I very much approve of the improvements I see in Self-Serve.
Details for plans and add-ons are now nicely summarized in an easily-readable, easily-understandable format. I like how all the data items are grouped together and all the calling items are grouped together, much easier to add things up at a glance than it was before. I do feel that PM has missed an opportunity to put a nice little "free gift" icon beside the free gifts - it never hurts to remind people how great you are - but this isn't a real issue.
The new download (pdf) option for usage history and payment history is perfect. A once-absent necessity that I've been critical about for years. Applause.
All the "hidden" tools - stuff like changing your phone number, changing your plan, reporting lost/stolen, etc - are now all nicely grouped together on one page. Much better than the old method of trying to find what you need by digging through multiple screens - or directing others towards the options they need with multiple instructions and screenshots.
The unique SIM card # is now displayed, alongside the unique account #, etc. Though I still don't see the PUK # as well, and I still haven't been given any believable reason why it needs to be withheld from the subscriber - so I'm still going to rant about it whenever I see yet another tiresomely-common "how can I get my PUK?" thread on these forums, lol.
The new 2FA login looks promising. Though it's also quite annoying - so I already predict many customers will end up turning it off - and I predict that, eventually, some of these will complain when they forget their login username/password/email/account#/etc - plus they're also unable to verify their identity to PM's CSAs without active 2FA ... so I think this is a worthy attempt, and it's certainly better than the nothing we had before ... but I think it might also be a can of worms.
I notice that a friend's iPhone displays her email address and a few lines from each of a few recent text msgs onscreen before it even prompts the user for a screen-unlock code. Default settings, I believe, since she's an awesome but also a rather, um, "tech-impaired" person. And, unfortunately, these are exactly the two pieces of information required to login to her Self-Serve with 2FA, yes? If so, then things just got easier than before for phone thieves.
No further comment until enough time has passed that we can see whether PM has implemented their security in a way which works effectively at blocking frauds or which frustrates too many legit (but forgetful) users from recovering their lost accounts. Of course they're not going to openly describe the technical and procedural details for their security implementations here, lol that would just reveal sensitive information to attackers. But I remind Public Mobile that many customers never login to Self-Serve - until the first time their AutoPay fails - and half the time they no longer have access to whatever phone or computer (and passwords/etc stored on it) they used years ago on the day they first activated and set everything up.
One suggestion for an improvement:
Provide an option to enable/disable billing-related "Public Mobile here..." notifications. I know that many customers find them annoying and block them - and these are invariably the customers who get frustrated when AutoPay fails or billing dates (on their credit cards) shift to different days of the month, etc. There's little PM can do to get people to un-block things on their phones, but there's something PM can do to prevent these sorts of problems from being created and repeated (endlessly) by new customers while moving forward.
