Losing lots of referrals

[WoozyPolarBear]

Ever since Public Mobile took away nation-wide calling and added $5 per month for that "privilege", while making the base plans with only Provincial calling, I've lost a lot of referrals. I used to have 22 referrals as of mid January, and the majority of them had been with public mobile for at least a year. As of the rate plan increase/change, I have lost 10 referrals, and am now down to 12. It's quite eye opening how quickly people will bail out on a service when the price no longer is good. Has anyone else lost this many referrals lately? It seems like Public Mobile is no longer to go to discount carrier anymore.

[Korth]

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@Anonymous wrote:

 @LurganIeUk : I think you'll need to become a shareholder or higher level employee to get all that. 🙂

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You can learn a lot from where Telus spends its profits ...

https://www.rttnews.com/SymbolSearch.aspx?Symbol=TU

https://www.rttnews.com/SymbolSearch.aspx?Symbol=T.TO

[stevenanto]

@darlicious That is absolutely nuts, I cant believe he did that. so smart. 

[LurganIeUk]

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@Anonymous wrote:

 @LurganIeUk : I think you'll need to become a shareholder or higher level employee to get all that. 🙂

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Well well that was a no brainer...thanks for the lead. I found the Telus Annual report for 2019 (was the latest posted). 

• TELUS, Koodo and Public Mobile were named in 8.3%, 3.9% and 1.0% of the total customer complaints accepted by the CCTS, respectively, or 13.2% of total customer complaints, in aggregate. Additionally, TELUS had the highest rate of complaint resolution of any national carrier at 91.5%.

And no, I am not going to check the others 🙂

[darlicious]

@Korth 

Referral rewards are peanuts compared to the cost of independent commissions or salaried sales staff ( often with commissions or sales incentives on top of salary $15 min.wage =$33,600 p/yr+).

Seeing as less than 10% of customers ever create a community account and if we we speculate that maybe 10% of those have one referral averaged out and counting half of all community accounts created thats 9000 members earning $1×12 thats $108,000 per year that's a pretty cheap sales force seeing as 4 salespeople earning minimum wage = $134,000+. Along with the $0.0027 per community member paid out monthly in community rewards having a yearly total of $114,000 for the majority of your sales and customer support staff I don't think pm is having any trouble paying the lecky bill at head office.

[Anonymous]

 @LurganIeUk : I think you'll need to become a shareholder or higher level employee to get all that. 🙂

[LurganIeUk]

The questions I have are:

Taking the total customers that PM has and the total referrals the PM pays; what is the % of referrals vs customers. 

Secondly a bit off topic.

Taking the total customers that PM has and the total issues that a MOD has to rectify; what is the % of MOD rectified issues  vs customers. And also what is the ratio for same for Telus prepaid or another similar prepaid carrier.  

And throw in some comparative advertising costs, annually, per prepaid carrier. 

[computergeek541]

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@Korth wrote:

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@computergeek541 wrote:

Not only does it not make any difference to Public Mobile if the referrer knows the other person ...

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It does make a difference. $10 up front, $1 per month.

Public Mobile would prefer to keep this money for themselves. It's not much but I'm sure it multiplies out to a lot with a million customers.

Still, it's probably less than they'd have to pay for similar results with other forms of recruiting or advertising. And the rest of the money they make from a new subscriber is better than no money from no subscriber.

There have to be limits in reality, though. Because it sort of works out like a pyramid scheme, it can't support too many Rewards at the top without a huge foundation of people paying at the bottom.

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That $1 per 30 days (and the $10 to other person) is a marketing cost. That's almost nothing to get a new customer. For all we know, that $1 (pus the one-time $10) has already been calculated into the decision of how the plans are priced.  Also, someome having referred many people  doesn't cost Public Mobile more compared to if those same customers were instead referred by a bunch of different people. It would be the same $1 either way.  I also would think that Public Mobille has calculated that while some customers would have signed up anyway without needing to be referred, not all of them would have unless receiving the $10 credit. Existing customers talking to other people is a form of advertising. 

