Exciting changes to our brand and customer experience

[Dave_M]

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Hey Community,

We’ve got some exciting news to share with you!

As you may have noticed already (sorry – hard to hide this one :)) we’ve updated our look! From a new logo, new colours, to fresh, fun illustrations- we got a makeover. Why? Because, we’ve been on a journey since 2015, and we’ve learned a LOT along the way. Our recent research, suggested our brand identity didn’t accurately reflect our mission: Public Mobile is the wireless company with you in mind. We didn’t name ourselves Public Mobile by accident after all. Everything we do – from offering the most affordable phone plans in Canada on the largest network, to rewards that save you even more, to this online community run by passionate customers is with you in mind.

And so, this new design truly embodies the personal, unique, simple and community first approach that Public Mobile stands for.  We hope you like the changes as much as we do. But that’s not all, beyond the makeover, we’ve also been hard at work working on some new initiatives that we think you’ll be pretty stoked for and are a long time in the making:

1.     New ticketing resolution process – yes you read that right, it’s coming! More details to come this week (as this in itself warrants its own full Community post) but essentially, this process will make it faster + easier to track, manage, and resolve issues when submitting a ticket to our online Moderator team.

2.   System improvements  - over the coming weeks, we’re excited to bring through a variety of system improvements. First up is an improvement to our latency and reliability of our web portals, meaning faster loading speeds in Self-Serve and fewer occasions of activation issues related to timing out. We’re also doing some fat trimming and are saying goodbye to our build your own plan calculator. While we love the flexibility of our plan calculator, the tradeoff is the ability to reduce pressure on our systems, help the general upkeep of our portals, and simplify the plan purchasing experience for customers. We know some plans can only be accessed via the plan calculator today, we plan (pun intended ;)) to bring some of those options  back in the near future! Lastly, as you're likely aware, we transitioned to refer-a-friend codes a few weeks ago to better protect your privacy and make referring easy 🙂

We can’t wait to hear what you think about all this goodness and are thrilled to deliver initiatives like #1 and #2 to simplify and improve the customer experience. We know we have more to tackle and are absolutely committed to continuing to make wireless simple, uncomplicated and accessible to all Canadians. Why? Because you’re the public, we’re for you.

Sincerely,

Dave

[KamWest]

As much as I appreciate the data gift they would be better off lowering the price off an addon gig. The thirty bucks is insane and if I get 5 gig for $40 in my plan that means I should be able to buy a gig for around $8. They can even round it up to $10 but anything more is crazy.

I have 4 lines with Public and the first provider that charges for data as you need it I will be switching to them. 

So for me a base plan with a set amount of data and then pay for what you use at a fair price.

You can do all the marketing you want, in the end it comes down to a fair price for data, and the company that does it will be the winner.

Until then when I travel and I hit my data cap I simply upgrade the plan for 1 month and then switch back after that month is done. Then you get 80 gigs for 60 bucks (assuming you use that plan). That works out to $7.50 per gig.

I hate having to do that and would much rather prefer a data addon at a reasonable price.

[BEER]

Not that it matters to me but Is there a choice of choosing different backgrounds? 

[BEER]

LOL.  LOL. LOL 

[BEER]

Patience— Patience — they will respond  

[BEER]

If one likes or dislikes the new look it’s just a matter of opinion. What counts is that PM seems to be the very best provider that doesn't seem to be gouging it's customers.

PM latest gesture of no other reason but just to be nice, (and good marketing) is their gift of an extra 1 GB of data with no strings attached

[BEER]

I thought that I had started this thread— anyways thanks for the link— On the subject — I like the new look and my only constructive criticism is that the quote option was a nice feature and should be added again. 

[darlicious]

I noticed my referral number right away. Usually anything online is a challenge for me. Seems simple so far.

[danielj]

Not the most effective way to invest money in a "makeover" rebranding. A brand that is meant to be less for less, way overspend on items like "makeover" rebranding. Focus on the overall services and System improvements. System improvements is priority over changing logos.

It is maybe that it is just the actual change but not a big fan of the new look right now.

[Jonavin]

Looking forward to the changes, but to be honest, I kind’ve liked the classic orange colours better. Can we have a classic theme option?

[Revelry]

New look is going to take some getting used too

[SomeFriend]

I kinda liked the old theme better, but I wouldn't say I dislike the new one.  It's decent enough and I'll dig it after some time!...

[pm-smayer97]

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@Alan_K wrote:

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@srlawren wrote:

@Dave_M I like the fresh coat of paint and I'm extremely excited about the ticketting system (though, also trepidatious until I actually see it live).

However, why the removal of the plan builder?  Can you please provide more info on exactly what problems this was causing?  I'm sure that in recent history, the ready-made/promo plans have been very popular, but is there not still a non-trivial percentage of the userbase that currently has a pick-and-pay plan?  I think that for a lot of people, that's one of the great things about PM, so that they can pay for exactly the services they really need.  I'd love to hear more about what the challenges are and what the advantage is to removing the plan builder.  Are existing pick-and-pay customer plans grandfathered indefinitely?  If so, can you really gain any operational efficiencies while maintaining that backward compatibility?  Could we maybe get a developer's blog entry on this?  cc: @Alan_K 

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Hi @srlawren , when we decided to remove the pick and pay calculator, we found that only 1% of new customers were making plans on the calculator. To further simplify the customer experience (retail customers were often confused by the plan calculator), and to reduce issues (we constantly had problems with the calculator that would be flagged by the Community), we decided it was time for it to go.

