A letter from Dave to the Community: Introducing bigger and better Community Rewards

[Dave_M]

Hello Community,

It has been a while since I last posted a letter to the Community. Today, I am excited to be back here with an update on our Community Rewards program. The whole team is excited about these changes and we hope you will be, as well.

A few weeks ago, the Oracles brought our Community Rewards front and center and shared with us that there was some confusion and perceived unfairness surrounding how the Top 0.1%/Oracle award gets applied every month. We are thankful for all of you who shared your feedback and for the Oracles who shone a light on that for us.

Your feedback has helped us recognize that we had an opportunity to clean up and simplify our Rewards. To that end, we are changing our Community Rewards to make things fairer and easier to understand. On top of that, we are delighted to increase the Reward amounts (full details below!). Our online support model could not work without the tremendous support that you, our Community members, provide so we thought it very fitting to increase the Rewards as we went through this review. Your contribution and support, as always, is greatly appreciated, and we hope you’ll enjoy these changes as much as we do.

Sincerely,

Dave

Details:
FAQs:

Question	Answer
What has changed?	1. We now reward Oracles on a clearly separate level from other contributors, allowing our other Community users to achieve the top Rewards level.   2. The Rewards buckets will be grouped in Top 50%, 25%, 10%, 5%, and 1% buckets in favour of eliminating confusing decimals (We’re looking at you, Top 0.5%!) and to make the Rewards levels less intimidating to navigate. 3. The Reward amount has increased at almost every level – Oh yeah!
Why are these changes happening?	As suggested by our Oracles, we’ve made these changes so that our Community Rewards will be more fair and easier to understand. As we reviewed our Community Rewards, we also thought it was fitting to increase their value, as our online support model could not work without the tremendous support you and our other Community members provide.  Thank you for all your help - keep it going!
I’m currently earning a Community Reward every month. How is this going to affect me?	The short answer: it depends. The amount you are rewarded depends on your contribution level relative to overall contribution, which can change month to month even if you contribute very consistently.   All things equal, if you’re in the Top 10% or above for June, you’ll find yourself a bigger Community Reward. Sweet, right? If you’re in the Top 50% or Top 25% in June, your Community Reward value will remain the same. If you don’t get a Reward, don’t get discouraged! Keep helping others out in the Community and you’ll get there.
When will this change be taking place?	The new Community Rewards structure will come into effect beginning June 1st, 2018. The June 2018 Community Rewards and beyond will follow the new structure.
Will this affect the way rewards are calculated in May 2018?	No - for the month of May, the Rewards will continue to follow the current structure and will be unaffected by this change.
Is everyone in the Top 1% going to become an Oracle?	No, Oracles are chosen based on merit, along with maintaining a certain level of contribution. This contribution can take different forms, such as providing the Public Mobile Community Team with constructive feedback, or helping other Community members with their questions.  To learn more about how to become an Oracle, click here.

[CS_Agent]

Thank you for choosing us @Phoozles, we appreciate these kind words 🙂

[Phoozles]

I love Public Mobile! Great service, and you actually get rewarded - it's unbelieveable. I've told everyone I know - thanks for being such a great option, especially in Canada where the cell phone plans are insane in virtually every other venue!

[Frosty2506]

I'm relatively new to PM but I'm loving it so far and definitely want to get involved in the community. Have already recommended all my friends!

[a1_gaurav]

Thanks Dave !

Ive recently joined the Public Mobile Community and this really helps. Already excited to interact with the wonderful people here. 

[CalvinW]

First round of updated rewards is pretty sweet already

[Bro1]

Thanks for explaining the changes to the Community Rewards, it makes sense to me now

[JFF]

Yes, the community site can be very slow to response from time to time. AND I need to reload few times.

[computergeek541]

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@SD08 wrote:

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@computergeek541 wrote:

If anyone is wondering, this month's rewards have been paid out.  Thankfully, from what I can see, the reward amounts have been increased properly.  This is the first month for the new/higher community reward amounts.

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Thanks for the heads up.
However, at the moment I can't access my account beyond the overview page and even that doesn't show any numbers.  Maybe because they are in the process of tweaking the self-serve for the new rewards, since I see a new line saying "Recently earned rewards (past 30 days)" which wasn't there before.

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Mine doesn't have any of that, and the all numbers show up fine.  There is something going on with the self-serve site. It is being slow and sometimes timing out.

[NDesai]

@SD08 Using incognito/private browsing mode usually loads correctly. 

[SD08]

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@computergeek541 wrote:

If anyone is wondering, this month's rewards have been paid out.  Thankfully, from what I can see, the reward amounts have been increased properly.  This is the first month for the new/higher community reward amounts.

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Thanks for the heads up.
However, at the moment I can't access my account beyond the overview page and even that doesn't show any numbers.  Maybe because they are in the process of tweaking the self-serve for the new rewards, since I see a new line saying "Recently earned rewards (past 30 days)" which wasn't there before.

[computergeek541]

If anyone is wondering, this month's rewards have been paid out.  Thankfully, from what I can see, the reward amounts have been increased properly.  This is the first month for the new/higher community reward amounts.

[Silver1404]

Great news, I’m very pleased with this as it makes a lot of sense. It will certainly know the operation of the community

[rsa]

Much easier to understand - ty!

