CONTEST CLOSED: Help us redesign our boards for a chance to win!

[Alan_K]

Hey Community, 

As we mentioned at the end of 2019, one of Public Mobile’s focuses for 2020 is to improve our systems and portals to give you, our customers, a better experience. This includes everything from our back-end systems, to our self-serve portals, to the Community. As we look to make improvements to the Community, I want to make sure we leave no stone unturned and make every part of the Community experience great. 

That being said, one area we’d love your help with is the Community boards. The boards we have now (including Announcements, Getting Started, and The Lounge) help us organize the Community, but as the Community grows, we want to make sure they reflect the content that our members want to see. So, let us know what you think the boards in the Community should be and you’ll be entered to win one of three $50 Amazon e-gift cards. 

Comment below what boards you think we should have by Monday March 23 2020 at 12:00PM ET to be entered. Get as creative as you’d like! Want a board dedicated to money saving and deals? Tell us! Think we should have fewer? Let us know! We will take these submissions into consideration as we work towards improving the Community experience for everyone, and three winners will be randomly selected to receive a $50 Amazon e-gift card. 

Please note that all winners will be contacted via private messenger within a few days of the contest closing. 

-The Public Mobile Community Team

CONTEST RULES

Spoiler

Redesign Our Boards Contest
CONTEST RULES

1.       HOW TO ENTER & ELIGIBILITY 
   No Purchase Necessary.  To enter entrants must share, in the Public Mobile Community post, how they would redesign the list of forum boards in the Community. Only one entry per person accepted.  No other form of participation is accepted.  In the event of a dispute on the entrant identity, the person who is the holder of the email address specified on the online form will be deemed to be the entrant. 

If your entry contains a person, other than the entrant, by entering the contest, you state that you have obtained consent from everyone in the photo. If your photo contains a minor (under the age of 18) parental or legal guardian consent is required.

Contest runs from March 16 to March 23, 2020 at 12:00pm ET. 

An Entry will be considered void and removed from the Community post if it contains subject matter that, in the opinion of the contest administrators, may violate community standards or is otherwise of questionable taste.

To be eligible, an entrant must be an existing Public Mobile customer and entry must be received on or before end of contest closing date and time. Entrants must be a Canadian resident who are 13 years of age or older and must be a member of the Public Mobile online Community. Contest not open to employees of TELUS Corporation, its affiliated companies or subsidiaries, its sales agents, its advertising and promotional agencies, and members with whom they are domiciled.  By accepting these Contest Rules, entrants agree that any and all liability related to this contest by TELUS is limited to the value of the Prize(s) as defined hereinafter.

2. 
   2. THE PRIZE
   There will be three (3) prizes awarded.  Each winner will receive the following prize: 

One (1) Amazon e-gift card valued at $50 

Prize(s) must be accepted as awarded and with no substitutions, is/are not transferable unless set out in the Contest Rules and cannot be exchanged with Public Mobile for cash. Public Mobile reserves the right to substitute the Prize with a Prize of equivalent value if such prize becomes unavailable for any reason.  The chances of winning are dependent upon the total number of eligible entries received.

3. 
   3. THE DRAW
   A random draw for all Prizes will take place at the Public Mobile office located at 25 York Street, Toronto, Ontario on or about March 23 at approx.12:00PM ET by a TELUS representative. Selected entrants will be notified on the Public Mobile Community. If the selected entrant cannot be reached within two (2) business days, or if the selected entrant does not meet any of the contest requirements, another entrant will be selected from the remaining eligible entries.
   In order to win, the selected entrant must correctly answer unaided a mathematical skill-testing question and will be required to sign a standard release form.  If the selected entrant is under the age of majority in his/her province of residence, his/her parent or legal guardian must read and accept these Contest Rules.  Failure to answer the skill-testing question correctly, comply with the Contest Rules or sign and return the release form within two (2) days of receipt will result in disqualification and another entry will be selected until the Prize is awarded. Prize will be delivered to a Canadian address of the winner’s choice within (7) business days after prize has been awarded. 
4. 
   4. PRIVACY
   By entering the contest, entrants consent to the use of their names, city of residence, photograph, voice and/or image for publicity purposes in all media used by Public Mobile, without payment or compensation.  Entrants agree to TELUS’ use of the entrants’ personal information that may include contacting you regarding limited time offers, promotional offers and/or surveys. Full details are as described in Public Mobiles’ privacy policy located at publicmobile.ca/termsofservice.

