Update on support

[Dave_M]

Hello Community,

I want to give you an update on where we are at right now, since the last time I did so was last week. 

First, I want to start off by thanking you all for the continued patience and support you have demonstrated over the last two weeks. We realize many of you have had no service or incomplete service for days now and I apologize for this. I can assure you that our entire team is working tirelessly to get through the backlog as fast as possible and as effectively as possible.

To manage your expectations, you should know that our current average time to first response is 12 days. That means that as I write this, we are answering customer messages that were submitted on Friday, Nov 19^th, 2016.

Our system pools all Community posts, private messages to the MODS, and social media messages into one feed, and we are working through each of these in chronological order – first in, first out. This way we address the issues that have been going on the longest. Again, we appreciate your patience.

The high level of interest in our promotional plan also brought to light some fractures in our systems and opportunities to improve our support. We will be doing an in-depth review of lessons learned once we’re done going through customer support requests, but in the meantime, I wanted to share some of the most obvious opportunities we have identified:

• A ticketing system for customer support inquiries that acknowledges receipt of your issue, provides a ticket number upon receipt, lets you know where you are in queue and when you can expect to hear back from a moderator
• A cleaner way to organize tickets by type of issue so we can better prioritize
• Activating and porting simultaneously failed for a greater percentage of customers than we had seen before so a group of colleagues from our technology team are investigating quick fixes for these

Unfortunately, these lessons learned won’t be fixed overnight and won’t be implemented quick enough to improve support for those in the queue right now. But, you do have our commitment that we will focus on improving this process.

Finally, to help us manage our volume of requests, we have a couple of asks for our customers who were with us before the Fall promotion:

• If you future dated your plan to change to the Fall promotion and you see in Self Serve that the plan change failed, please give us 72 hours from your plan renewal date before you contact us. We’ve identified an issue that is delaying this change, but the change will happen.
• If there is an inaccuracy in your rewards, we would ask you to please message us after December 5^th to get those fixed. We will make sure you get all the rewards you are entitled to, but we want to make sure we are prioritizing customers with no service in the short term.

Once again, I want to thank you for your patience and for sticking with us through what has been a busy and challenging time. We are grateful to have you all in our Community and look forward to building a bright future together.

Sincerely,

Dave

[Rockdaddy22]

@benz you'll have to send an email or private message. I doubt Dave's going to read all the comments

[Rockdaddy22]

I highly doubt Telus would lose a single customer because of this.

[2004-5ram1951]

What you sid is tru. Some people have been served rather quickly while others wait. I am here waiting and yes over 12 days I believe. The queue as they say is "First-in & First-out" is far from the truth because as you stated the boards tell the tale that is quite differet from what dave is trying to lead others to believe.

Telus as the parent company is going to lose some customers due to this no doubt.

[benz]

Hi Dave,

I got problem with Public Mobility. I already removed the automatic payment many days before the due date since I won't use service for 3 months (I am out of Canada for three months). but in this Dec.3, 2016 Public Mobile still to the money $120. this is very wrong, and hard believe it can happen. if this can happen how people control their account's auto pay enable/disable? and how can Public Mobile has its credit? another thing is long before Dec3. 2016 I made three messages try to communicate with PM to clarify or verify if anything could be going wrong, but I waite so long I didn't get any responds from PM. I felt very difficulty communicate PM and frustrate. I need my funds back. please help me what to do to. so far the only way I know is appeal to BBB but that is outside solution, I want to try solve it internally first.

[TheOldVR]

@Dave_M Thanks for the update, but I ask you to reconsider your post.

I understand what you're trying to do, and to be honest it's good to see PM offering more clarity around the amount of delay there is and a future plan.

BUT

When you write that you are handling inquiries "first in, first out", well you know that's just not true. Look at the board, if you are servicing requests from November 19th, then why do we have requests from later than that resolved by your team as posted on this message board.

The PM team has created something great here - with that said an easy learning is that it just looks wrong when you offer updates that contradict what your own message boards show. Stick to the truth mate and you will only grow the support you have. Start offering corporate messages that re-invent history... and well some of us will lose faith.

Good luck, I can't wait to see what evolution of PM will be.

