All Seasons Marquees Case Study

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All Seasons Marquees Case Study

All Seasons Marquees is a hire company that covers weddings, corporate events, shows and parties spanning East Anglia and beyond to make your social event a day to remember. We supply everything you need for a successful event. Not only the marquee itself but also all the furnishings, flooring and decor you require.

The Challenge
All Seasons Marquees (ASM) is predominantly a user of mobile phones as typifies a business of their nature, where they spend a lot of time travelling and out on site. However, some years ago they also decided to adopt a virtual landline number supplied by Vodafone as part of their One Net service. Vodafone were already supplying their mobiles service at the time. The purpose of the landline number was to identify them as a local business in the Ipswich area. Calls to this number route automatically to a designated mobile number. After some time on the Vodafone network, it became apparent that the availability of mobile signal in the areas they work was poor compared to other service providers. They therefore decided to move their mobiles to EE in early 2015. They were advised that they could also port (move) their virtual landline number over from Vodafone to EE as well.
A few months later however, they were informed that the virtual number could not be ported and they would have to keep it with Vodafone. This was far from ideal because they wanted to have everything with one provider to minimise admin and costs. ASM did not have the time or in-house resource to pursue the matter and try to find a resolution so it was likely that they would have to continue maintaining accounts both with Vodafone and EE.

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The Solution

ASM commissioned Beyond Telecoms Consulting (BTC) to investigate the virtual number issue and find a resolution.
This work involved BTC carrying out the following tasks:

1. Establish with which party ASM had their grievance.
2. Review all the correspondence between ASM and their mobile service providers to establish what information had passed between them.
3. Speak to the mobile providers on behalf of ASM to get clarification as to why the virtual landline number could not be transferred from Vodafone One Net to EE.
4. Carry out research to clarify which party actually had control of the number range which ASM’s number was part of.
5. Get an update on the regulations covering virtual number portability. From the above work, it was established that ASM’s grievance lay primarily with their EE dealer because it was this party that had informed them that they would be able to migrate their virtual number, as well as their mobiles, over from Vodafone to EE. They might therefore have a case against EE or the dealer to end their contract with them prematurely, without penalty because of being misadvised about virtual number portability. However they might also have a case against Vodafone if they were acting unlawfully by not releasing the virtual number. BTC was initially advised by a Vodafone customer service agent over the phone that the reason they would not release the virtual number to EE was because they had issued the number to ASM in the first place. They had a policy that they would not release such numbers. They would only release numbers that had been previously ported into Vodafone from another provider. In ASM’s case the virtual number issued to them was part of a range allocated to BT and therefore it was unclear why Vodafone were laying claim to it. Leading on from this, BTC reviewed Vodafone’s terms and conditions as supplied to ASM when they signed up with Vodafone. This policy should have been clearly stated in their terms and conditions, otherwise it could be seen as a case of mis-selling with all the associated consequences. The supplied terms and conditions made no reference to the policy about portability of virtual numbers. Following this, it was established that Vodafone had a separate set of general terms covering their One Net service and this did make reference to the policy of virtual number portability. It is uncertain whether ASM were provided with a copy of these general terms at the start of their Vodafone contract. However in the current general terms issued in 2016, the policy stated that Vodafone would permit the porting of virtual numbers, even ones issued by them such as in this case, under certain circumstances. BTC made further enquiries with Vodafone about this policy. It was established from their One Net team that there had been a change in the policy early in 2016 so that they now permitted porting away of virtual numbers issued by them, as long as the number remained as a virtual number with the gaining service provider. The previous advice given to BTC by the customer service agent was erroneous and it was admitted that there was a communication issue within Vodafone with not all departments being up to date with the latest changes. The discovery of this policy change was a major breakthrough in seeking a satisfactory resolution for ASM because it now meant they were free to port the number away from Vodafone without having to raise a formal complaint, go to the ombudsman or take legal action, all of which could be costly in time and/or money and would not guarantee a satisfactory outcome anyway. One question that arose from this new information was why weren’t ASM’s EE dealer aware of this new development? or if they were aware, why hadn’t they informed ASM so they could take steps to reapply to port the virtual number?

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The Benefits & Future Plans

By working with BTC, ASM’s virtual number porting issue was resolved without them having to put time into looking into the issue themselves and try to deal with an area outside of their core business with which they were unfamiliar. BTC’s knowledge of the industry meant that we were able to question in depth, the policies and practices of both Vodafone and EE, in a way that ASM were not able to. ASM were free to port their virtual number away from Vodafone and therefore were able to retain their existing number. This was vitally important to them as the number had been in use for several years on company vehicles, promotional leaflets and their website.

Future Plans
David at Beyond Telecoms has enabled us to push forward as a business and strive to grow year by year. Thanks to his help our business goals are being achieved