Hundreds of New Zealand Vodafone customers have condemned a proposal by the telecommunications company to cut local customer services jobs and outsource some of the work to the Philippines.
An internal company document leaked to the Herald yesterday revealed plans for a restructure that would cut between 200 and 250 jobs, extend the graveyard shift to 7.30am and increase outsourcing to the overseas call centre.
More than 200 emails from Herald readers yesterday criticised the proposals.
The Vodafone customers said they were concerned wait-times to have their calls answered -- which some said were already up to 90 minutes -- would increase and technical problems would take longer to be resolved as staff numbers declined.
Many customers said they were considering changing to another telco.
Vodafone head of customer care Fiona Harnett said calls about straightforward customer concerns would be outsourced, while the retained New Zealand staff would deal with complex technical issues.
"We are investing significantly in simplifying our customer systems and processes, supporting customers to use self-service tools, and using our service centre in the Philippines to handle more simple customer requests such as top-ups, account balance inquiries, etcetera.
"As part of the proposed structural changes, we will be focusing our New Zealand-based customer care teams on improving the handling and resolution time for more complex technical calls."
She said customer care staff handled hundreds of thousands of calls monthly and this month, more than 70 per cent of calls had been answered in 10 minutes or less and more than half had been answered in less than three minutes.
"We understand how frustrating it can be to wait to talk to us, and we apologise to those customers who have been affected. We can do better and we will."
The job cuts -- which include team leaders, contractors, technology and "resolve" positions -- would start by the end of this month, the Vodafone document said.
It also said that if its plan went ahead, 90 per cent of prepay and half of on-account customer calls would be handled in the Philippines by call centre operator Teleperformance.
The chief executive of the Telecommunications Users Association, Craig Young, said he was always concerned when providers downsized "But consumers will make a choice and if they end up getting bad service from one supplier then they've got plenty of others to go to."
By Morgan Tait and Christopher Adams of the New Zealand Herald