[Rockdaddy22]

Should've could've would've

[2004-5ram1951]

They should have anticipated this and formulated a much better plan/response. Telus is NOT a ew kid on the block startup ad the level of service is on par with a fly by night scheme where $$ are taken first and service comes second. Take a moment and thing of the average cost being $50.....now nutliply that by the tens of thousands attracted by the rates and signed up for "recurring" charges. I do not think it is a mod problem at all in any way shape or form...it is a management thinking problem and lack of anticipation based on past performance of other highly attractive rate programs that Telus has done in the past. I do think anything presented by Telus, as the parent company, will be more suspect now!!

[2004-5ram1951]

While I agree that not all contigencies can be anticipated in a new roll out I really question the adgeqaucy of managemnet thinking when deciding to do this. Past experience from nearly every model of every type of new service shows the usual inadequacy of thinking in the "management" team.

Als, to say that the team is working as hard as it can....the "Team" should have been expanded to accomplish this by having people availabl to supplement the normal team of Mods. This should have included weekend service to enable catch up of the backlog. Telus is going to lose a lot of customers and potential customers by their unwillingness to increase the service budget to meet this "Surprise?" demand for product. Understandable in a new startup company...but NOT in an established public media company that has previously rolld out new services!!

Telus/PM has caused untold hardship for many. I will keep my other phone active and simply use the data and USA calling until the day before the renewal ad if not satisfied with the porting issue I have for # tsfr I will cancel.....but add my voice and energy to letting others know how poor we were treted, the lack of respect and susport from Telus.

It reeks of "Take the money & Run" tactics of a scam artist not something we all would have expected from Telus. People are being thanked for their "Support??" Who is supporting this? Have you just ignored the many protests, the obvious anger and disgust, the many personal problems this has caused? Is Telus so big that they breed an air of contempt in all employees that seems to ermeate the very posts I read?

I am not the only one who has an intense sour taste in my mouth from all of this....I join the many thousands who are truly disgusted and maybe a joint action letter to the CCTS would have a way of causing an improvement....one can only send and see.

[shrimpdude]

Thanks for continuing to listen to the community!

[nili2016]

Thanks for letting me know! That's the least they could do. 

I'm considering getting a plan with another provider as we can't wait anymore. The issue is that we would "lose" the phone number we had...

[kav2001c]

@nili2016 you aren't actually paying during the outtage. Your bill date doesn't start until your service starts

Still a pia waiting though 

[nili2016]

I agree with you. We should not pay for service that we have not received. We have been waiting for a week already. I am so upset that we will have to wait for at least one more week! Had I known...!!

[emilyge0rgia]

Yeah my problem last time I even commented on how quickly the issue was solved.. at least PM didn't kill my voicemail but fongo is apparently crappy quality (according to my dad on the receiving end) and it ties me to my house all day bc free Wi-Fi is few and far between in my city. Very disappointing to see long time customers being ignored for porting issues aka new people 😞

[Rockdaddy22]

Things used to be solved in minutes to hours before this stupid promo. Of course the odd time, it could take days for more serious technical issues. @bluerage

[Mana]

I think a complete in depth analysis would have to be done at the very end when all issues are resolved and then implement a permanent, effective and efficient solution.

I think one thing for sure is to hire more staff and separate duties such as troubleshooting, accounts and billing, activations, etc. So that an "everything" mod is not swamped with issues request and issue handling can be orginazed and distributed between the appropriate department.

This will also create a good workload balance.

[bluerage]

I absolutely agree with @madhatter . Hopefully some good will come out of this and pm figures out how to become more efficient with these types of volume . I'm not sure what these boards were like before the promo but I'm afraid that many of the new clients don't have realistic expectations of how pm works. It is realistic to expect to have proper service but it isn't realistic to have your concerns addressed on the spot.

[Rockdaddy22]

You won't see the results from lessons learned that quickly. The lessons are still ongoing, as you can see. I was honestly hoping to see that update Monday morning, but it was late imo

[madhatter]

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@makkahn28 wrote:

I Must commend @Dave_M for the brave thing, for him to be the poster man that is very brave, I am happy PM is finally admitting the faults and cracks PM has experienced, and that they're going to be putting extra emphasis on quality of CS and to finally locking phasers on the glitches that have seemed to eluded capture.

I hope PM is 110% successful, we can surely use a miracle.

---

I would not call this post brave. I think like most people I was thrilled to finally see some sort of time frame estimate for response (however, unacceptably long  )

I would call the post brave if there was some responsibility taken by the customer service for lack of responsiveness. I worry that the next update with wait time estimates would be a week from now, meaning no lessons learned in that regard.