5. QUEBEC RESIDENTS

Any litigation respecting the conduct or organization of a publicity contest may be submitted to the Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux for a ruling. Any litigation respecting the awarding of a Prize may be submitted to the Régie only for the purpose of helping the parties reach a settlement. 

6. OTHER
All entries become the property of Public Mobile. Public Mobile assumes no responsibility for lost, damaged or misdirected entries during the contest period, for any problems or technical malfunction of any online systems, servers, access providers, computer equipment, software and failure of any e-mail or entry to be received by Public Mobile on account of technical problems, traffic congestion on the Internet or at any web site or failure of handset or mobile web browser. Public Mobile reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to change, cancel or suspend this contest without prior notice. Entries are subject to verification and will be declared invalid if they are mechanically reproduced, forged, falsified, altered, tampered with, not in accordance with Community standards or unlawful in any way. Entries submitted by unauthorized means will be disqualified. In the event that it has been determined that an entry has been made in an manner not sanctioned by these rules and/or an entrant has submitted more than the number of entries permitted by these rules, the entrant and all of his/her entries will be disqualified.  Entrants agree to abide by the contest rules and the decisions of the contest judges, which are final. This contest is subject to all applicable laws and regulations.

[pm-smayer97]

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@CannonFodder wrote:

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@RM4 wrote:

I don’t really understand why we need a separate account sign in for community?  I think that is a barrier for folks who aren’t really tech savvy and they may miss out or get frustrated with things. 

---

I don't KNOW the reason, but I suspect it's something to do with accounts that are no longer active, i.e. if there was only 1 set of login credentials(email & password), and someone had an account that had been deleted, due to it going past the 90 days of being suspended, and THEN they tried to log into the Community forums to get some help, they probably couldn't if that login info was no longer valid. I suppose they could always create a new set of info to get to the forums with, but MAYBE that's part of the reason.

---

Well, it helps for that reason BUT the reason they are different is these are 2 different platforms, one for Self-serve (not sure if that is an in-house or third party product), and this community, which IS a third party product from Khoros.

Also, this login set up works best for some users that have more than one PM account but only need one forum login to get support.

[smp99]

Better navigation 

link to last unread post of a particular thread. That’s my biggest beef. 

[CannonFodder]

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@RM4 wrote:

I don’t really understand why we need a separate account sign in for community?  I think that is a barrier for folks who aren’t really tech savvy and they may miss out or get frustrated with things. 

---

I don't KNOW the reason, but I suspect it's something to do with accounts that are no longer active, i.e. if there was only 1 set of login credentials(email & password), and someone had an account that had been deleted, due to it going past the 90 days of being suspended, and THEN they tried to log into the Community forums to get some help, they probably couldn't if that login info was no longer valid. I suppose they could always create a new set of info to get to the forums with, but MAYBE that's part of the reason.

[RM4]

When I first joined the boards were difficult and overwhelming to navigate.  If I’m really looking for something now there is so much information out there I can just search... I love the search feature. I haven’t really needed to post but I do give bravos when someone has helped me out.  After being here for awhile I’m okay with them. I have not really had any significant problems... the service has been good and when there has been a problem that affected me the answer has popped up in community. I don’t really understand why we need a separate account sign in for community?  I think that is a barrier for folks who aren’t really tech savvy and they may miss out or get frustrated with things. 

