Vodafone helps customers with payment of Txt bills
25 August, 2006
Vodafone Fiji says it has accepted payment arrangements with any customer who has had difficulty paying his or her Txt bill this month.
This was to assist customers who had received Txt charges for the last six months in their post-pay bill for this month.
Chief executive Aslam Khan says they have talked to as many customers as possible about the issue, but so far only 26 customers have asked for extra time to pay. In all cases, Vodafone Fiji has agreed to do so.
"Less than 10,000 post-pay customers were billed for Txt usage this month out of which more than 8000 customers have Txt bills below $50. And out of these 8000, more than 6000 have Txt bills below $10 so the situation is manageable for most customers," Khan said.
He says by accepting payment terms, Vodafone Fiji was acting responsibly to help customers who had been affected as a result of the delayed billing.
The delayed billing was the result of a problem with the company's post-pay billing which is handled out of Australia.
Khan explains how the issue came about and how the company is dealing with it:
How many customers are affected?
By nature, as is the case all around the world, post-pay (billing customers as opposed to prepay) users are not heavy users of text messaging. The total number of customers affected is less than 10,000 out of a total Vodafone Fiji customer base of 240,000.
Why did this problem occur?
Vodafone Fiji shares the use of a mobile phone network billing system, worth over $100 million, out of Australia. We have been using this since we started operations in 1994. It is outsourced as the size of our post-pay base does not warrant the installation of a multi-million dollar billing system for post-pay users locally. It is worth noting that in 12 years of operations, this is the first time something like this has happened. So while we want to ensure these things don't happen, sometimes they do because of factors outside our control.
Why were Vodafone Fiji customers not advised earlier that they were not being billed for Txt messages for the past six months?
It's a good question and we take full responsibility for this. We regret what has happened and we apologise to our customers who may have been inconvenienced. We had expected that the problem was going to be fixed sooner than this and that there would be little impact on our customers. Note that traditionally post-pay users are not heavy Txt users. In hindsight, we should have informed our customers earlier that the bills will be coming, even if they were late. However as soon as we became aware last month of the amounts involved, we immediately decided to inform people via a billing insert. Our customer care staff also called most of our top 200 customers to inform them.
Why have customers been overcharged for Txt messages?
Our SMS billing is processed together with Vodafone Australia's SMS billing. So as there had been a backlog in billing for both Vodafone Fiji and Vodafone Australia, in the hurry to process Australian customers' SMS charges - which are billed at $A0.20 incl GST - Fiji customers were charged $F0.20 plus vat instead of $F0.18 plus vat. But full credit has been passed for the difference and customers will find this amount stated in their next bill.
What is the best thing you can do for these customers?
Less than 10,000 post-pay customers were billed for Txt usage this month. We have analysed the bills of these customers and it is very interesting to note that more than 8000 of these customers have (6 months) Txt bills below $50. Out of this 8000, more than 6000 have Txt bills below $10. We feel most of these amounts are very reasonable and these customers will not have much difficulty paying these amounts.
In fact, more than 70 per cent of customers have already paid their bills and others have promised to pay soon. I have personally talked to some customers as have our management team and customer care staff and almost all customers have been happy to accept the arrangements we have offered them. Interestingly, the number of customers who have made arrangements so far to pay on instalment is only 26. But as you can see, we have been flexible - and we will continue to be flexible with any customers who have difficulty paying his or her July Txt bills on time.
I think the biggest issue has been with companies who have given post-pay connections to staff but have set internal limits on what the company pays, with the rest having to be paid by the staff member for any personal use. These companies may have deducted the staff member's excess Txt charges from their salary, thus possibly causing personal cashflow problems. But individual customers who have called us and made payment arrangements have had no such worries.
Should you waive the extra bills accumulated by these customers?
In all cases, customers have used the services they have been charged for so it is only fair that they should pay. Wherever computer billing is involved, these errors come up from time to time. I am sure this has happened with many people in the past whether it is in regards to a bank loan statement, insurance, power bills, credit cards, etc, but eventually the system finds out the error or a human being finds out the error and regularises the account. Then you have to pay because you entered into a contract to pay for services used, even if the system forgot to bill you. So this case is no different.
What chances are there of this kind of error re-occurring?
Vodafone is in the middle of a major upgrade to a new $300 million billing system which comes online in April 2007. Hopefully this will minimise the chances of such an error happening again. However while we give our full assurance that we will do our best to ensure this does not happen - especially with the benefit of experience - wherever computerised billing is involved, we cannot give a 100% guarantee. I am sure no company will be able to give this. What we can guarantee is that where problems do occur, we will act responsibly and make sure that any impact on our customers is minimised.