[Mana]

Thank you @Dave_M. Appreciate you being open and honest.

[Rockdaddy22]

@eugenehunlee maybe I'd send a ne PM or try an email or facebook and twitter support

[makkahn28]

I Must commend @Dave_M for the brave thing, for him to be the poster man that is very brave, I am happy PM is finally admitting the faults and cracks PM has experienced, and that they're going to be putting extra emphasis on quality of CS and to finally locking phasers on the glitches that have seemed to eluded capture.

I hope PM is 110% successful, we can surely use a miracle.

[eugenehunlee]

thanks for the update but i still have not received a response from over 2 weeks ago (november 20). still waiting....

ANYONE???

[novagirl]

Thank you for the info.

 I will submit a complaint.

[fiveplustwo77]

---

@MK78 wrote:

Folks, this is a telecommunications service. The people with issues should complain to the CCTS and the CRTC.

Maybe this would light a fire under the parent company Telus' butt.

While I appreciate PM's desire to offer a no-frills, excellent speed & coverage service for a discount brand, there must be adequate support. This is not even remotely close to adequate support.

---

Lighting a fire is a good idea, however reporting to CCTS and CRTC would take too long. Posting on social media did not help either, perhaps mainstream media would provide more attention to Telus and the general public and "Public".

[novagirl]

Hello Dave,

I sign up to Public Mobile on November 14th. I have the same problem as many of your customers.

I cannot receive calls it says that my phone is not in service, but I can call out.

My text messages are not working as well.

I need someone to contact me to fix this issue. I cannot even email you on your contact site.

[Kraekin]

@Rockdaddy22 Oh no worries, I understand why you asked. I do remember having to get help in May and yes the help was super quick and very awesome, however that was just a simple issue. I just expected that if I had ZERO service I would at least get assistance within the 48 hours quoted on their support page when emailing them. The way I see it, they arent caring about their old customers at this point and mostly dealing with people who have had issues activating and porting. so NEW customers. I just feel like ive been thrown under the bus so that they can help new people to prevent them from leaving before they start.

[DLegaspi]

Thanks for the update.

However, to be quite honest, I am disappointed that it is taking this long (I joined PM on November 19, 2016 and cannot receive calls or send/receive text messages) for my number to port from my Rogers account.  I have sent private messages to Mods and other pleas for assistance, but so far I have not received one response; none even to say they have received my request. 

The Rogers account and SIM card still work, so I just keep the Rogers SIM card in my phone until I see that it no longer works (assuming then, that the port to PM is 100% successful); while carrying the PM SIM card with me to replace when that time occurs.  It's a hassle to say the least.

During this time, since joining PM, I could have missed an important call for a job offer - thankfully, my Rogers SIM card was in my phone at the time of the call, so I did not miss my opportunity.  It would have been a shame had I missed out on that important call/opportunity due to PM's technical issues.

I trust and hope that PM will resolve its current issues in the near future. 

Thank you.

[sbreakin]

Thank you for the update Dave.

Weirdly enough the delay in working through the issues/PM/emails may actually work out as good timing for me.  I had read forums & guides before activating & since i was coming from Koodo set up different email & temp number. After a few days I tried the port, got 3 error pops ups then bingo 4th time lucky .. or so i thought. Turns out, in retrospect I think google auto fill entered my home alternate number & I didn't catch it. I PM'd to try to stop it back Nov 23 but as it Dave mentioned they are behind so went through. The delay weirdly enough has given enough time to (reverse) port my 30 year old landline number back (set for Monday) at which time looks like they will be getting to my PM.  I had considered just leaving my PM # as old landline but has meant being wife's secretary & answering surveys whereas only close friends have my cell #.

While the initial lack of information on how long delays were did have me a bit concerned about my decision, I am really looking forward to years of great service & appreciate the recent openness and approach.  

Even aspects like arranging for people to buy sims in 3 major cities & donating the proceeds, spoke to the effort & service one could expect over the long run.

Incidentally my wife's port over from Rogers went super smoothly. And i don't have any regret of leaving after >15 years. Yea been a bit inconvenient over the last 8 or so days but my service has worked - so in a way my port actually went through ok (just not with the number i intended).

[Rockdaddy22]

They have been reimbursing for lost days. Just politely remind them when your account gets fixed. Either a credit for lost time or move the start date to the day it fixed. @modi787