[NDesai]

I have no issue with the current community boards setup. It just needs little bit of improvements and guidelines so everyone is on the same page. I do not think any boards needs to be removed. Dividing threads into different boards helps to at least know what the problem is about. So the current list is fine unless PM launches new services or like to separate crowded boards into sub categories. There are many other companies use Khoros platform to provide support. Some of them are PayPal, HP, Lenovo, Cisco, Go Daddy, Autodesk, Samsung, and Rogers. They all have different layouts and the way of presenting key info on the home page, but one thing in common is the list of boards/categories/sub-forums. It also helps PM to pull up stats on each categories. So I think the list of Boards should stay as is. 
To make things clear, review the guideline so people know what to post in Discussions, Lounge and other boards. Many forums/community I have been to only allow to post threads as long as it fits in the given categories. Any other topics would be deleted. Since PM wants customers to help each other, creating social community is beneficial. Therefore, having a sub category (Lounge) is totally fine to keep things separate.

Discussion boards is a bit grey area where anything else should go, but only if it is related to Public Mobile. I do not think any guide/tutorial related to phones should go there. If you think there is a need for this, make suggestions to may be divide the Lounge board. Since bravo counts and other stats from the Lounge are not calculated, rarely anyone will post. Similarly, if you have a guideline to not post any social topics, people will learn to not post anything not related to Public Mobile. Decision is totally up to Public Mobile if they want to keep things clean and simple. 

What I want to suggest is the presentation on the home page. PM should have a banner under the search bar for any important notice they would like customers to know. Outage happen from time to time and there is no way for customers to know that other people are experiencing the same. Posting multiple threads of the same thing is not helpful. So posting a notice right on top of the community home page would help. I understand that PM staff will not be online all the time, so giving ability to Oracles would result into quick action. If Oracles are not worthy, then have a moderator watch the community throughout the day and part of the night. I have yet to see any mod take care of removing personal info quickly or moving a post into proper category. So unless it will be a quick action, moderator will not help.

[Luddite]

Suggestion for Boards

• Announcements from PM
• Service updates/issues from PM
• Help and support to use/activate PM services
• Ideas to improve PM services/support
• Lounge for any topic
• Tips and guides to PM services (potentially expand to any topic)

• Clicking a board lands on the current landing page layout; viz. Current Topics, Latest Posts, (and Solutions but only for the Help board).
• Each landing page includes a "Post New Topic/Question" button.
• Search function for each board.
• Add "Flag" button to posts for alerting moderators to abusive language.
• I wouldn't bother with subheadings until we see how any new layout functions.

[carriezhang]

Hi, I hope I will see a board that always lets its customers know how to solve some common problems, such as not being able to receive incoming phone calls.  Also, the board can post some customers’ bad experiences such as fraudulent phone calls & text messages and then tell us how to respond to the issues like this.

[CannonFodder]

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@computergeek541 wrote:

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@Jb456 wrote:

Our only option is to report the thread or ask Oracle's and hope one is online to edit the post.

Speaking of Oracle's. Can we have a @oracles option that they all get a notification? Like @ moderators_team.

The Oracle tag has been discussed before. There isn't any shared Oracle account that can be logged into and it was decided previously that such an option wouldn't be something that could be easily implemented.

---

Yeah, that's a tough call on what to do about those situations - I've seen a few posts recently, where the OP has included EVERYTHING about their PM account, and although I've managed to tag Oracles on a few occasions, to get the post in question edited, there WAS a recent one that was left unedited for a significant amount of time before an Oracle got to it. IIRC, there actually weren't any Oracles online at that point in time, and I guess the Mods don't monitor the forums much..... maybe one of us should have tagged a Mod or two?

I've personally seen at least a half dozen posts that contained WAAAAY too much personal info in them, such that, if someone so inclined happened to be perusing these forums, they could have caused plenty of grief for the person that posted the info.

[hairbag1]

 Both new and experienced PM'ers report chronic problems using Simon. Getting to a moderator shouldn't be the cause of so much vexation of spirit.

