Autopage trying harder after unjustified suspensions

Ex-QDMS

Last week I related the story of the shocking treatment Ian Bulford received at the hands of Autopage Cellular.

In short, he accepted the company’s invitation to upgrade his contract in January and migrated to a more expensive package.

But in April his service was suspended and when the problem was rectified he’d somehow acquired an even more expensive contract without his consent.

Then followed a series of administrative and customer-care bungles, involving demands for money he didn’t owe, followed by several suspensions of his cellphone service, once over an entire weekend.

I took up his case with Autopage’s customer relations manager, and at the time of writing, his problems appeared to be sorted out. But Bulford remained sceptical, as he’d been told that several times before, only to have his service suspended again.

I commented: “You’d think that after all the unjustified suspensions and hassle Bulford has endured, he’d have received an apology from Autopage and perhaps some ‘goodwill’ airtime credit. Nope. Clearly the company does not regard this as an exceptional case.”

Gavin Weanie, Autopage’s customer operations executive, has since responded to that column.

“We aim to consistently deliver excellent service to our customers and would like to acknowledge that in this particular instance, the level of service Mr Bulford received was unacceptable.”

The case had been investigated, his account had been credited and he’d been compensated “for the frustration and inconvenience he has experienced”, Weanie said.

Bulford told me later: “I got a call from an Autopage employee telling me that management had read your article and as a goodwill gesture they have instructed a further credit of R1 224 be passed on my account.”

The company was in the process of revamping its complaints monitoring, reporting systems and turnaround times as part of its “customer-centric” journey, Weanie said.

E-mail Wendy Knowler on consumer@knowler.co.za

Twitter: @wendyknowler