Your biggest rival is always going to be a nuisance but now Vodafone has stepped up the mark to Telstra promising changes galore.
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The embattled telco is looking to lure the customer around its red cloak once again, with a litany of changes to its service offering.
This comes in response to findings of the Communications and Media Authority’s (ACMA) ‘Reconnecting the Customer’ draft report which outlined changes to be made to improve customer service in the telecommunications sector.
Among these are its Infinite and All Time plans aimed “to deliver simpler, easier-to-understand plans and pricing.”
But the troubled telco has also gone one further and, similar to Telstra’s anti shock therapy, announced last week, is introducing free tools including calls or texts to retrieve balances as well as to online.
The ACMA report also said custmers are living in a “confusopoly” where misleading ads and asociated services are commonplace.
My Vodafone will provide current account balance and usage details for the previous three months, “giving customers the ability to make the most of the cap value,” it announced today.
Trials are also underway of an SMS spend alert service that alerts customers when they have reached a specified limit, similar to Telstra’s anti shock bill system announced last week, which also slows data speeds when allowances are exceeded.
Telstra is also investing $1bn in ‘Project New’ which is looking to increase its often poor reputation among consumers with a string of measures to boost its services and has made huge gains at Vodafone’s expense as a result, particularly with postpaid customers.
David Thodey’s Telstra signed on 1.2 million new mobile users in its most recent quarter, while Vodafone lost 224,000 post paid subscribers although did make some gains on its prepay division.
Earlier this year, the third biggest telco in Australia, Vodafone, also announced a $1 billion program to improve its 3G network which it promises will deliver better call quality and faster data speeds.
But Vodafone is going one further than just preventing heart attacks from extortionate bills – it is also bringing in ‘Rate Plan Health Check’ for customers who may be on the wrong plan.
The telco, who has been subject to a barrage of criticism from users following major network difficulties last year, have also upped the ante on its customer service centres and bulked up staffing, who will call back if users are put on hold.
This also comes in the wake of Telstra’s announcement of free calls to main customer support and sales lines.
Voda is also building a new 850MHz network to improve performance for smartphones and promises 4G LTE is coming soon.
“What we’re doing now will allow us to bring 4G” in the near future, it also said in a statement today.
“While we have undertaken many initiatives to deliver an improved customer experience, there is more we want to do – and those plans are largely in line with the ACMA recommendations,” Hodgkinson said.