[Korth]

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@computergeek541 wrote:

Not only does it not make any difference to Public Mobile if the referrer knows the other person ...

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It does make a difference. $10 up front, $1 per month.

Public Mobile would prefer to keep this money for themselves. It's not much but I'm sure it multiplies out to a lot with a million customers.

Still, it's probably less than they'd have to pay for similar results with other forms of recruiting or advertising. And the rest of the money they make from a new subscriber is better than no money from no subscriber.

There have to be limits in reality, though. Because it sort of works out like a pyramid scheme, it can't support too many Rewards at the top without a huge foundation of people paying at the bottom.

[computergeek541]

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@softech wrote:

I don't think PM wants to discuss it clearly themselves, too.  They want to reserve the right to cancel the referrals if they want to..

On one hand, they want us to bring as many business as we can.  Honest, they don't care you know them or not.

On the other hand, they worry that create too many "questionable" accounts so they just need that flexibility to cancel those referrals.

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Not only does it not make any difference to Public Mobile if the referrer knows the other person, but there would be no way to enforce that. Who is Public Mobile to say who I consider to be a friend or not? I know that someone could say something like "how can you not know the name or phone number or phone number of the person you referred if you're a friend?" but no one would question it if someone refers, for example, co-workers. Co-workers do not always know each other's last names and often do not have the ohter person's phone number. 

[darlicious]

@stevenanto 

This was one of my favourite posts of all time and hopefully @WoozyPolarBear won't mind me reposting it. I guess all good things don't last forever but it was a good run for quite a while.

Re: Tips for referrals

I work at a large company, so I printed off a bunch of business cards  with my referral information and plan prices and attached them to public mobile SIM cards that I purchased in bulk from an ebay seller. I paid about $100 for 100 sim cards ($1/SIM), and just left them on the counter in the cafateria/lunchroom at work. I signed up in January myself, and currently my account has a credit balance of over $1100, and I have over 70 referrals. The only out of my own pocket money I've spent was for my first month on the $40 plan and the SIM cards I purchased on ebay. Since then, the referrals have more than covered my plan cost. In fact, I am gaining about $30 a month even AFTER my plan cost is deducted.

@WoozyPolarBear 

You don't by chance live in Winnipeg?

[darlicious]

I work at a large company, so I printed off a bunch of business cards  with my referral information and plan prices and attached them to public mobile SIM cards that I purchased in bulk from an ebay seller. I paid about $100 for 100 sim cards ($1/SIM), and just left them on the counter in the cafateria/lunchroom at work. I signed up in January myself, and currently my account has a credit balance of over $1100, and I have over 70 referrals. The only out of my own pocket money I've spent was for my first month on the $40 plan and the SIM cards I purchased on ebay. Since then, the referrals have more than covered my plan cost. In fact, I am gaining about $30 a month even AFTER my plan cost is deducted.

@WoozyPolarBear 

You don't by chance live in Winnipeg?

[Korth]

@softech 

The Old Ways ...

Referrer and Referral had to know each other's phone numbers to fill in the fields when signing up. You could login Self-Serve and see their phone numbers every month.

The Way It Is ...

Referrer and Referral only share masked phone numbers and a pseudonymous code. To protect privacy both ways. So customers can spam strangers all over the internet without any worries, it's free real estate.

Public Mobile specifically changed things to allow this disallowed behaviour, eh?

[softech]

I don't think PM wants to discuss it clearly themselves, too.  They want to reserve the right to cancel the referrals if they want to..

On one hand, they want us to bring as many business as we can.  Honest, they don't care you know them or not.

On the other hand, they worry that create too many "questionable" accounts so they just need that flexibility to cancel those referrals.

[Korth]

@stevenanto 

Public Mobile discourages advertising referral codes online.

It's specifically disallowed in the Terms of Service for this Public Mobile Community site.

But Public Mobile has no authority to invent or enforce rules on other websites they don't own or operate.

