Madam, – We welcome the feedback in your Editorial (October 18th) in relation to Vodafone Ireland’s introduction of paperless billing for certain customers. We at all times engage with our customers in an upfront manner and have communicated our plans to impacted customers via letters, text messages and emails. We do recognise the need to improve aspects of our communications in order to ensure customers understand the changes that are happening and how they will be affected.
As you pointed out, it is correct that paperless billing has cost benefits for Vodafone. It is also important to recognise what an overwhelming majority of our customers tell us: they prefer paperless bills for their convenience and reduced impact on the environment.
Vodafone has taken a cautious approach towards ebilling, backed by customer research and feedback. So far, we have offered this service only to our fixed-line broadband customers who have registered for our online service, My Vodafone At Home, which allows customers to see more detailed information on their accounts. More than 98 per cent of these customers have continued with only electronic bills – despite being offered a choice to revert back to paper at no extra cost. New customers receive ebills by default when they join us, and have the option of paper billing for €2 per month. This is explained very clearly to them as part of the sales process.
For bill-paying mobile customers, all of our customers who currently receive an ebill have expressly chosen that option. We are examining options for encouraging more customers to adopt ebilling and we are listening to their feedback.
We at Vodafone Ireland are also aware of our duties as an award-winning industry leader in environmental responsibility: we have adopted a 100 per cent green energy tariff across our business, and recently connected our first wind turbine in Co Cavan.
Reducing the more than 2,000,000 sheets of paper that we print every month in the billing process is another simple way to continue promoting our Green Agenda programme.
We will try harder to explain better to customers what we all can gain from reducing paper consumption. And we will listen more closely to the views of customers who want their needs accommodated in that process. – Yours, etc,