25 August, 2006
Vodafone Fiji says it has accepted payment arrangements with any customer who has had difficulty paying his or her Txt bill this month.
This was to assist customers who had received Txt charges for the last six months in their post-pay bill for this month.
Chief executive Aslam Khan says they have talked to as many customers as possible about the issue, but so far only 26 customers have asked for extra time to pay. In all cases, Vodafone Fiji has agreed to do so.
"Less than 10,000 post-pay customers were billed for Txt usage this month out of which more than 8000 customers have Txt bills below $50. And out of these 8000, more than 6000 have Txt bills below $10 so the situation is manageable for most customers," Khan said.
He says by accepting payment terms, Vodafone Fiji was acting responsibly to help customers who had been affected as a result of the delayed billing.
The delayed billing was the result of a problem with the company's post-pay billing which is handled out of Australia.
Khan explains how the issue came about and how the company is dealing with it:
How many customers are affected?
By nature, as is the case all around the world, post-pay (billing customers as opposed to prepay) users are not heavy users of text messaging. The total number of customers affected is less than 10,000 out of a total Vodafone Fiji customer base of 240,000.
Why did this problem occur?
Vodafone Fiji shares the use of a mobile phone network billing system, worth over $100 million, out of Australia. We have been using this since we started operations in 1994. It is outsourced as the size of our post-pay base does not warrant the installation of a multi-million dollar billing system for post-pay users locally. It is worth noting that in 12 years of operations, this is the first time something like this has happened. So while we want to ensure these things don't happen, sometimes they do because of factors outside our control.
Why were Vodafone Fiji customers not advised earlier that they were not being billed for Txt messages for the past six months?
It's a good question and we take full responsibility for this. We regret what has happened and we apologise to our customers who may have been inconvenienced. We had expected that the problem was going to be fixed sooner than this and that there would be little impact on our customers. Note that traditionally post-pay users are not heavy Txt users. In hindsight, we should have informed our customers earlier that the bills will be coming, even if they were late. However as soon as we became aware last month of the amounts involved, we immediately decided to inform people via a billing insert. Our customer care staff also called most of our top 200 customers to inform them.
Why have customers been overcharged for Txt messages?
Our SMS billing is processed together with Vodafone Australia's SMS billing. So as there had been a backlog in billing for both Vodafone Fiji and Vodafone Australia, in the hurry to process Australian customers' SMS charges - which are billed at $A0.20 incl GST - Fiji customers were charged $F0.20 plus vat instead of $F0.18 plus vat. But full credit has been passed for the difference and customers will find this amount stated in their next bill.
What is the best thing you can do for these customers?
Less than 10,000 post-pay customers were billed for Txt usage this month. We have analysed the bills of these customers and it is very interesting to note that more than 8000 of these customers have (6 months) Txt bills below $50. Out of this 8000, more than 6000 have Txt bills below $10. We feel most of these amounts are very reasonable and these customers will not have much difficulty paying these amounts.
In fact, more than 70 per cent of customers have already paid their bills and others have promised to pay soon. I have personally talked to some customers as have our management team and customer care staff and almost all customers have been happy to accept the arrangements we have offered them. Interestingly, the number of customers who have made arrangements so far to pay on instalment is only 26. But as you can see, we have been flexible - and we will continue to be flexible with any customers who have difficulty paying his or her July Txt bills on time.
I think the biggest issue has been with companies who have given post-pay connections to staff but have set internal limits on what the company pays, with the rest having to be paid by the staff member for any personal use. These companies may have deducted the staff member's excess Txt charges from their salary, thus possibly causing personal cashflow problems. But individual customers who have called us and made payment arrangements have had no such worries.
Should you waive the extra bills accumulated by these customers?
In all cases, customers have used the services they have been charged for so it is only fair that they should pay. Wherever computer billing is involved, these errors come up from time to time. I am sure this has happened with many people in the past whether it is in regards to a bank loan statement, insurance, power bills, credit cards, etc, but eventually the system finds out the error or a human being finds out the error and regularises the account. Then you have to pay because you entered into a contract to pay for services used, even if the system forgot to bill you. So this case is no different.
What chances are there of this kind of error re-occurring?
Vodafone is in the middle of a major upgrade to a new $300 million billing system which comes online in April 2007. Hopefully this will minimise the chances of such an error happening again. However while we give our full assurance that we will do our best to ensure this does not happen - especially with the benefit of experience - wherever computerised billing is involved, we cannot give a 100% guarantee. I am sure no company will be able to give this. What we can guarantee is that where problems do occur, we will act responsibly and make sure that any impact on our customers is minimised.
