Despite having major issues with Vodafone UK’s generic data pricing and the marketing thereof, I must say I continue to be hugely impressed by their Web Relations team.
Vodafone UK has led the way with social media and web interaction for a long time. o2 are most definitely hot on their heels, along with Three and Orange — but I think Vodafone’s decision to directly empower the members of their team has paid huge dividends.
For example, today I walked with VodafoneUK on Twitter about their data plans for Europe. They replied within seconds to my tweets then asked me to email them with more information. I did so and got a reply back in minutes from Jenny in the Vodafone Web Relations team.
Before Jenny could action a change to my account she needed to verify my ID — I mailed her back with some details. Jenny’s next reply said ‘thanks’ and ‘this is now done’. Super fast, super convenient, highly personal, keen to deliver, keen to assist. I felt good. Very good indeed.
If you haven’t tried interacting with Big Red this way, I thoroughly recommend it. That said I have always had positive experiences via the call centres too. Today, though, it hasn’t been possible for me to phone customer services — and to be honest, I just wanted to do the transaction via email or Twitter. I’m pleased Vodafone has equipped its team with the capabilities to talk with me however I want to. How many other companies still use the ridiculous ‘sorry for security you have to phone us’ excuse to point every interaction to the call centre?
For me the disconnect is with Vodafone UK marketing and propositions. Telling people via an advertisement that “roaming” costs just £2/day, without properly qualifying the offer in big bold letters, is inexcusable. That deal only applies to the first 25mb — and you have to specifically opt-in to it. This kind of nonsense leaves the very good people on the front-line such as the Web Relations team carrying the can for the bollocks, half-hearted, leave-the-office-early decisions of the marketing/product/propositions team.
Jonathan MacDonald, the (mobile) advertising genius recently noted that companies are going to have to really innovate their interaction policies to the point that they will soon need to personally tailor their end-to-end marketing approaches with each ‘citizen’ (“customer”). I’m pretty confident that Vodafone’s marketing/props team are still busy marketing to their beautifully defined segments and aren’t yet ready to embrace Jonathan’s vision.
Meanwhile they have succeeded in really winding me up with their ridiculous ‘don’t look too close’ advertising claiming one thing yet offering another. Every time I walk by a Vodafone advertisement telling me about their “£2/day” deal, I can’t help but think they really don’t know what they’re doing.
There’s only so much the good people at Web Relations can do when their arms are tied by the silly marketing choices of their colleagues.
What I find fascinating is the disconnect between helpful, positive and enthusiastic Vodafone human and Vodafone’s corporate image as presented in their marketing. The human makes things highly pleasant. The corporate image leaves me feeling highly cynical.
The £2/day deal advert is not a badly conceived attempt at simplification of the offer. No. It’s a highly inaccurate ‘come on’ intended to make anyone who’s been worried about data roaming abroad feel that Vodafone has a brilliant way of fixing that worry. When you look closely you then will discover the caveats.
If the marketing and props team actually meant what they’re saying, they’d have introduced a deal that offers £2 per 25mb when “abroad”. Period. So if you use 100mb, you’ll be billed £8, right? That’d be excellent. That’s what the ad campaign is ‘selling’.
Actually, the reality is that if you use 100mb, you’ll pay £2 for the first 25mb then £5 for every 5mb (or £1/meg, billed in chunks of 5). So total cost? £2 plus another 75 quid. Provided you opted-in.
Ah dear. So super work, Web Relations. Not so good, marketing.
Posted via email from MIR Live
Could not agree more Ewan!. And if you are on a price plan over £40 a month (not including sim only) you get 25MB a day FREE!.
I am planning on making great use of this when in Barcelona for MWC next month!
That 25mb/day free is very good!
Thx for the name check! And yes, sadly the requirement to truly be socially adept is for more than one dept to ‘get it’.
If anyone is reading from Voda, I will be bugging you about this at MWC so get ready. 😉
The future IS bright, but it’s colour will only be decided by companies that truly understand and execute what I call Involvism (http://www.involvism.com)
Bon chance
jMac
Love it!
I wish I could say the same about the Vodafone UK message board people, who don’t seem to have been empowered one iota.
As for the marketing / proposition team, without wishing to excuse them entirely, but the confusion they project might reflect a more general confusion about what the mobile operator value proposition actually is today.
Very good point Jim
Apparently not 25mb a day either. Just 25mb. My partner was roaming away on our last trip until he got the “you reached the EUR 50 cap on data on your account”. When back in the UK called CS and told the 25mb applies per trip but they would waive the charge this time – utter nonsense!!!
Geez!
I wouldn’t describe O2 as being seriously hot on the heels of Vodafone. Here’s why…
Vodafone have a meet the team section, they often introduce themselves at the start of a shift and handover to another team member when they are finishing up. O2 post as a homogonous and impersonal corporation. The style of their respective Twitter pages reinforces, for me at least, that Vodafone has personality, while O2 is dull and formal.
Vodafone seem to be very busy chatting back and forth all day with people who message them. O2 have the odd post now and then. Anecdotally, I have never once received a reply from O2 but have received three for three from Vodafone. I was a customer of O2 when I asked them questions on Twitter, I have now taken my two mobile accounts and my mobile broadband package to Vodafone. I can’t say there is a 100% correlation between these facts but the positive image Vodafone are creating on Twitter certainly made me look closely at them.
Seriously, if this O2 hot on the heels of Vodafone then they might as well not have bothered. They’ve ticked the social engagement box but they clearly don’t really understand or get it. To bastardise the words of Abraham Lincoln; it would have been better for them to remain off new media and be thought of as out of touch than to join in so cack-handedly and resolve all doubt.
Ah well this is a fair point Barry-Jon. I do know one or two of the people
at o2 tasked with this role — just, well — as you point out, the senior
management hasn’t, as far as I’m aware, given them any resource to handle it
to the level that Vodafone has.
I had a similar good experience from Voda’s twitter team. I made a comment about trying to get hold of an N8 just after launch. The offers available in-store or over the phone were nowhere near as good as that offered to me the day before on their upgrade website. I was surprised that Vodafone reached out to me and offered to help, but by then I’d gone to Carphone Warehouse and upgraded in store (didn’t know you could do that until then…). As it happens, I got as good a deal plus the phone I got was unsullied with operator firmware.. Bonus!
Just had the UK twitter team confirm this. Based on the days being midnight to midnight UK time you will get 25MB per day that you use the internet abroad ^ HP