(AFP Photo)
By Mohamed Alaa El-Din
Vodafone Egypt receives 20,000 complaints a month out of 2.5m calls from its clients, according to Ashraf Helal, the company’s Customer Care and Commercial Operations Director in Vodafone Egypt.
Of these calls, 95% are answered before being transferred to the customer service agent, through short codes and the company’s official website.
Helal said the company raised the number of its customer service agents by 15%. After developing and improving the networks performance, complaints have declined by 50%. The reason behind this was preparing networks with batteries with a longer lifespan of between six to eight hours. This prevents power outages to affect the service. He added that with regard to its response to customer complaints the company is the fastest among mobile phone companies.
He revealed that Vodafone Egypt started providing sign language services for those with hearing impairments, through the company’s customer service agents.
He also said that there are 3,000 agents in Vodafone for services offered to hearing impaired customers. The company targets doubling this number by the end of the year, adding that deaf services currently increased line sales by 23%.
Vodafone has started to contract with some companies to deliver services for the hearing impaired using sign language. It also offered the first integrated customer service centre in Egypt and the region, where all fixed and wireless internet services have been provided. Regarding future plans, Vodafone plans this year to launch smart phones’ application to deliver services for deaf-mute customers.
Helal added that the company aims to provide interpretation services for the hearing impaired in 50 Vodafone branches by the end of the year. Currently, the company is delivering these services in 15 branches.
He concluded that monthly visits to Vodafone Egypt’s website for customer services are at 7.5m visits, while calls to customer services reached 2.5m calls.
