add another 150 shops in Blighty and create 1,400 retail jobs in the next 12 months as part of a £100m expansion. The cash for the expansion is coming out of the company's billion-pound investment pot, which is also funding its aim to cover 98 per cent of the UK population by 2015 with 2G, 3G …

COMMENTS

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  1. Flywheel

    All they need to now..

    .. is sort out their rubbish, archaic "customer database" that the awful web site links into and they may retain some customers.

    1. BlackBolt
      Gimp

      Re: All they need to now..

      Good job they've been working on that for 5 years and spent 300m+ putting together a coherent IT stack then.

  2. Longrod_von_Hugendong
    FAIL

    We want more coverage now...

    Not more shops, Close to where I live there are 2 shops within 3 mins walking distance.

    This would be good except I have no 3g where I live, let alone 4g. In fact I just canceled my vodaphone contract and moved to 3. Much better everything here, of course YMMV

  3. RonWheeler

    Great news?

    So. A shop whose very foundation business is getting muggs into 2 year contracts for non-essential toys they are too dumb to buy outright. This is good for the economy? Pull the other one DC.

  4. James 51

    Better coverage and cheaper contracts might do their sales more good.

  5. Electric Panda

    I'm cursed in that our corporate plan uses Vodafone. It's rather amusing to be standing in front of a poster advertising Vodafone's new 4G service in a given area, watching as my phone fights for dear life to get 3G and four bar signal. Meanwhile a friend sat opposite me with an identical handset on EE or O2 is getting full bars and LTE.

    Priorities much? Vodafone are hands down the worst network I've used in the UK and I at least now know not to move my personal contract to Voda when it expires in October.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Rubbish network sets up more shops?

    That said, Voda are trying to get new masts set up by me except they keep getting opposed. Probably due to bad planning on their part.

  7. HamsterNet

    98% with 2G

    Bhahahahahaah... their dream, top line, marking target is to get the UK 98% (I'm going to guess Population and not area) 2G coverage by 2015!

    No 3G outside of city centres as per usual, no 4G outside of the HQ building and no corporation tax paid!

  8. Bob Gender

    Wouldn't this go nicely with a decision to pull out of Carphone...

  9. G R Goslin

    Complaints about complaints

    I chucked Voda, last year, after a four month argument with them about their handling of complaints about, you've guessed it, Customer Service. When I finally gave up, I hadn't had a single reply to several letters, or for any sensible answers to a whole sheaf of emails.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Complaints about complaints

      The only company that I've found with worse customer service than Vodafone, is Santander. If you bank with one of their Subsidiaries, you may as we'll just give up now, rather than attempt a complaint. They really should use the title music from 'The Magic Roundabout' as their call on hold music.

  10. Pete the not so great

    Good news

    For all those recently graduated phoneshopologists

  11. Lunatik
    Mushroom

    [Obligatory Vodabashing comment]

    Like many of Vodafone’s victims, sorry *customers*, I’m duty bound to comment on any Vodafone story to try and prevent as many of my fellow humans as I can from being snared by its gaping, apostrophe-shaped maw.

    Friends, this is a beast that offers precious little in the way of connectivity, and even when a decent signal is conferred by your device, you must throw a six to see if that 4 bars of 3G actually translates into any significant throughput. Often it is but a cruel illusion and your fate is to stare at a faltering progress bar, awaiting the inevitable timeout.

    As a metaphor for the whole Vodafone experience this is strangely apt.

    I recently stood in a Vodafone shop and demonstrated this remarkable phenomenon to one of the disinterested staff. Their comments of “Well, what do you expect?” and “Yeah, it’s like that sometimes” should tell you all you need to know about their contempt for us, their unsuspecting prey. After the terrible kicking they’ve received since the economic dog days of 2007, the prospect of more of these shrines to incompetence and indifference is probably the last thing our beleaguered high streets need.

    Like many, I was initially seduced by an excellent deal on a handset, but to my eternal shame my error was compounded by my intransigence and subsequent failure to avoid taking the dangled bait of an even more generous retention deal on one of Mr. Jobs’ portable telephones a couple of years later. Never underestimate the power of The Shiny.

    Now 18 months into this two year purgatory, I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel and am looking forward to the day when I can emerge, blinking and bewildered, from the belly of the bloated crimson creature, free to tart myself about the networks as I see fit.

    Until then I can only repeat; friends don’t let friends Vodafone.

    p.s. If after 30-odd years of consistent and pervasive branding, you still think the company is called ‘Vodaphone’ then you deserve everything you get. Sorry.

  12. Trygve

    I used to think 02 was shit....

    but then our company switched to Vodafone. Fuck!

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just what the high streets need, more phone shops. Would be better if they looked at coverage issues, particularly as they can't provide a decent signal in the town of their HQ.

  14. techmind

    Sort out the coverage

    Vodafone's coverage and performance was excellent where I used to live. One mile up the road however where I now live, and I'm in a coverage-hole - despite being practically line-of-site to a Voda mast 1km away. On first floor occasionally see 4 bars of 3G/HSDPA, but drops to one or none, then falls back to EDGE as soon as try to use it.

  15. BlackBolt
    Mushroom

    In the interests of a balanced and fair review

    I've been with Vodafone for years as a customer, rarely ever do I have network or data issues. Sometimes its a little slow, but I'm always connected, and have never been cut off.

    As to your obviously jaded and singular point of view descibed in your example, iIf you are asking sales staff technical questions about network operation, what sort of answer do you expect? Think about your audience and ask an appropriate question.

    I've found them to be an accomodating and engaging service provider, from a personal contract and business contract point of view, I have in the past, and continue to wholehearteldy recommend them to friends and strangers alike.

    I've found their service to be perfectly fine, even when calling up and talking to one of their employees in a call centre. I didn't even see a drop out when they managed the Olympics network. I mean they must be poor if they are were the strategic mobile partner for the Olympics, who would ever give them that contract when they couldn't even run a 3G network! </sarcasm>.

    In terms of coverage maybe you should consider that this is regulated by the Conservative government. They don't have free reign to deploy masts wherever they want. 80% of mast planning is blocked by THE PEOPLE that live there. So blame your neighbour. Also remember that EE had a 12 month head start on 4G due to backroom dealing in spectrum, so maybe that plays a factor in the fact that they don't have as much 4G coverage?

    Also I'd check your facts a little before mouthing off, Vodafone as a company hasn't been going 30 years.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: In the interests of a balanced and fair review

      ""Also I'd check your facts a little before mouthing off, Vodafone as a company hasn't been going 30 years.""

      Touche !!

      http://www.mobilenewscwp.co.uk/2014/04/07/my-how-youve-grown-vodafone-reaches-30/

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