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SMS Notification for Autopay Error

Catherine_T
Retraité / Retired
Retraité / Retired

Hey Community,

 

Starting August 18th, 2020, we will be sending out SMS notifications for Autopay failures to keep customers informed while we work on fixing any preventable issues that may be causing these failures. We saw a lot of demand for this feature, and are excited for this new addition. We will still be sending out the existing account suspension SMS - more details listed below. 

 

What to expect: 

 

For customers who have Autopay set up, if for some reason, an Autopay transaction doesn’t go through, Public Mobile will now send an additional SMS on top of the existing account suspension SMS to the phone number on that account:

 

  1. New: SMS notifying the account owner of the Autopay error. This SMS will provide the reason for the failure, and instructions for making a one-time payment and resuming Autopay on the next renewal cycle.

 

  • Example: “Public Mobile msg: We tried to process your Autopay renewal but something went wrong due to a temporary system error. Please make a one-time payment at *611 or https://selfserve.publicmobile.ca. Autopay will resume on your next renewal.”

 

  1. Existing: SMS notifying account suspension. (Note that a customer who made a one-time payment after receiving the first SMS will still receive this message. They can just ignore this message.) 

 

  • Example: “Public Mobile here. Your plan did not renew because we did not receive your payment. Make a payment at publicmobile.ca/selfserve. If you have recently made a manual payment, please ignore this message."

 

At Public Mobile, we value your feedback greatly. Let us know what you think about this new feature in the thread below 🙂 

 

- The Public Mobile Team

51 REPLIES 51

hstraf
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

If Public Mobile implements these new failure messages, then please give us the ability to  disable the existing two payment related SMS messages:

- Your payment is due, if you are on auto-pay then ignore this....
- Thanks for your payment...

I hate those two SMS messages, because they arrive at 1am and wake me up.  Super annoying.  There is no option to stop them. 

If the new failure messages become live, then those two messages are not really necessary any more and I would like to stop them.  (Or at least prefer to have them sent via email instead of SMS.)

I just want to be notified when there is a problem.. not anytime else.

Thanks.


@gblackma 

Oh I got it.

Well as I understand these messages are not confirmation but to get your attention, if you are reactivating you attention is probably already there.

Cheers

Anonymous
Not applicable

 @kselmak 

I'm fine with the new final confirmation of the port request.

I personally consider the message that your card will expire in a week the solution to the expired card issue. More than enough, if you fail to react, you probably intended to suspend your account. You should never block 611

@kselmak I was suggesting that they send that message after you have successfully reset your service. Stay safe. 

@gblackma 

There is already message like that:

 

Public Mobile here. Thank you for your payment. Your plan has been successfully renewed! Let's keep the conversation going.

kselmak
Mayor / Maire

That's great news

We needed this, some occasional users would go days before realising, only when they urgently need the phone or even worse when they figure out something is wrong with their banking.

Next thing  port block. 

Should be always on, only lifted by request to mods


@computergeek541 wrote:

I would say that with these notice of suspension and autopay failure, I'd rather see the notification of plan renewed and rewards applied messages to be discontinued.  I never saw a purpose to them, and some find them a minor annoyance.  If Public Mobile wishes to thank customers after each renewal, I would encourage that be done within automatically e-mailed receipts.


I disagree. I like to see it took and my renewal is in place.  Like many other alerts for banking and credit cards.....you look at them.....you are reassured all is working.....our you need to take action.....they are usually all deleted.......takes a second or two. 

I would say that with these notice of suspension and autopay failure, I'd rather see the notification of plan renewed and rewards applied messages to be discontinued.  I never saw a purpose to them, and some find them a minor annoyance.  If Public Mobile wishes to thank customers after each renewal, I would encourage that be done within automatically e-mailed receipts.


@gpixel wrote:

instead of wasting time and resources into fixing auto-pay. how about when someone registers for auto-pay, a pop up warning will appear

 

"for reasons unknown to our technical support team, please be advised customers are seeing intermittent failures in auto-pay. if having an active service at all times is crucial, please make a manual payment to have the (available funds) in the self serve account for the system to withdraw. when proceeding in this direction, you will still be eligible for the $2 auto-pay reward regardless of manually topping up"

 

-thank you for your patience, while the support team looks into this issue.

 

then you can focus on implementing VOLTE and improving the overall voice/text services(reception)

 

🤞 

 

 


If I am reading the message correctly if you are already on auto pay and then it fails, you will receive a text. 

 

When I worked that was what we used to call  a band aid fix.  We were encouraged to FIX  the problem VS using a band aid.  

