Public Mobile Community,
It is almost 3 years ago to the day when I first walked into the Public Mobile office tasked with finding a way to turn the Public Mobile business around. At the time, it had a limited network with a very expensive support structure (stores and a full-service call centre) that made it an unprofitable business.
So I rolled up my sleeves and along with the team, we began our journey to redefine how wireless service was delivered to Canadians. Being blessed with Canada’s largest 4G LTE network, we wanted to find a way to give customers access to a great network while simultaneously benefitting from great pricing. To do this, we needed to turn those expensive support costs upside down.
This is where doing wireless differently was born. A wireless provider without a call centre - instead, an online community to support its customers. No phones and phone discounts because, well, phones are really expensive. No stores because as you might have guessed by now - they’re crazy expensive too.
I sat in countless focus groups and was told over and over again that we were crazy. They would say things like “you can’t have a service without a call centre”, “you can’t be a wireless provider without selling phones”, “you have to have a store for me to go to”, and my personal favourite “I would never trust an online-only wireless provider.”
I could go on and on as this has been a very long journey to get us to where we are now, but instead I’d like to ask you for your continued trust and support as we work through some of the issues we are experiencing today.
We know some of you have been waiting a long time to hear back from us on various issues including activation/porting failures, future dated rate plan changes, and SIM delivery delays. The truth is we have been overwhelmed by the sheer volume of activity the current promo has generated and we are doing everything we can to fix things. I can ensure you that we have moved all our available resources to assisting you.
Here are some of the things we are seeing and some solutions and commitments from us:
For activation and porting failures:
- It is clear to us we will not be able to help everyone between now and the closure of this promotion on Sunday. We will not be extending this promotion but we will honour the promotion for anyone who had activation or porting failures during the promotion period (October 25-November 20).
- Our porting success ratio has been extremely good, however, we have noticed a volume of customers are inputting errors in their porting information. Please be very diligent in the information you are inputting to ensure the port request will be successful.
- Some tips for success on porting:
- Your device’s IMEI is the most accurate method to port. Please note that your previous carrier would need to have that IMEI used on your old account.
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- Separate the activation from the port. If you do the activation first you will have your account setup and ready to go. You can then log into self-serve and complete your port. This prevents incorrect porting information from affecting your activation.
- When not porting a number in we are seeing some customers being unable to see an available phone number. To fix this, you need to clear your browser’s cache.
Future dated rate plan change:
- We have existing customers who have future dated rate plan changes to get the promotional plan and, in some cases, the change is not sticking. We are aware of the issue and we are committed to ensuring the plan change is honored for you if you in fact had chosen a future dated rate plan change. This will also take us some time to catch up on so please bear with us.
For SIM card delivery delays or if your SIM card never arrived:
- This issue is predominantly driven by address errors or missing information – I’ve personally seen returns from apartment buildings with no unit number. Please be diligent when filling in your address.
- Additionally many of you who ordered recently are asking where your SIM is. Please be mindful that Friday, November 11 was a holiday for Canada Post so there will be some delays as a result. If you ordered Wednesday through Friday of last week, please check your mail tomorrow.
- If you order a SIM at this point (Tuesday evening), it will likely not arrive before the promo ends on Sunday. To help with this, we are organizing SIM card pick up locations in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal for Friday and Saturday for anyone who wants a last minute SIM card. Details to come, but the location will be downtown in each city and the $5 for each SIM will be going to Prostate Cancer in the spirit of Movember.
How can you help us?
- If you have a problem, please only message once. We are getting 10+ messages from one person about one issue and that increases the backlog and wait time for everyone
- If you have extra SIM cards, give them to your friends or to Community members so they can join before the promo ends
Again, I’m really grateful for your support and your patience. I know that, with the above solutions, we will get through this together and prove that wireless can be done differently.
Sincecerly Dave.
