Vodafone is undergoing wider organisational changes that are to result in job cuts to its customer service department.

The wider change programme was announced in November last year and Vodafone has confirmed it is in the final stages of ‘rebalancing' the resources of its customer operations organisation.

The changes are a part of a number of initiatives Vodafone is undertaking in order to ‘support and service' its customer base.

It is expected up to 100 permanent roles, across management, back office functions and operations, will be impacted by the end of March 2015.

Vodafone says the 100 roles form part of the 200-250 expected redundancies announced in November.

“We will be minimising the number of impacted permanent roles, wherever possible, through not filling current vacancies and attrition,” says Craig Jones, head of External Communications.

“We are also continuing to reduce a number of contractors who had been brought on to support the integration.

Further changes include new permanent customer care roles in Christchurch, as part of Vodafone's $50m investment in its new South Island HQ, and increase outsourcing to Vodafone's service centre in the Philippines.

Jones says customers can expect faster call answering times and a quicker first-call resolution as a result of the initiatives.

“Vodafone's top priority is to support our teams through the changes,” he concludes.

A spokesperson at Vodafone says further information regarding the downsizing of customer service cannot be disclosed as the company is in the middle of the consultation process and details are yet to be confirmed, although the New Zealand Herald printed details of the job cuts based on a internal document it obtained