Community

Dave_M · ‎08-15-2019

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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:

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.

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

Nicko343 · ‎08-29-2019

Contact PM and find out or while logged into your account click on the data add on and see if it’s available to you without having to change the whole grandfathered plan

Nicko343 · ‎08-29-2019

This is welcoming, continue doing what’s best and more efficient

kav2001c · ‎08-29-2019

@srlawren

Koodo Shock Free Data debut in 2016

Anyone on older grandfather plan has no protection

Fido didnt introduce this feature until 2019 and I don't recall seeing Virgin ever doing this before unlimited plans

That really is the difference. The surprise factor coupled with the fact that every carrier who has both data add ons & overage charges has such a pricing disparity

The fact every carrier in Canada (incl Koodo/Fido at one time) had random bill charges

I am sure you have read newspaper horror stories about how some teenagers rang up bills with obscene amounts (I personally have a Bell bill with over $20,000 in charges)

Even Wind had extra data charges back in their earliest days

Also your analogy is fundementally flawed

In an overage situation you ARE using the data

In an addon situation you are NOT using the data (on postpaid data not consumed vanishes, on prepaid data not consumed the balance carries over)

All 3 of these situations are vastly different animals due to amounts being billed, how they are being billed, the quantity of data being billed, and what happens to the data after the billing cycle

PS you love to tag me into these threads don't ya

@srlawren wrote:
@KamWest I've heard @kav2001c argue that overages and data add-ons are fundamentally different too, but I honestly don't think so. In either case, you are using more than the amount included in your plan (whether that's no data or 100 GB of data) and paying for an amount above and beyond your plan amount in order to use/keep using data during the cycle. Why is this an unfair comparison? In fact, some providers now pause your data and make you authorize the overage (e.g. Koodo's "shock-free data"), which makes them even more like explicitly buying an add-on for data. I'm really struggling to see why these concepts are fundamentally different, and why you think $30/1GB is outrageous but for some reason think $100/1GB is okay.

pm-smayer97 · ‎08-29-2019

@SherrieWeiler wrote:
This is exciting!!

No, not really!

SherrieWeiler · ‎08-28-2019

This is exciting!!

Icemaid · ‎08-28-2019

@will13am wrote:
@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
+1,000,000! If removing plan options for customers is the way to make the portal run faster, I would tolerate the slower speed for more plan options. I will generally agree to more plan options as this makes the service appealing to a larger customer base. This is a step in the backward direction.

What they said!!!!!!! The build your own plan was what brought me to public mobile, i hate the other companies where you can only choose the plans they want you to have, loved the flexability of choosing what parts were important to me it is what made Public unique and stood out over other companies.

Have to say i much prefered the old look, the new logo really needs work.

iliketotalk · ‎08-28-2019

@Biff hi if your phone is working just ignor it will usually clear up on its own

Biff · ‎08-28-2019

did i miss something on the 'exciting customer experience'? When i look at my account it says 'Plan suspended' 'Plan expired' and it all happened on the 27 September 2019!! yep in the future. Do i have a plan with PM or not?

deloreh · ‎08-27-2019

This sounds great, looking forward to all the improvements you are making.

GinYVR · ‎08-27-2019

@cristianIf you add the 1Gb add on it will not affect your plan at all and that 1Gb is at full LTE speed to you. The loss of the plan builder means you cannot upgrade to a full LTE plan with higher data allotment and if you leave the plan you currently have, you cannot return to it in the future.

cristian · ‎08-27-2019

I am on the '3GB at 4G LTE Speed /90 Days' plan. There was an option to add +1G of data (LTE) for $5/month ($15 for 90 days). Is this still an option for plans that are grandfathered, after the custom builder plan has been decomissioned? I alwasy run very close to my limit and was considering adding 1G / month, but I am afraid now this might be out of the question, though not 100% sure. Thanks Cristian

pm-smayer97 · ‎08-27-2019

@fp67 wrote:
Very happy to see a new ticketing resolution process and a faster loading system!

Has this even been implemented yet? I still have not seen any sign of it.

And speed has not changed either.

ivandub · ‎08-27-2019

The new look on the Public Mobile site is very nice but it's still as slow and unresponsive as ever. It can take ages just to check how much data you have remaining on your plan. So, maybe time for some improvements 'under the hood' to go with the cosmetic changes. 🙂

dabr · ‎08-27-2019

@KamWest wrote:
Where do I find this 4 digit PIN?

You would have got one via text after registering your account with PM. But usually, in my interractions with PM, you can supply all the other verification info and not give the PIN if you don't remember it. It is odd that you keep having to verify everything more than once though.

iliketotalk · ‎08-27-2019

@KamWest you would have created one when you opened your account

KamWest · ‎08-27-2019

Where do I find this 4 digit PIN?

fp67 · ‎08-27-2019

Very happy to see a new ticketing resolution process and a faster loading system!

kas · ‎08-27-2019

Very frustrating. I've never been in a position like this before.

pm-smayer97 · ‎08-27-2019

@kas wrote:
Instead of assisting me, the @CS_Agent just keeps asking me for

1. your full name
2. the name on the account
3. the 4-digit PIN
4. Address with the postal code
5. date of birth
6. alternate phone number
7. the last 4 digits of the credit card associated, if any.
8. email address.

