The curious case of Vodafone’s 3G ‘verification’

Yesterday, I visited a Vodafone gallery accompanying a friend who was trying to sort out the simplest of issues. He had bought a new 3G SIM card for his iPad a couple of weeks ago. It was disconnected four days after he bought the SIM. He trudged back to the gallery that he bought it from and was told that the verification had failed as the address he had supplied in his application could not be verified due to ‘restricted access’. [caption id=“attachment_28628” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Vodafone zoozoo - image owned by Vodafone”]  [/caption]He was stumped; he lives in a set of flats on Shirly Rajan Road in Bandra, Mumbai, where entry is ridiculously easy. There is an open gate the whole day ‘guarded’ by a somnolent watchman who is often sent off to run minor errands for the residents of the society. He clarified the state of affairs to the executive who attended on him; as a consequence the service was restored with an assurance that the verification would be completed in the next few days. His parents are at home all day, so he asked them to watch out for, and welcome, anyone coming from Vodafone. A day passed, two days passed, a third – and his service was disconnected again. He goes back to the gallery (I’m with him now) and, after a wait of more than 30 minutes, an executive informs him that the ‘verification’ failed again, due to the same reason. He explains to the executive (not the same one as the one he spoke to the last instance) that this is not possible; we call for the manager. The manager parrots the reason once more: verification ‘failed’ due to ‘restricted’ access. My friend explains, in detail, the lay of the land and the surroundings of his residence. The manager, astonishingly, suggests that my friend furnishes a second address that is easier to verify! You need two addresses for a Vodafone connection, is my instant reaction. The conversation continues and heads nowhere. Meanwhile, my patience runs out (as has the patience of a number of other subscribers… evident from the conversations that you just cannot help but hear) and I call a senior officer from Vodafone whom I’ve met and know. She’s instantly helpful. She communicates to the gallery, the service is restored even as we leave the gallery – and the verification is physically completed within 3 hours of our leaving. A decade ago, a service failure like this one wouldn’t have mattered; today, in the age of instant communication and social media, it can cause hell for a brand. The consistently brilliant advertising for Vodafone came immediately to mind in the gallery as we were surrounded by executives who made no effort to be helpful. Happy to help? And I recall this outstanding piece of work: But no, you were not happy to help – not till a senior functionary got involved. You should have first been concerned about the unhappy experience your subscriber had; you should have been happy to listen, happy to quickly figure out where the problem could lie and then happy to solve the problem. It wouldn’t have taken a rocket scientist to figure out that the failure was that of the agency you had contracted for the verification process. This could have been arrived at on the first visit my friend made. You could have gone to google maps and seen exactly where the building was and realised that the building was far from ‘restricted’. You didn’t do any of the basics, beginning with listening. And your consumer had an unhappy experience – about which he spoke to a number of friends and acquaintances, including me. Unhappy experiences with brands today travel at the speed of twitter and facebook. The paste is out of the tube and there’s no putting it back. There’s a lesson for all brands today: before you create a piece of communication, think hard about whether your product or service can live up to the communication. Make sure the message in the communication is internalised as well. Make sure all in the organisation know how important it is to (at least) be seen to be living up to the message. If you can’t, ask your ad agency to think of another communication route.