As of: February 20, 2024, 1:25 p.m
By: Natascha Berger
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Vodafone Germany is struggling with unmotivated employees, dissatisfied customers and a wave of layoffs at management level.
The reasons lie, among other things, in London.
Düsseldorf – The telecommunications company Vodafone does not seem to be getting out of the self-inflicted crisis that it is in so quickly.
Despite investments in the network and service quality, the company remains under pressure.
Departing customers, cable network failures and capacity problems result in dissatisfied and unmotivated employees.
Handelsblatt
reports on this
, citing information from corporate circles.
Millions in investments for more satisfied customers should get Vodafone out of the crisis
In July 2022, Philippe Rogge became the new CEO of Vodafone Germany.
About a year ago he announced transformations in the company.
He was aware that many people had lost trust in Vodafone.
Recently, even the consumer advice center filed a lawsuit due to the unexpected price increase for customers.
Rogge wanted to change these circumstances.
As
Handelsblatt
reports, he invested a double-digit million contribution to increase customer satisfaction: improved accessibility of his service, data gifts to customers and replacement routers in the event of malfunctions.
The desired fresh start should also be achieved internally through revised processes and a simplified IT and corporate structure.
Philippe Rogge, head of Vodafone Germany, wanted a fresh start for the company.
© IMAGO/Horst Galuschka
Dissatisfied employees at Vodafone Germany - clearly noticeable decline in customers
But according to Handelsblatt,
an initial forecast is
sobering: Instead of transformation after the crisis, the group is increasingly losing the trust of its customers and its own 13,000 employees.
Employee dissatisfaction has continued to increase over the past year due to the global job cuts within the group and the steady decline in customers.
This was revealed by internal surveys at Vodafone.
Vodafone emphasizes a recovery in customer popularity after more than 200,000 customers canceled in the first quarter of 2023 alone, but the gap to competitors such as Telefónica Deutschland or Telekom is increasing.
In the cable network, failures would lead to many customer losses despite price increases.
Between July 2022 and December 2023, Vodafone lost almost 4.5 percent of its broadband customers.
The crisis at Vodafone Germany also affects management levels
Dissatisfaction can also be felt among Vodafone's management team and layoffs are increasing.
The head of private customers and the head of finance have already left the branch of the British telecommunications company.
Alexander Saul, head of business customers, will also soon turn his back on Vodafone.
When asked, the company neither wanted to confirm nor deny this information.
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Internal dissatisfaction also causes problems at Vodafone.
© Rolf Vennenbernd/dpa
The main reason for the high level of dissatisfaction among managers is the group's British headquarters in London.
This would leave Vodafone Germany, which is responsible for around 30 percent of the group's sales, little scope for its own processes and decisions.
So-called zero-based budgeting, for example, now requires expenditure to be justified every three months.
Germany boss Rogge often seems to be perceived as an obedient implementer in competition with the corporate headquarters.
His public messages would have to be approved there.
The return of former CEO Hannes Ametsreiter is therefore viewed as desirable by some employees.
He is said to have represented the interests of the German subsidiary more actively than Rogge currently does.