I've already provided this to them. @Dave_M can we get some actual support staff? This is a joke at this point. I've been paying for 4 months of service and haven't received it but the company refuses to actually do anything. What on Earth is going on!?

Yup... I have run into the SAME situation multiple times...even multiple times AFTER I provided my info saying that they still could not validate me. SO FRUSTRATING!

teazle · ‎08-27-2019

I’m a relatively new customer (since July) with a $25/mo. account, and my experience to date has well exceeded my expectations. I had a few initial misgivings when I learned that PM had started as an independent that then got bought out by one of the big 3, but so far I am very pleased with the service. The transfer from my previous SIM and porting over of my old number at LD couldn’t have been simpler. The only startup issue I had was resolved quickly, and I now get very acceptable voice, text and data service on a large, stable network, at much lower cost than my previous service. And now, out of the blue, PM has given me a free, no strings attached, extra 1Gb of data. What’s not to like? I don’t think the brand changes will have any great effect on me but I applaud all efforts to improve service to customers. Regarding the colours and graphics changes I have to agree with some earlier posters. The colours don’t exactly pop, and look a bit bland and faded. The change from Public Mobile to just Public seems like a mistake, for a mobile service. Public alone doesn’t evoke any clear image of the product. And the way the graphics are done, giving extra emphasis to some letters in the name, at first glance you could be forgiven for thinking it reads Pubic, not Public. I can’t comment on the build your own plan changes as I haven’t used it and am not likely to. But kudos to PM, or just P if that is what it has to be in future, for trying to improve the quality of service, and keep it up! Adopting some of the suggestions made in some of the posts in this string may be a good next step.

kas · ‎08-27-2019

Instead of assisting me, the @CS_Agent just keeps asking me for

1. your full name

2. the name on the account

3. the 4-digit PIN

4. Address with the postal code

5. date of birth

6. alternate phone number

7. the last 4 digits of the credit card associated, if any.

8. email address.

I've already provided this to them. @Dave_M can we get some actual support staff? This is a joke at this point. I've been paying for 4 months of service and haven't received it but the company refuses to actually do anything. What on Earth is going on!?

Joelkim · ‎08-27-2019

Please don't remove rewards because I love you!

mimmo · ‎08-26-2019

@Marc_NL the 3g is still LTE, but throttled. Everyone who had a full lte plan still keeps it. If you want full speed LTE public's old prices iirc we're basically the same as Koodo.

since only a small percentage of new activations were at the full lte speeds using the plan builder then really the consumer made the decision...

kas · ‎08-26-2019

It's quite sad but I'm sure @Dave_M will focus on customer support at some point

Marc_NL · ‎08-26-2019

1. Everyone knows a car goes faster with a new coat of paint. If you switched to red it would be even faster, trust me.

2. You're "for the public" by restricting freedom of choice? Currently all the plans I see on offer have only 3G data. I'll just dust off my original Galaxy Note and be all set then. Oh, no, wait. That had LTE.

terrybev · ‎08-26-2019

@daredogg wrote:
Update to the logo is bland and unoriginal. Being a graphic artist, the colours just don't do it for me. Should of at least stuck to the orange we've all grown accustomed to. Can we also do a little lighter on the beige background? Harder to see the orange links like @stonechucker already mentioned.

Here I come out of the woodwork, and my first post is a complaint!

I totally agree. I like our old logo in orange, and I don't like the beige, just saying

Asima · ‎08-26-2019

Happy to hear that. Yes, the most needed thing is to improve the online problem-solving process, which is the biggest thing keeping away some people from moving toward Publem Mobile.

srlawren · ‎08-26-2019

@kas wrote:
Hi Dave,

Will there be more staff to assist the customers in the near future? That'd be a nice addition I think.

@kas unfortunately, outward appearances are that Public Mobile would rather spend their budget on virtual paint than on actual meaningful changes like the one you suggest.

>>> ALERT: I am not a moderator. For account or activation assistance, please click here.

jor123 · ‎08-26-2019

@KamWest wrote:
Most of the plans seem fairly stable and if not something else always comes along. The deals seem to be getting better so I'm not too worried.

Yes, hopefully these promotions continue.

kas · ‎08-25-2019

Hi Dave,

Will there be more staff to assist the customers in the near future? That'd be a nice addition I think. The community is great with a lot of people who can help but there's only so much they can do when the issue can only be resolved by the company. Thanks,

Kas

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Exciting changes to our brand and customer experience