Suggestion thread: ideas, changes, features

[Korth]

PM closed the Public Lab in Feb 2018 for reasons explained in this thread.  In summary: PM always welcomes new ideas and suggestions but decided (after much discussion) that the Public Lab wasn't really the best way to interact with and respond to the community.  They've done a commendable job of actively prompting feedback and keeping us updated with Announcements since then.

But new ideas and suggestions are now randomly scattered everywhere.  I thought it would be a good idea to try putting new ideas in one place. 

This isn't meant to be a thread for solving problems.

• If you have a question then the fastest way to get it answered is to start your own new thread about it ... don't be shy, if you ask the community will respond.  (And it's probably already been asked and answered many times before, so the forum Search bar might find you some answers even faster.)
• If you have a problem/complication with your phone service or billing which needs "tech support" or "customer support" then the fastest way to get it fixed is to message the mods directly ... and be patient, they will respond to their queue as quickly as possible ... more details in How to Contact our Community Moderators.
• If you want to report issues or bugs with the forum software then go to Community Technical Issues.

(Mods and Oracles are welcome to edit, move, or remove this post if needed.)

[Luddite]

Great effort. 👍👍

For the time being I suspect PM is open for ideas only when requested. For example: the recent online focus groups, June 8's meeting in Toronto, the periodic PM team/Oracle meetings. In some ways this is better than the Idea Lab because PM is genuinely interested in persuing ideas generated then.

[Acekiller]

instead of having a publc lab section, they should just have a comment box section. That way, people can still make suggestion, but PM won't create an expectation that it will be fixed.

[ShawnC13]

If PM has removed the Public Lab why have a thread for ideas it is the same thing.  They have given their reasons for the removal of the Public Lab.  I personally don't see the point as it will be re-creating a Public Lab section but worse because noone from PM will even be looking into the postings of the thread.

[Korth]

I never promised this thread would only contain good ideas. 

Even my own suggestions are being challenged and debated ... and I encourage that.  I did propose some good points, and so did my detractors.  I fully expect (hope) this thread will eventually be populated by all sorts of ideas - some bad or awful, some simply unrealistic, some repeats of what we've all seen before - but also some new ideas worth considering or some old ideas worth reconsidering, especially those which appear to generate much interest within the community.

[ShawnC13]

Great ideas, the only thing I see about a thread or section like this is we are going to get endless threads of ideas that have already been posted and got the "not for us"  Just like the contact button to send a message to the mods.  I know this has been brought up a couple of times in the Public Lab.  I brought it up once there also in a direct conference call with PM.

So this could just open up a can of mess lol.  How many threads of "Open up a call centre", or "Open kiosks or store front businesses"

[will13am]

@Korth, you have some good ideas.  I can comment a bit on the provision of a big contact moderator team button.  Although that will send more messages over to the moderator team, it may not necessarily lead to improved service, either real or perceived.  There are instances where it makes sense to post in the community forum.  Likewise, there are instances where customers should take their issue directly to the moderator team as we can't really help out. 

The important thing is to be able to help customers help themselves by giving them the knowledge to figure out the best way to get help for their specific issue.  Of course customers can also help themselves by knowing how to package their issue and deliver a concise description of the problem so as to limit the number of back and forth messages/posts.  In a telephone conversation, you can start the conversation by telling a rep, I have a problem.  The rep says please explain the nature of your issue and the back and forth discussion goes on from there.  Imagine trying to use messaging like a phone conversation.

Since joining Public Mobile, I have seen vast improvements to the community forum and interactions with the moderator team.  I believe the next step to improving customer service is what I discussed above.  It is kind of counter intuitve to suggest the customer a strategic part of improving customer service. 

[srlawren]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ @Korth yes. Wouldn't it be nice if!!

Thanks for starting this thread!

[Korth]

So ... a suggestion made many times before:

There should be a one-click button somewhere to message the mods.

Maybe on the main Community page?  Maybe somewhere close to the "Start a topic" button?  Maybe somewhere onscreen in every displayed thread?  I'm talking about a big button with a plain label somewhere central, one you can't miss, not like that little Simon icon quietly lurking in the bottom corner.  I'm also talking about communicating with a "real human " (even if only through a text message proxy) instead of being confronted by what appears (at first glance) to be the usual idiotic chatbot stuffed full of canned menus and FAQ scripts.

I know how contact the mods.  But my point is that many new PM Community members (who are often also new PM customers) just don't know where to go and how to proceed when they hit a roadblock.  They can't even get support unless they search around and read through threads (which seems to be an unreasonable expectation, lol) or they wait around until some randomly passing helpful stranger offers them a link to message the mods.  And it shouldn't be that way for something so important, PM is fundamentally a business and unhappy customers are still paying customers, no point of contact between them is basically a barrier between them and this happens to be a barrier which would be easy enough circumvent.

Likewise (as recently commented about here by this user), Community members shouldn't need to volunteer this information, it should already be made immediately obvious and accessible.  And while I'm all for being rewarded, I do agree that "community participation" should be about more than simple macro copypasta.