Putting Vodafail to rest – Vodafone the shining light in Ombudsman complaints file

You’ve gotta feel for the staff of Vodafone, the word Vodafail continues to haunt them, even 4 years after the worst of the problems with the Vodafone network the average Australian struggles to trust the company for their mobile service.  While internally and within their existing customer base there’s full awareness that the network is now excellent and in many cases the fastest in the country, there’s one key indicator that has haunted Vodafone over the years – complaints to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO).  The most recent figures are pleasing for Vodafone.

Just this morning I talked about mobile plans on the Morning Show on Channel 9.  Having recommended a bunch of plans on a bunch of carriers, a lot of tweets came in as a response.  This is typical of what people say to me on a regular basis – online, on the radio and in person:

Belinda left some time ago, and what chance is there of her returning? Probably not much especially given the competitiveness of the other carriers including Telstra.

But for the hard and fast facts about what we’re complaining about and which companies we’re complaining about, the quarterly report from the TIO is quite telling.

In just one year, from March 2014 to March 2015 complaints about Vodafone are down 55.1%.  That’s staggering.  More pleasing still for Vodafone would be that their total number of complaints in the first quarter of 2015 was the lowest among the big three telcos.

Telstra received 14,830 complaints, Optus 5,340 and Vodafone 4,457.

This graph tells the story of the recent massive decline in complaints against Vodafone.  It’s been a very good year.

Overall year on year we’re complaining less about poor contact information, less about unfair enforcement of contract terms and less about termination charges

Likewise complaints about excess data charges and disputed recurring service charges are also down.

Good news for the mobile telcos, great news for mobile customers and frankly, excellent news for Vodafone.