Vodafone : UK’s Best High Street Retailer award demonstrates our firm commitment to customer service

By Pete Marsh | Head of Central Operations, Consumer Sales

Pete Marsh, Head of Central Operations Consumer Sales (centre left) and the Vodafone UK retail team.

At Vodafone UK, improving customer service is our top priority. The Retail Leadership Team and I have been working hard to ensure our customers have the best experience possible when visiting one of our 459 stores. Our efforts are paying off - our latest in-store figures* show customer satisfaction is at an all-time high. And last week we were named the 'Best High Street Retailer ' at the 2017 Mobile Industry Awards.

Vodafone emerged the winner in a category that featured rival brands we're proud to have as competitors. Commenting on why they chose Vodafone for the Best High Street Retailer award, judges said they were impressed by our investment in customer service, and our efforts to ensure our customers' experience is as positive as possible.

These are key areas we've been focusing on, and we're delighted that the mobile industry has recognised our work.

Investing in Retail Innovation

We're thrilled to have also won the Retail Innovation Award, for finding ways to put customers in control of how they shop with us. With the updates we've made to vodafone.co.uk, customers can easily check to see if the phone they want is available, so that they can buy online and collect their purchase in-store in under an hour.

In-Store Improvements

What's more, we're continuing to invest in upgrading our retail stores and training our staff, spending about £100m over the past few years. We've created new help areas in our stores, stocked with working phones and tablets, so that customers can try our products before buying them.

And we've been listening to customer feedback. As a result, this month we're introducing TechTeams - staff with expert product knowledge - in all of our stores, to help solve software problems. This way we can help our customers in-store rather than referring them to call centres, as many of our competitors do.

We've also made it easy for customers to book appointments to visit any store if they need assistance. Appointments are currently only available in-store, but will soon be available online too. Along with our internal communications system, which keeps our teams updated on everything our customers need to know, we're working to stand out from the crowd.

As the judges in the Retail Innovation category noted, Vodafone 'best carried the torch for innovation both in store and online'.

Honours for Improving Customer Service

I'm proud of what our retail teams have achieved this year, and I'm grateful to the judges and the Mobile team for the Best High Street Retailer and Retail Innovation awards. Vodafone UK has made significant progress improving our customer service across the business, and we're honoured that our work is being recognised.

Just last month our Social Media and Web Chat teams bagged the Silver at the UK National Contact Centre Awards. And we recently received the Global Telecom Business Award in the Consumer Service Innovation category for our 'Better Care for Roamers' project, an award we share with Vodafone Roaming Services, our central wholesale roaming team.

Our Goal: To Be the Best Mobile Provider in the UK

I'm confident that these achievements are just the beginning for us at Vodafone UK. We're determined to be the best mobile provider in the market. Thanks to the hard work of our staff and the support of our customers, we're moving closer to that goal.

Vodafone UK's Best High Street Retailer and Retail Innovation awards

*The data we track is our Transactional Net Promoter Score (tNPS), which tells us how many more customers would recommend us to friends versus those who wouldn't.

About Vodafone UK

Vodafone is one of the world's largest telecommunications companies and provides a range of services including voice, messaging, data and fixed communications. Vodafone has mobile operations in 26 countries, partners with mobile networks in 48 more and has fixed broadband operations in 17 markets. As of 31 March 2017, Vodafone had 515.7 million mobile customers and 17.9 million fixed broadband customers. For more information, please visit: www.vodafone.com.

Vodafone UK partners with businesses of all sizes - from start-ups and small businesses to the largest corporates and the public sector. The company has worked with UK businesses for over 30 years, starting out as a mobile provider and becoming one of the UK's leading total communications partners. It provides a range of voice and data services, secure communications infrastructure, fixed and call centre capability, unified communications and was the first mobile phone operator to offer a truly converged service for fixed and mobile.

Vodafone is currently spending around £1 billion on its network and services across the UK following a similar amount spent last year. This includes £200 million on its network in London, the introduction of its 4G service to more than 928 cities and towns, as well as thousands of smaller communities whilst also making network improvements across its UK 3G network. Meanwhile, The Vodafone Rural Open Sure Signal programme is also aiming to bring 3G coverage for the first time to 100 remote communities across the UK.

Vodafone UK

Vodafone House, The Connection, Newbury, Berkshire RG14 2FN, England www.vodafone.com

Vodafone UK Media Relations

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Vodafone Limited

Registered Office: Vodafone House, The Connection, Newbury, Berkshire RG14 2FN Registered in England No: 1471587