Viewpoint | 24 Mar 2020

Store closures: How we can help our customers

Today we have shut all our retail stores until further notice in the interests of the safety of our staff and customers and in accordance with the latest Government guidelines.

We know many of our customers like to speak to us in person, which is why we have kept our stores open until now.

But the time has come to acknowledge that we all need to do more as a nation to contain the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) and protect our National Health Service. These are extraordinary times that require extraordinary measures.

Keeping our staff and customers safe has been our primary concern during this rapidly developing health crisis. Earlier this month we took steps to allow our staff to work from home more frequently, then escalated our guidelines to ensure most of them did so. It was the right thing to do.

We know how worrying the current situation is and how difficult social distancing and self isolation will be for us all. We’re in this boat together. But we will also come through this crisis together.

This is why I want to let you know that you’re not alone – we’re here to help you in any way we can. And we are fortunate that, as a tech comms company, we can already offer a lot of help digitally.

How we can help

Our customers can fix many issues via the Vodafone App or online, and we offer many useful self-help guides that you can find here: https://vodafone.uk/HowTo.

In addition, our News Centre offers a number of helpful guides for you to read.

Alternatively, you could try our chatbot Tobi or ring 191 from your Vodafone phone as usual (but bear in mind that waiting times may be longer than normal at this challenging time).

Finally, I would like to reassure those of you who may be concerned about what will happen to your ‘click and collect’ orders or phones you have in for repair.

Please don’t worry.

We’ll courier repaired phones back to you, and although our ‘click and collect’ service is suspended for now, we’ll still deliver online orders to your home over the coming days.

So as you can see, we are committed to supporting all our customers to the best of our ability during this crisis, particularly those who are elderly and vulnerable.

It is vital that we keep the UK connected. And that is exactly what we are doing. So stay safe, stay home, and stay positive.

#KeepingTheUKConnected