Google gave me a bunch of sites listing hundreds of referral codes on the first try. They may or may not all be valid codes, but they are easy to find if you look for them from the perspective of a new signup happy to use every coupon or code available which can discount the price of something you're already going to buy. You get to save ten bucks, why should you care if an anonymous stranger is earning/stealing $1 from the referral?

(This also speaks about the character of these referrals. Their "loyalty" is mercenary. Always looking for a better deal. No wonder they're unreliable deserters.)

Public Mobile doesn't discuss the details very clearly or very often. I think they like the ambiguity, it lets them tolerate exploits or revoke abuses of the Referral Rewards at their own discretion.

[stevenanto]

@Korth Where do you post your code for strangers to use? I know you cant post them on a few forums

[Korth]

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@stevenanto wrote:

how did you get 22 referrals?! thats amazing.

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@WoozyPolarBear  wrote:

4-5 of the referrals are people I know, the rest are indeed strangers.

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So 17-18 of these referrals are strangers from the internet. No connection at all beyond any promo codes or referral codes they could find online to save ten bucks at signup.

[stevenanto]

how did you get 22 referrals?! thats amazing. 

It sucks that you lost almost half, maybe some people switched over to rogers with their crazy offer. 45$ for 25gb of data

[darlicious]

@gpixel 

Oh right.....

[gpixel]

not making that mistake again...

[darlicious]

@gpixel 

Maybe messaging the moderators just before renewal with a message from your friend might be enough for them too reimburse you for your missing rewards.

[Bear2]

Seems a lot of people are missing. I only ever had 1 referral and never received anything 

[gpixel]

I remember receiving the credit when they first joined right before my renewal since they activated at noon, but since then I've always been missing $1. 

[LurganIeUk]

I am now unhappy 😞

I just checked the account. 7 phone numbers and $6. 

Is this a new referral glitch??? Does this happen when a referral is in "expired" mode?

If the latter is correct or something like it...I will never get my full rewards every 30 days. 

[gpixel]

@darlicious I think your theory is correct. when rewards are applied their account is in limbo because of the renewal and I don't receive the credit. 

[darlicious]

@gpixel 

Perhaps you can test my theory with your referral? I will test on my next renewal once I explain to the old guy why he owes me for a voucher!

[darlicious]

@LurganIeUk 

My grumpy neighbour and my account with his referral renew on the same day ( not at first but when i had a renewal that took 24 hours to complete my renewal day moved one day forward). I think I have narrowed down that when he doesn't have a balance to cover his renewal and it resorts to autopay are the renewals that I lose the reward despite it showing active directly before and after my renewal.

[LurganIeUk]

Awhile back I had posted about an account I oversee. Then read here and did another check. 

So a few weeks ago the account showed 7 referral numbers but only $6. It was suggested that one was suspended for lost/stolen. But in the past I had that happen and both disappeared...the number and $1. The latter reappeared then the suspend was removed. 

So this is the second occasion with the 7 referral scenario of $6. So I was thinking that it might do a reset at the new cycle or I was really waiting for a suspend to be removed? So just checked and the account has 7 referral numbers and $7. 'Whew....who what where when....I don't know...but am happy!!

[gpixel]

@LurganIeUk 

it's happened to me 3 renewals in a row now. it's shows the correct amount until both of our accounts renew

[LurganIeUk]

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@gpixel wrote:

I found a glitch that if you have a referral on the same day as your renewal. you don't receive the $1 credit because their account is renewing

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Now....how often will that ever happen??

[computergeek541]

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@gpixel wrote:

I found a glitch that if you have a referral on the same day as your renewal. you don't receive the $1 credit because their account is renewing

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I don't really consider this to be a glitch. If the credits from rewards have already been added to your account, this would likely mean that the referral was activated too late for the referral to receive the $1 reward for that billing cycle.

[gpixel]

I found a glitch that if you have a referral on the same day as your renewal. you don't receive the $1 credit because their account is renewing