[computergeek541]

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@Jb456 wrote:

Our only option is to report the thread or ask Oracle's and hope one is online to edit the post.

Speaking of Oracle's. Can we have a @oracles option that they all get a notification? Like @ moderators_team.

The Oracle tag has been discussed before. There isn't any shared Oracle account that can be logged into and it was decided previously that such an option wouldn't be something that could be easily implemented.

[computergeek541]

I'd settle for Community bugs to be fixed. The quote button thing has been going on for a while now, and the phantom new messsage issue has spread to almost every category for me. 

[mimmo]

Trim the boards down

1.  Announcements and contests
2. FAQ /common problems/solutions (locked board)
   • sticky direct link to ticket mods 
   • sticky list of "great posts" ie guides
3.  Get Help (only people asking questions)
   • sticky direct link to ticket mods
   • sticky how to ask a question ie what to include what not to include
4. lounge 2.0 (everything else except people asking for help including guides )
   • great posts from here could moved to other boards

only get help board counts towards rewards

5) mothball SIMON  (yeah I know that wont happen)

[will13am]

It has been mentioned a few times already and well illustrated by @ddeep91 .  This community forum is in need of a good set of FAQs.  The moderator team has been doing some cleanup of historical posts and that exercise should provide some good analytics for developing the FAQs.  A good proxy that the FAQs have hit the mark is when we see customers coming to the community forum and saying that they have consulted the FAQs but need further clarification on an item.  

[CannonFodder]

---

@Alan_K wrote:

Hey Community, 

As we mentioned at the end of 2019, one of Public Mobile’s focuses for 2020 is to improve our systems and portals to give you, our customers, a better experience. This includes everything from our back-end systems, to our self-serve portals,

This stuff SERIOUSLY needs overhauling, because of the constant stream of people with the same complaints, such as:

1.) Self-serve either doesn't work at all, hangs partway through, or simply takes forever to respond.... as mentioned in a previous thread, this SEEMS like more servers, or server upgrades, are needed, and/or more available bandwidth.

2.) Issues with using the Apartment field, and the postal code, when filling in personal info should be straightened out.

3.) Autopayment failures SHOULD NOT even be an issue in 2020, but they are.

4.) Thought of yet another one..... SOME COMPANY, and it may as well be Public Mobile, or the entire Telus group, seriously NEEDS to change the way number porting is done in this country, so that people's numbers DO NOT get ported out to another provider WITHOUT the owner of that number first giving consent to do so!!!

to the Community. As we look to make improvements to the Community, I want to make sure we leave no stone unturned and make every part of the Community experience great. 

That being said, one area we’d love your help with is the Community boards. The boards we have now (including Announcements, Getting Started, and The Lounge) help us organize the Community, but as the Community grows, we want to make sure they reflect the content that our members want to see. So, let us know what you think the boards in the Community should be and you’ll be entered to win one of three $50 Amazon e-gift cards. 

Personally, I like the look of the Community, i.e. the colour scheme works well, and is easy to read, but some things could DEFINITELY be improved:

1.) The message editor needs to function the same way across different platforms, and needs to have a properly functioning "Quote" button back, and if possible, the ability to use Multi-quotes would be even better. If moving the system to another forum software is what it would take to accomplish the task, that would be fine. I've had personal experience with Invision Community software, and it's VERY configurable, and seems to work quite nicely. Whether the issues here are the software, or the person/people doing the configuration.... well, that's up to PM to determine.

2.) As others have mentioned, there should be some "sticky" threads/posts where some of the most common information needed is easy to get at, because as it is right now, people doing a search here have to wade through thread after thread to MAYBE find the info they're looking for.

3.) An OBVIOUS way to contact the Moderator team would be nice too - there are SO many people that come here for help, that have to ask how to contact the Mods. That, and the constantly disappearing question mark icon, to contact SIMon needs to be fixed, and maybe, instead of being a question mark icon, that many people have NO IDEA what it's there for, should be a button that makes if obvious what it's for.