 

And and there  is no doubt in my mind that the PM website is a copy of the Telus prepaid website and then customized with adds and takes to make it the PM website we see today. And I admit, I believe over a 13 year period I had to deal with Telus a few times because their auto pay did fail. They fixed right away on a phone call AND they explained to me why/how it happens. The latter makes me wonder why it is still not fixed. BTW the Telus “switch” on the prepaid side, to use auto pay or take payments from your balance does NOT work. But PM has resolved that by a no choice option of taking your payment from balance first and then from auto-pay.  I over see my mother in laws Telus  prepaid account. 

 

But know now that I have written this, the text is a fantastic improvement as no doubt some of us (including me) would not have the slightest idea that we had no service. 

 

Thus us I am on the hybrid auto pay program. 😀

gpixel
Mayor / Maire

instead of wasting time and resources into fixing auto-pay. how about when someone registers for auto-pay, a pop up warning will appear

 

"for reasons unknown to our technical support team, please be advised customers are seeing intermittent failures in auto-pay. if having an active service at all times is crucial, please make a manual payment to have the (available funds) in the self serve account for the system to withdraw. when proceeding in this direction, you will still be eligible for the $2 auto-pay reward regardless of manually topping up"

 

-thank you for your patience, while the support team looks into this issue.

 

then you can focus on implementing VOLTE and improving the overall voice/text services(reception) 👍

popping
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

Instead of sending text message to subscriber first, moderator_team should get the failed renewal message and keep that account working until after moderator has a chance to find out what when wrong. 

 

If the renewal problem is due to PM server, moderator manually takes fund from autopay cc to pay for renewal and fix the account renewal issue without subscriber knows about it.

 

If renewal problem is due to credit/debit card issue, send out text message and suspend that account.

dabr
Mayor / Maire

@Catherine_T   While the new SMS message to customers might be helpful in notifying them of an issue with the payment not going through, I also think the service shouldn't get suspended and having a day or two of grace period to allow both the customer and PM to fix it, especially given that most of the time, it seems, that it was PM's payment system at fault.

 

Also is there a reason why the wording for the message customers currently see when renewal is happening can't be changed from the current ones of expire/suspended etc, unnecessarily alarming some customers.  Why not just a simple message stating that the account is going through renewal?

Anonymous
Not applicable

 @geopublic 

 

Edit:

Who said anything about expired cards?

The rest...absolutely.

 

Funny. I interpreted that line as simply saying that there is no way to fix that problem. Not that it should be fixed. That's why I overlooked it. 🙂

"mindyou there is no fix for expired cards."

 

Noone was expecting a fix for expired cards. Expired cards is not even an issue as it is the responsibility of the customer to update their card when a new card is issued.

 

Trying to update the card with a new card and having the system lock out the customer is also another issue that needs to be fixed.

will13am
Oracle
Oracle

There is no substitute for fixing the root of the problem with the renewal system.  Those who experience autopay failure due to no fault of their own should be afforded a continuation of service for 48 hours (i.e., moderator interaction time) to allow for an intervention to restore the affected account to active status.  This is an equitable solution.

Staliger
Mayor / Maire

@Catherine_T Thank you very much. This is a very useful and essential feature for the service. This should decrease the number of questions about failed Autopay or Expired plans while on Autopay.

Anonymous
Not applicable

 @Catherine_T 

Y'know...taking money is the primary reason of existence for a company. When customers are willing to give you their money...the company should never fail at doing so (other than customer error/oversight).

So instead of being certain that a payment card charge is bulletproof (other than customer error/oversight), you'll send a text saying that for some unknown bullet-riddled reason, we didn't take your money. Please try again to give us your money. Because apparently we're not very good at it. Embarrassing.

Fix. The. Problem.

Then you won't have to send out these embarrassing texts saying that your money-taking system failed.

 

Now...customer errors/oversights on the other hand...that would be much more helpful. As much detail as possible. And for heavens sake, get rid of the apt# field.

 

There. There's what I think of this new feature.

mimmo
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

@RobertQc   both those ideas were suggested by oracles when we were given the heads up  of the change.  but i would also suggest that actually fixing the autopay failing issue would be a better resolution.  mindyou there is no fix for expired cards.

RobertQc
Mayor / Maire

A step in the right direction. Now we need to have a 3 day grace period or the option to have autopay do its magic 3 days before its due. Give people more time to fix the issue before losing their service.

gblackma
Mayor / Maire

Great idea. @Catherine_T  couldn't you make the last message be the normal payment thankyou message.  Stay safe,.

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