Doing wireless different has its ups and downs

[Dave_M]

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. 
• • 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.

[25jai]

Hi Dave, thanks for doing a great job.

Question:
How will you grant the honour for people who have activation failures during the promotion? Is there a way in your system that you can detect that there was an attempt to activate during the promotion period? What do people need to do to contact you after the promotion that they have failed to activate during the promotion?

I'm just concerned for people who are failing to activate during the promo period but then when contacting support they don't honour it because they can't find that they attempted to activate.

[jheili99]

@Dave_M

Hi Dave,

thanks for having mercy on us with this super honest update as a few of us stopped responding due to the sheer amount of same complaints.... now we can focus back on what makes this community great...helping others and reliefing the ladies with concerns which can be resolved by us......

cheers and hurrayhhhhh....

[Michael6]

Wow, seriously great post.

[nishufan]

  What PM did is what we want. Good services with low price.  Thanks PM team.

[imm1304]

Hi @Dave_M!

The full disclosure and honesty is much appreciated.  Happy to hear of the plan in place to help maximum number of people sign up before the promo expires.  I am already handing out sim cards as needed.

You have some of the most loyal customer base around and we are all rooting for the success of PM.  

Most of us understand that the overwhelming response to the promo lead to the backlog and we trust the PM team to keep working hard to make the PM experience even better for the future.  

Wireless can certianly be done differently and better than the old ways.  The PM experience, as I like to call it, is full of potential and you are almost there.  

[ddsinthe6ix]

I've heard great things about the community forums at PM and I'm happy to say that my expectations haven't failed.  I luckily was able to activate my account and still waiting on the port (I'm having issues).  Luckily I have my old SIM card still so I can use that in the meantime until the backlog can be resolved.  Thanks for all the hard work!

[makkahn28]

This hand says Thanks again for all the best PM has given to all Us, Especially the Roaming. Very intriguing, Hand to all

[ReillyWood]

  @Dave_M, I appreciate the update.

  However, re: the request to limit messaging, I understand why you would ask this but the problem with the request is when we don't get any response in a reasonable time we start to escalate in one way or another.  And what's reasonable will depend upon the urgency of the issue.

  Perhaps you could set up a priority system with some target response times, for example:

1. Either via the forums or Private Messaging, ask people to indicate how serious their problem is in the subject line - e.g., "Priority 1" might mean that their phone is not useable at all (e.g, a failed port or a suspended phone), "Priority 2" might mean "my phone is working but it has at least one serious problem with the network", and "Priority 3" might mean "my phone is fine but I have an issue with billing"
2. Set and publish SLAs for each priority level, and update as you get swamped on issues.  For example, Priority 1 should be set to 1 day to resolve, but maybe if a gazillion issues come along, you temporarly bump it up to 2 days if necessary
3. Set up a sticky on each forum asking people to post problems in a particular way, perhaps set up a specific forum for Problems or one for each Priority level.

  I realize a problem with this overall is getting everyone to play along, but at least it's a better approach than currently which is pretty wild-west.

  Just a thought.

  Rob Wood

[Watoko]

Amazing, thank you for the post as it is informative for everyone who is patiently and impatiently waiting, being unaware of what is going on at the back!

The fact that you guys are listening to customers, and reacting based on feedback is all that the community can ask for. I am pleasantly surprised with your donation of the proceeds from the SIM card pick ups to Movember, and I would like to commend you for this amazing initiative and spirit!

Please keep working hard to give us the customers, the best wireless deal ever, and also to make our community a better place, as demonstrated through the Movember initiative.

Cheers and looking forward to being a customer of Public Mobile for years to come!

[alexzxn]

Great job thanks for all your efforts, in term of cell service PM is truly unbeatable.

One thing I suggest that PM could use a ticketing system to manage all the technical issues and support in general. This private messaging moderator method is very inefficient create a lot of confusion when moderators get messaged multiple times. Let me know if you need help with it or tech/coding support.

[NDesai]

Just like everyone working at Public Mobile, we as a community users are also passionate to expand this business and we know that we are playing big part in it. 

I am so glad you guys are organizing sim card sales in those cities. I have personally gave away all sim cards i had to those who wants to take advantage of this promo. And for those who didn't get it, i will let them know about sim sale event coming up. 

I am sure those issues are usually minor mistakes, but you just gotta have some patience till this promo expires. They will be able to catch up with backlog and you will hear back from them. 

Keep up the good work everyone at public mobile 🙂

[newfoundland]

Nice post!

[McLaren]

Great post, gives an in depth background story to how public mobile grew out of the ashes after Telus bought them.   Hope everyone will eventually get their problems resolved. 

[tknguyen]

Yay! Thank you 🙂 

 I'm glad you guys are organizing SIM card locations, makes it a bit easier for the last minute switchers

[dZilla]

---

@canucks4life wrote:

Good update had no issues with my Wind port except getting my Amex registered for Autopay due to address mismatch.

Any idea if we'll be issued a tax receipt for those Movember donation SIM card purchases?

---

Anything under 20$ I don't think you get a tax receipt.

[dZilla]

Thanks for the information I think a alot of people were wondering what is happening.

For people that were thinking of getting a SIM and are in one of the major cities below. STOP go get your SIM card there. You'll get the great promotion and you'll be supporting Movember.!

Thanks for the info !!!!

[makkahn28]

Now that is Brave, and I commend you @Dave_M for that. 

Our thanks for all your terrific efforts

[canucks4life]

Good update had no issues with my Wind port except getting my Amex registered for Autopay due to address mismatch.

Any idea if we'll be issued a tax receipt for those Movember donation SIM card purchases?

[shrimpdude]

Thanks for addressing all of these issues. Despite everything, PM is still the best value phone service in Canada by far, and is getting better each day!