4.) This is personal preference, of course, but while the "Announcements" section being located where it is, is fine, I don't think the "New Solutions" section needs to be there at all, since those threads are essentially concluded. That, and both the "Latest Posts" & "Latest Topics" sections could easily be at least twice as long, i.e. 10 in each, instead of 5.

5.) Each of the forums, could easily have subforums, which would serve to keep everything more organized, and potentially easier to find the info you're looking for. For example, when looking at ANY of the forums, such as, "Getting Started", if you click in there, it's simply a HUGE list of all the posts within that forum. It could be WAAAY more organized, if, for example, the forum was titled, "Getting Started", which then has subforums titled, "Phone Compatibility", "Porting your existing phone number", "SIM Activation", "Adding card information", etc., etc.

Subforums are used extensively & successfully on other forums, such as, Linus Tech Tips , or Hardware Canucks 

As something else crops up, I may just continue editing this post.....

[pm-smayer97]

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@Sarlye wrote:

I would like to see:

...

- report on posters who constantly write off colour or rude comments so an official from PM can either block them, or their posts will have to be reviewed before it can be posted. Since only customers can join the community, we can’t kick them out, but their rudeness should be curbed.

Thank You 🤗

---

You can already report inappropriate posts... just click on the "..." menu to the right for the option.

[pm-smayer97]

Forum organization itself is fine, mostly, except the removal / hide & seek of the Quote button (that is more a function of the Khoros platform than PM but still needs addressing).

One feature lacking is the ability to subscribe to sections of the forum, rather than just individual threads (though I posted a work-around solution for this here:

How to get notified of ANY New Promos, Announcements, System Outages, etc

I would like the equivalent of the Lab section brought back to be able to submit ideas for improvements BUT only if it is properly managed, e.g., merge duplicates, provide feedback, update status, etc.

Yes, make Simon more front and centre.

Make it clearer on how to get mod support via Simon... I figured it out but definitely not obvious.

BIG problem in this forum is more the PRIVATE MESSAGING...again more a PLATFORM issue than a forum organization issue. For an online only company that requires communication with customer via this PM, this PM is TERRIBLE... lacks tracking conversations (that is the back and forth on same discussion thread), lacks preserving title when mods reply back, so makes it VERY HARD to have more than one topic on the go with mods  (and there are many situations where that is necessary). Please fix or REPLACE this PM system.

[Sarlye]

I would like to see:

- Different colours for Announcements tabs, sometimes when it’s busy posts get lost

- have the quote back when reply..

- sticky on top for Newbies.. start here with links to how to do Autopay, how to post on the board, etc.

- get to know page for members who want to share more in the Lounge.. or history of the Oracles? How to be an Oracle?

- report on posters who constantly write off colour or rude comments so an official from PM can either block them, or their posts will have to be reviewed before it can be posted. Since only customers can join the community, we can’t kick them out, but their rudeness should be curbed.

Thank You 🤗

[fujiyama]

Not sure if we need to change the number of boards, the current ones are already categorized pretty nicely, imo. Besides, many new users don't really care or check that they're posting in the correct board anyways lol.

So I think new users should be forced to go through a bot like SIMon before their first post, which will basically take them through a search of the forums for threads related to their question. Then give them the option to start a new thread afterwards.

Also for new users, give them a big flashing warning to not their personal info on the public boards whenever they post. Only remove this warning after their 10th post (or rank up), or something like that.

EDIT: For tagging all Oracles, I found a thread explaining the limitations for setting that up. Maybe have an "Oracle_Team" bot account that will auto check for Oracle(s) who are online and notify/tag them? Or just auto forward all the tags it receives to every Oracle, so we don't have to manually tag all of them lol.

[popping]

@Alan_K 

PM does not have call center.  Support are provided by moderator by creating a support ticket using SIMon.  New and old subscribers are still don't know how to get support.  

1.  On new community account creation, new user should be directed to a quick training video or interactive web pages on

1a.  how to use our community board

1b.  how to get help using SIMon.

