Hey mate, I couldn't agree more. You certainly don't want google reviews deterring potential customers and definitely don't want to hear stories of poor service that result in losing existing clients. I have had a search myself and I must say the general theme is negative.
HOWEVER: Ultimately we have to remind ourselves that people are "2-3x more likely to leave bad reviews vs good ones"Having looked at the link provided above I note its "product review . com . au". So for comparisons sake I looked up Telstra on the same site. Telstra came back with a 1.4/5 star rating and Vonex at 1.9/5 stars. This is certainly not good news by any means, but to be completely fair looking at Telstra's results vs Vonex, we aren't in a place where I would be overly concerned... YET. Things certainly sound like they need to improve though. The common theme tends to be based around poor customer service and technical support. This is something that as a small provider you shoulder PRIDE yourself on. That's how you take customers from "the big guys". I have had internet connections from BELONG, MyRepublic, Aussie Broadband, Optus and Telstra. ALL of which were NBN connections and guess what. They ALL had massive issues at multiple different households and do you know how many of their technical departments I spoke to, and do you know how many I had to wait for 30+ minutes to speak to, and do you know how many actually solved my issues (NONE!).
What I would HOPE Vonex are investigating is:
A) What is their customer retention rate, especially ex: MNF customers who generally seem the most disgruntled.
B) What is the most common reason given for disconnecting a service and is this something that is easily addressable
C) I would imagine the common theme in poor customer relations must be the cost of staffing a well manned 24/7 tech support department? If so I really hope they are crunching the numbers of lost customers vs the cost of significantly improving tech support.
D) Some of the reviews sounded like they are from loyal distributers/IT staff who probably have influence over multiple current clients. We need to repair these relationships immediately and get as many influential people back on our side or this issue may snowball for months to come.
E) A VERY common theme was poor response time to tech support or queries. THIS IS JUST UNNACCEPTABLE FOR A SMALL TELCO. This is where you MAKE a name for yourself. If people want poor customer service they will go with Telstra.
Ultimately though, as long as the numbers keep improving (revenue, profit margins, online customers), it is quite alright to leave a "small" trail of disgruntled customers because you can never please everyone. After all, it still works for Telstra and all the big guys. But as we are a much smaller telco we need to retain as many customers as possible, if it is as simple as improving tech support, I would imagine the outlay of capital would be worth it in the long run when it comes to increasing customer satisfaction and retention.
The most significant issue is we rely on cross selling to scale. If you have unhappy customers through one service, they are certainly not signing up for another one of your products. Also, having bad reviews online will prevent customers from one service entering another service as well. This is a BIG issue for a business who wants to grow organically rather than just through acquisitions, especially if the companies acquired aren't being integrated or supported well, which some of these reviews appear to be hinting at.
Overall message, LIFT YOUR GAME Vonex and improve your customer service and tech supportReviews aren't enough in itself to make me rethink my position, however if the numbers also start to hint towards issues inside the business then yes, I will certainly consider then.
Goodluck
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