WIth that said, anyone with a plan calculator built plan will now be considered on a grandfathered plan - that is, your rate plan features are not changing due to the calculator removal, and if you were to change your plan to something else, you wouldn't be able to go back to a grandfathered plan.

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It is a self-fulling prophecy... reduce the options to be unattractive in the plan builder, people will use it less. It is not because the plan builder was not useful.

It is because PM did not offer enough interesting options because the pre-made plans tended to be cheaper (but not always). And as said before, there are still many viable options that now are no longer possible.

So this is very bad analysis. PM created the very reason why people were using it less.

[JanP]

Just tried again and I now have access to my account info. So no worries....

re: 

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@JanP wrote:

Are some accounts unaccessible while these changes happen? I can get in, but there is nothing in my account. 

Changes sound pretty good. I like that the flexibility of the plans isn't going to be completely eliminated. I hope most of the one-off add ons are still around. I love that feature, especially if I'm going out of the country for a week or two. Much less hassle just to add on roaming etc.

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[JanP]

Are some accounts unaccessible while these changes happen? I can get in, but there is nothing in my account. 

Changes sound pretty good. I like that the flexibility of the plans isn't going to be completely eliminated. I hope most of the one-off add ons are still around. I love that feature, especially if I'm going out of the country for a week or two. Much less hassle just to add on roaming etc.

[mimmo]

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@makkahn28 wrote:

Hi. I sent a pm to @CS_Agent on something.

Haven't heard back, and sent Message hrs ago.

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@makkahn28 mods are replying in 48 to 72 hours. Also what does this have to to the announcement? Would it not have been better to post as a new topic? 

[KamWest]

Maybe a heart with a P in it.

[makkahn28]

Hi. I sent a pm to @CS_Agent on something.

Haven't heard back, and sent Message hrs ago.

[geopublic]

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@srlawren wrote:

@Dave_M @Alan_K did you guys choose a heart design for the community favicon on purpose?  It currently looks like this:

Wouldn't a light green P on the dark green background be more appropriate?  This is just crude mock up...I'm sure your graphics department could do a better job, but this is just for illustration of the general idea:

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Looks like a Public Parking sign.

[1vk]

Good point...for many customers is pricing one of main reasons why they switched to PM. I hope that with improvments PM will not turn the way koodo did...

[sa7375]

The new sepia color background is beautiful and a welcome change. I find some not being too happy with it: the answer lies in offering the users the option to choose a background of their choice. 

[srlawren]

@Dave_M @Alan_K did you guys choose a heart design for the community favicon on purpose?  It currently looks like this:

Wouldn't a light green P on the dark green background be more appropriate?  This is just crude mock up...I'm sure your graphics department could do a better job, but this is just for illustration of the general idea:

[srlawren]

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@wetcoaster wrote:

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@srlawren wrote:

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@BEER wrote:

Just a few minutes ago I noticed that the PM account and Community pages have a totally new updated look. When did this happen?

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@BEER that's what this thread is about--did you skip reading the frist post on the first page of this thread?  https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Announcements/Exciting-changes-to-our-brand-and-custo...

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@srlawren 

Some of the couple of "Hey, have you seen the new look?" threads were merged with the announcement. Including Beer's.

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@wetcoaster ohhhhhhhhhhhh, yeah k that makes more sense.  Thanks for pointing that out.

[wetcoaster]

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@srlawren wrote:

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@BEER wrote:

Just a few minutes ago I noticed that the PM account and Community pages have a totally new updated look. When did this happen?

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@BEER that's what this thread is about--did you skip reading the frist post on the first page of this thread?  https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Announcements/Exciting-changes-to-our-brand-and-custo...

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@srlawren 

Some of the couple of "Hey, have you seen the new look?" threads were merged with the announcement. Including Beer's.

[KamWest]

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@KamWest wrote:

Don't know about you guys but the new public logo is flawed.

How many people see two L 's in the logo?

Now match that with the double II and you have a bloody mess.

I like the new 6 month promo though so you could use a pink Paisley logo and I'd still stick around.

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It is the forum logo I was talking about.

I notice the logo on the website is different.

It looks like they can't decide which one to use.

[srlawren]

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@BEER wrote:

Just a few minutes ago I noticed that the PM account and Community pages have a totally new updated look. When did this happen?

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@BEER that's what this thread is about--did you skip reading the frist post on the first page of this thread?  https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Announcements/Exciting-changes-to-our-brand-and-custo...

[srlawren]

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@MelonEatsPhone wrote:

Since we now have this new logo “Public” are we planning to change our carrier name to just “Public” too?

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@MelonEatsPhone there's an easy fix to the network name taking up too much space along the top of your iPhone:  get an Android phone instead!  

[Triguy]

Article about the new rebranding.

https://mobilesyrup.com/2019/08/19/public-mobile-visual-identity-diverse-new/

[leekhs]

I just switched to PM last Thursday.  I cant tell you how simple and fast the setup was.  I'm so happy to be with PM.

[Anonymous]

I miss the bright red notification blobs because they caught the eye. Now I have to more consciously look at it. I also miss the bright green solved checkmark because it was more obvious.

[David_J]

Thanks @mimmo for the heads up. We'll add this to our list that we're working our way through.
David_J