1c.  how to use the private message system

1d.  TBD

2.  Community landing page should remind users that PM support is provided by moderator only and short cut link to the introduction training materials.

[kselmak]

@ddeep91 

They're was a knowledge base that was combination of manuals, how tos, solutions to particular problems/bugs.

With tone it a became a bit messy and there was lots of stuff that was outdated.

This is probably the reason it was removed, place like that needs regular maintenance.

Maybe there should be some kind of flag that community can use to alert employees that the thread is outdated or not applicable anymore and can be placed for review.

Would they be taken down completely or would there be a graveyard for threads still accessible to public I guess is something pm would have to decide.

[kselmak]

I would like to second @Anonymous suggestion about the reference/link to the actual message in the thread being replied to.

[sa7375]

There are already too many boards and should be pruned to a lower number. Ideally, the Search window should bring up an answer instantly — no matter what the question — rather than a user browsing through the boards and the titles.

And this brings me to a supplementary suggestion of the role of Chatbot SIMon. It’s currently relegated to a side show by placing it in the bottom right corner of the screen. It’s not even brightly colored to attract attention. How about re-positioning the Chatbot SIMon to the front and the center for all searches (just below All Community). Ideally, this is where a user should start for all the questions.

Do I have a Google Search Window in mind? Perhaps, yes.  

[ShawnC13]

@Alan_K I think there are already to many sections.  We could go down to 4 Announcements, Contests, PM Support, The Lounge.  Have only PM Support be used for calculation of rewards.  No need to have people earning rewards off of posts that are announcements, contests or non support issues.

[ddeep91]

@Alan_K 

There are few things that need to be modified/added 

1) We need to ADD a (Frequently Asked Questions) FAQ section

When helping the community on a daily basis, we answer very similar questions.

Questions like

• Q: Having trouble with porting numbers/ or unable to receive calls recently ported?
• A: (follow these steps: details here)
• Q: I am unable to log in?
• A: (follow these steps: details here)
• Q: How can I change the plan?
• A: (follow these steps: details here)
• Q: My Account showing suspended/expired.
• A: (follow these steps: details here)

These are just few examples of what's being asked every day.  I'm sure these FAQ's will make a huge difference in helping new activations/members.

2) We could possibly add a "Troubleshooting" section with the most common problems customers face.

Example

• Q: My service has stopped working. 
• A: example: update your APN settings/restart your phone/check you're MySelf serve account and so on.
• Q: My data is not working.
• A: (follow these steps: details here)

Just some ideas!

Cheers

[YVR]

Like to see the quote button magically appear.  

Make is easier for people to find the Knowledge base.  It takes me several times to find it and instead keep ending up in the community. 

[JoyLuck]

I would like to see a FAQ that contains the definitive answers to the most common questions grouped in a logical way.

Examples:

- On the $15 calling voicemail from your phone count as incoming minutes, therefore save your minutes by using another phone (landline, etc)

- List the recommended browsers
- If you cannot add your voucher by self-sreve, use *611 from your phone

- You can keep a running balance with vouchers and as long as you have a credit card on file you will get the auto pay reward

[Staliger]

@Alan_K 

Add the board related to most common questions : How to buy an add-on, to port a number, to set APN settings, etc. Change the color of the Announcements section so that people could easily notice the important information.

[killerofmusic]

Sometimes the community loads very very slowly. Maybe look into that. Also make the community forum a bit more colorful by adding different color for each category. 

[RobertQc]

Things are good but we have phones & hardware, what about software / operating systems? Also Services / Network / Connectivity.

[kselmak]

Hi @Alan_K 

I'm sure we'll think about it.

But I'll start already with the pioneer section.

How many people are there that fall into that category and is that section still needed?

Also I find myself kinda missing the knowledge base section (I believe that was the name) do you think you will have something similar like 'manuals'

I know there are some help pages (which are really good) but maybe they could also be just linked here too as this is the place where people come for help

Thanks