[torontokris]

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@SD08 wrote:

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@dna2016 wrote:

Even under the new scale, for about $750 a month, PM gets the community to perform a first level triage for customer queries, essentially clearing away any questions which don't require moderator account access. On the other hand, if PM were to put the $750 toward hiring staff to answer questions, it would cover only one additional moderator for less than one quarter of a month, assuming a $15/hr wage (ignoring CPP/EI payroll costs). I'd say PM is getting pretty good bang for its buck by handing out the rewards instead.

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Agreed and great breakdown.

[brent_liza]

you're welcome

[JL9]

Thanks!!

[brent_liza]

If i recall correctly it is received between the 6-8 of the month. If you look in your badges sometimes they have one for the month current progress. Right now I have the top 5% for this month that I can see. 

[JL9]

Quick question - when is the community reward determined for each month? (And I'm assuming there is no way to track your progress throughout the month) ok 2 questions I guess lol

[tylah]

Very exciting! This is something that definitely sets Public Mobile apart from the other companies. I'm excited for the opportunity of community support systems mixed in with even better rewards!

[Cryn]

Awesome work! Keep it up!

[JL9]

Thank You!

[SD08]

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@JL9 wrote:

Sorry, is there a link to see the old program? Just wanted to see the comparisons. I really like this way of resolving all related Public Mobile matters 

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@JL9

If you're looking for the old chart laying out the monetary rewards at each participation level, that has been removed from any of the knowledge base articles, but it is still visible here in the photo album of retired PM staffer Mat_F.

[JL9]

Sorry, is there a link to see the old program? Just wanted to see the comparisons. I really like this way of resolving all related Public Mobile matters 

[SD08]

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@dna2016 wrote:

Overall, great to see the increase in Community rewards/dollars, this will definitely increase the activity within the forum going forward.  But unfortunately with this increase in credits my corporate pessimistic side is also firing alarms because I'm sure it's a matter of time before the base plan costs start to increase as well.  May not be this summer, but wouldn't be surprised if we see some plan increases by late 2018 or early 2019.  As the nature of business is "give a little, take a lot".  Guess we'll see what happens.

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@dna2016

I wouldn't worry that the increase in community rewards will be a significant factor resulting in higher plan prices. The total amount of community rewards paid out each month is really  a drop in the bucket compared to their revenue.  For example, PM paid out only $387 for the recently completed month of May, using the old reward scale.

0.1%: 6 x $10 = $60
0.5%: 4 x $6 = $24
5%: 10 x $4 = $40
25%: 81 x $2 = $162
50%: 101 x $1 = $101
Total: $387

Adapting the numbers for the new scale, with rough guesstimates for the new categories, we can estimate it as:

Oracles: 6 x $20 = $120
1%: 8? x $15 = $120
5%: 10 x $10 = $100
10%: 25? x $5 = $125
25%: 81 x $2 = $162
50%: 101 x $1 = $101
Total: $728 (approximate)

Even under the new scale, for about $750 a month, PM gets the community to perform a first level triage for customer queries, essentially clearing away any questions which don't require moderator account access. On the other hand, if PM were to put the $750 toward hiring staff to answer questions, it would cover only one additional moderator for less than one quarter of a month, assuming a $15/hr wage (ignoring CPP/EI payroll costs). I'd say PM is getting pretty good bang for its buck by handing out the rewards instead.

[ShawnC13]

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@kav2001c wrote:

I actually had an old account (now closed) where I was earning something crazy (like $50 per month in community rewards, I used to have a positive balance to buy add-ons even)

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I want to know how it created a positive balance as it has always been that you could get your bill to $0 but not actually bank dollars

[jp2]

@Jonavin I think the best way for them to do it would be to only give rewards to members who have a self serve account to recieve the credit. This way people who don't even benifit from the rewards don't take them from people who do benefit. You can see why the company wouldn't want to do that because then they would have to payout more 

[Jonavin]

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@kav2001c wrote:

@Jonavinand yet there IS something to do with your account activity

I had a grey badge for years (I somehow earned a badge while my account was in suspension so the community rewards were also never applied for those months)

So how do others do it?

Because some posters (many were listed above) seem to have it work

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@Jonavin wrote:

I think there needs to be some transparency around who gets into these levels. If you have old posts from members getting credit and earning top spots, it doesn't seem fair to current customers.

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I actually had an old account (now closed) where I was earning something crazy (like $50 per month in community rewards, I used to have a positive balance to buy add-ons even)

I still laugh because after 2 years or so when it was finally fixed, it only earned $2 in rewards so I emailed mods asking what happened and they were just like "um you know that was in error right"

I have expressed my concerns to Public that something in secret formula is broken

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I don't really care how It's exactly calculated. If you knew it would be too easy to game the system. What I don't want is a bunch of dormant accounts getting community rewards.

[newfoundland]

Nice!

[MoreYummy]

It should not.  Only PM would know.

[jp2]

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@jp2 wrote:

Everyone should bravo the OP in this thread so it will appear in the top bravoed posts board. Then at least one of the posts there will be positive about PM 

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So I guess that post by staff don't count for the top bravoed post board?