@Korth Im assuming by posting you will be directing the the interviewee to your post/thread for the feedback he/she seeks prior to their interview with public mobile. Already they are showing intiative by coming to experienced member(s) of the community....the backbone of public mobile.
I thought I would focus my comments on the customer experience that most often sets the tone of their time with public mobile. Acquiring a SIM card and and activating their service/account.
Public mobiles low cost online only service model with the community at its core is almost unadvertised and it's marketing approach is mostly by word of mouth. How potential new customers find out about public mobile can be completely by chance (like me), by referral thru a friend or family member (like many), online research of cheaper mobile providers (articles, blogs, website forums such as RFD, Reddit or websites such as nerdwallet) or the glimpse of the occasional marketing campaign by pm that may also utilize social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
Most will get directed to the pm website to peruse the plans and decide if the the prices and the plans are right for them and if they can manage to live with an online only service model. The no call centre/customer service scares away many potential customers even the most tech savvy skilled computer user generation among us. But for those of us who decide to take the plunge the biggest complaint heard on the community before, during or after activation is confusion on how public mobile works.
Educating customers and public mobiles retail partners, authorized dealers and their sales staff about public mobile, their plans, rewards, current promotions and most importantly the community is key to creating a positive experience from the very beginning. This is a two pronged approach. Public mobile needs to equip its retail business side with better training, manuals and knowledge. For those customers that turn to the retail environment for their activation should be able to depend on that dealer/retailer for their information needs. Even if it's just poring over the website on the stores computer to answer their questions. There should be no excuse for the sales staff to be selling expired promotions, not entering referral or promo codes, not selling SIM cards without in store activation or charging fees for activations.
This is a failure on public mobiles part....to insist upon better sales staff training when continuing and procuring new business relationships. Unlike when selling other mobile providers plans there is no easy (pick up the phone) option to correct salesperson mistakes and as a prepaid mobile provider generally there are no refunds so no recourse for the customer when sales staff make a mistake or sometimes a colossal and costly mistake. Public Mobile must make education and training on the retail side a priority so customers coming from this side of activations don't start with their new mobile service provider feeling ripped off, scammed, in need of immediate help or just plain lost and confused.
In preventing the negative experience and overall first impression of public mobile by newly activated in store customers and online activated customers the card holder the comes with a public mobile SIM card needs to be redesigned. While it's design is meant to be simple and has public mobile .ca/plans on it. It makes no mention of the community, the online service model only go visit the website. This needs to be the beginning of the education process because this is where it starts. Explain the basics of the community and how to navigate the website. Make it very clear to customers to join the community. This is not like any other mobile providers community's which are often completely useless, full of techno jibber jabber or just plain dry, boring, utilitarian environments best left alone while you pick up a phone to eventually connect to a human for help.
The community next to low prices is public mobiles best feature. It puts the human touch and experience onto the service. This is the one place that can change a new or otherwise customers bad experience into a good one. (Goodwill gestures and credits go a long way too!) The really smart customers find the community first. @Ed404 is a good example of this.....he came along a month before finally activating. Asking questions, gaining knowledge, assessing and waiting out promotions until he finally snagged the best of the entire year the black Friday promotion and he managed to earn a community reward along the way. By promoting the community as the heart of public mobile the more new customers know about it, experience it and join it the better their overall experience from the very beginning it will be. Armed with knowledge gained from it the less likely promotions will be missed, customers will catch mistakes before they happen and they will definitely know public mobile never charges activation fees.
As I often do when I happen to be in a retail location is I educate the sales staff or correct their mistakes. They should be trained better.... but if the community can train the customer before they activate then it's a win win for everyone and the customer feels comfortable reaching out to community for help in the future knowing it's role in managing their account and service. It should almost be mandatory to join the community before activating with public mobile.
