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Unable to make or receive any calls

0451susan
Great Neighbour / Super Voisin

    I am writing this post for my mother, because she was unable to perform this task by herself, not because she is  incomprehensive, but the fact that the UI to human interaction is "not designed well", let's put it that way.

 

    This afternoon she was unable to make or receive any phone calls, but the messages worked fine, she had tried everything from restarting the phone/changing a phone, resetting network settings/turning on and off all connections to the phone, to checking account status, payment status. Nothing worked, so the best bet is that something went wrong on the public mobile's side, which is completely reasonable since this is the first time in 4 years that we ever had trouble. But what I can not forgive is the fact that the design of the website is a complete disaster. 

 

    First of all, you need to create an additional account if you want to submit a ticket or make a thread, it is repetitive task but it makes sense since you are trying to separate customer accounts from community accounts for better management, even though it creates additional tasks for the user and forces them to memorize additional log in information.

 

    Secondly, the verification when submitting the ticket. She spent 2 hours this afternoon trying to prove to a website that she is herself, the legit owner of the account, and what was the cause? She capitalized the initials, without realizing that she has her name all in lowercases on the main account, and the website simply checks if the 2 string values matched. So much time could have been saved if you simply put "name must match with ones in My account exactly", or have them compare the letters only, and she had to choose the 4 digits, because she could not log in with "my account credentials" because it kept saying error logging in even though the log in informations were correct, and no error messages were provided such as"wrong username" or "can not connect to database".

 

    Third, after the submission of the ticket, even though it says the tickets were submitted successfully, there is no private messages to be seen anywhere on the profile page, and after clicking into the "see copy of image", it literally looks like the picture down below. it did not provide any accountable feedbacks to the user other than the "success message".

 

    My mother had more troubles than the 3 listed above such as the ones with chat bot, kept getting 404s after clicking on submit a ticket from google, I should probably not make this into a huge deal since a customer support just replied suggesting that the ticket submission worked properly, but I feel like these are actual problems that needs to be fixed, and it would aid more people in the future.

 

    Edit: Problem was solved by refreshing the status on the account(by an agent), the whole process took me less than 30 minutes including the post because I understand how the website works behind the scenes. Yet my mother spent her whole afternoon on it, and could not figure out what went wrong with the verification and the ticket system, so please, change your UI to make it more user friendly.

 

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6 REPLIES 6

maximum_gato
Mayor / Maire

@0451susan 

Public Mobile's website, community, self-serve and rewards accounts are very finicky compared to most and play well with some but not so much with others. A few suggestions can make it a more enjoyable experience. While I agree pm could make improvements....even when they try to fix some things it tends to mess with other things that used to work perfectly well. That being said....depending on the type of device being used will influence or affect the user experience.

 

Generally speaking....

 

  • A desktop or laptop will encounter the least amount of error messages and glitches but the less windows or tabs open the better. Clear the browser history and reboot the device on a regular basis. Higher end tablets perform better than low end models and smartphones while usually able to access accounts with less error messages can have the use of some tools or features limited.
  • Again dependent on the device being used usually Chrome, Safari and Microsoft Edge work best. Google and Firefox work pretty well but some users can encounter strange glitches that can cause minor functionality issues (like for some reason I can't upload images from my community account's image library when using Firefox?) Samsung's browser is a nightmare to use with pm for some reason....for me at least.
  • The self serve accounts have a caching issue. Clear and close your browser if possible and log in using secret/incognito mode for up to date info and/or use the refresh arrows located at near the bottom of the page on the right side before viewing usage and payment history.
  • Most error messages and glitches can be avoided using the above advice but there are a few glitches that will return error messages regardless unless using a desktop or laptop. In particular  Sim swaps seem to only be successful using a desktop or laptop....not very helpful for the many customers devoid of this type of device. Only customer support can help if the customer has only a mobile device.
  • Submitting a ticket via SIMon can also be a frustrating experience for some customers (I'm one of them!!) If you do get thru to the verification page using the 4 digit account PIN # encounters the least amount of issues. But some subjects can also be an issue like tickets for the CPO Phone department. In these cases if SIMon gives you the runaround or error messages then using the second option of sending a private message is best (and the only method I use to contact customer support.)
  • For more info on contacting customer support and how to pre-verify the account when sending a private message and the initial method of contact read the advice in the spoiler of the following linked thread.

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Get-Support/Get-Support-Contact-Customer-Support/m-p/...

 

Or click below to a private message directly...

 

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

 

The community is very helpful and can help guide your mother as well. If she has some spare time and wants to learn a little more about the ins and outs of pm and how to avoid or overcome its many follies and glitches have her spend a little time in the community. Either using the search box and reading posts and threads and/or directly asking questions herself. The community taught me well....nearly all of my knowledge about mobile phones, services and computers came from here. We welcome anyone who drops by for help, advice or just a friendly visit.

DDM69
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

It's unfortunate this was so time consuming.  However, you are posting this to a community (customer) board.  We are all customers here, not customer service agents. 

Hopefully someone from Public Mobile will see your post and feedback your concerns.  It's good to hear you got it solved. 😊

2023-03-17 12_57_12-Public Mobile Community.png

XionBunny
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

Changes around here happen slowly so I wouldn't really expect them to change anything for many years to come on the user-friendliness of the experience, sadly, due to the small size of the team and the business model of the brand resources are limited at best.

HALIMACS
Mayor / Maire

@0451susan 

 

You have hit many of the issues many users face when trying to access support.

 

Good on ya for helping Mom.

 

Many self-described techies would suggest the same!!!

thefonz22
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Having the same issue with my phone. Suddenly can't make it receive calls but can still text and use mobile data. Something is definitely up. No issues the 3 yes prior to today.

BKNS27
Mayor / Maire

@0451susan 

Sounds like you need to contact a CS_Agent to look into your mother’s issues.

You can private message on the envelope icon above and send it to CS_Agent.

The credentials must match as you have indicated to avoid illegal SIM Swapping. 
Scammers have access banking information to the victim of SIM Swapping.

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