What has happened to the quality of PM customer support?

[darlicious]

@J_PM 

What in the heck has happened to the quality of Public Mobile's customer support? This is not to say public mobile does not still have good customer support agents but in the past 11 days of dealing with various agents on a variety of issues for several of the accounts I manage I have gotten to the point of hair pulling frustration trying to get basic tasks or credits applied to accounts.

I have had different versions of the policies told to me, had to point out several times the correct RAF credits I am asking to be applied, correct the dates, been told the holiday gifts been applied when they haven't been. I have run into 5 separate accounts that I have activated that the 4 digit account pin # is wrong when I have the screenshot to prove its correct and it has not been changed. Been asked the verification questions in lieu of the account pin # and answered them to be told this is against the security policy and the agents asking me the questions have been reprimanded for straying from the account security policy?!! I've been told only the account holder can contact them.....to ask for their $5 RAF credit to be applied?

The amount of contradictory info, policy and pure misinformation fed to me by various agents in the past year is astounding!! In some cases its taken up to 4 months to get a basic promotional credit applied. It's taken hundreds of private messages and countless hours of my time to deal with customer support to sort out basic support requests. And I come into this with a careers worth of customer service experience and 3 1/2 years of providing community help and support to have a pretty good idea of what I'm doing, asking for and what the end result should be? I know many of my referrals and their accounts that I manage would just give up the first time they would have to deal with level of customer support....if they managed to get so far as to get access to the internet, create a community account, figure out how to contact customer support....I won't even mention what they would do with SIMon....and manage to get a reply from an agent and respond in time before their support ticket is closed. And then they would have to deal with what I've had to deal with?!!

No where do I see disclaimer that says we only deal with tech savvy, healthy customers who manage their own accounts only and can jump thru all of the hoops, navigate by all of the glitches, shortcomings and unworkable failings that public mobile has and take an agent that they deal with at their word even when they are clearly wrong and still remain a public mobile customer? Why has it come to on several occasions that I have to threaten a CCTS complaint to get a basic issue resolved? Why have I been promised that misinformation and poor conduct of (I hope) a minority of agents will be rectified when I hear from the community or directly from regular community members or customers seeking help dealing with agents spreading the same misinformation months after its been promised that the agents would be corrected?

If I cannot act on behalf of my referrals that need additional help to manage their accounts and provide them with support by dealing with customer support so that they remain happy public mobile customers (which they are because I deal with this sugar show) they will just up and leave. Which means I lose out on my hard earned rewards that affects my $0 bill(s). And if I have to pay for the service or lack there of....then I'm not a happy customer!! Bringing me to my other point that I am now going 12 days of having no ability for customer support to see any kind of message, report, ticket or cry for help from me. And apparently they have no ability to contact me on my community account. I cannot access my other community account because it won't recognize the reset password. Dealing with customer support by proxy or thru the bf's community account has obviously not met with much success other than getting his support issues fixed.

Something has got to change because public mobile is finally living up to its previously inaccurate reputation of having no support or lousy customer support. I've had to threaten again to file a complaint with the CCTS to get my very ill friend his $5 credit. I have a list of support issues from other accounts that need to be addressed. Do I need to file a complaint with the CCTS for each one of them? And even more seriously do I need to file my own complaint for the inability to recieve customer support myself? That according to one of the agents today can only be done by the customer contacting them on their own community account? This would be a breach of the code since I have been denied access for 12 days and counting now.....?

I strongly suggest if public mobile wants to resolve these issues that they contact me on my community account through the correct method of my private message box. No reason to thank me for my patience in this matter....I no longer have any!!!

[softech]

@LitlLdy check if your posts are stuck here 

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/premod/moderationitemspage/tab/rejected

sometimes it is not really censorship,  This automated thing always blocks my post with network bands info, maybe too many numbers and it thought some personal phone number or credit card number 

[darlicious]

@LitlLdy 

Uh oh maybe it's **poof** the magic dragon eating post bug rearing it's ugly head again? Check your unmoderated items list? Search the above term to find my thread with the requisite link.

[LitlLdy]

@darlicious , censorship at it’s finest! My responses keep getting deleted on here! Lets see if this one is deleted also!

[darlicious]

SUCCESS!! More or less....everyone nudged my ticket along with a ten foot pole til it landed back on the agents desk that I had been dealing with previously. He simply took the answers I supplied to his verification questions for each account and added the holiday gifts including the the redemption data add on for the referrals with points accounts. All done just like that.👍😁

Unfortunately there is no progress on my community account private messaging issue but I'm happy enough at the moment that my referrals are happy and taken care of....finally! Still if I just took the $1 referral reward every month I'm sure my retention statistics would be similar to @CountyDownIeUk 's (not to say you don't work hard at referrals). But if I recommend something then I stand behind it and given the target audience that many of my referrals fall into I feel it's my duty to go the extra mile and deal with customer support or manage their accounts for the ones that request it or I have promised to help.....

32 referrals across 3 accounts......the first 2 lost after the first month because they were a visiting American couple in BC for 3 weeks. To be expected. A 3rd referral lost after 14 months by my own hand after I screwed up the 90 day suspension date. However he was rereferred 6 weeks later with a triple stacking promo from pm and CCS (I miss those days!!)

So you could say I have a churn rate of 10%, 6.66% or even 0%? But I could have easily lost 8 referrals out of the 13 I made last year. Points are not an easy sell but debunking the myth of bad, poor or nonexistent customer support used to be easy......not so much anymore!

But for those agents that whose knowledge, professionalism, skill, demeanor and natural ability can make a customer nearly forget a very bad first impression or experience they may have recieved from a different agent that possesses the very opposite qualities and traits.  Public Mobile has hit a tipping point that if they don't weed out the poisonous apples the whole batch will be tainted and even the good apples will be tossed aside? 🤔🍎🍏

[Willaug56]

maybe I am lucky but I've never had trouble with customer service here

[CountyDownIeUk]

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@LitlLdy wrote:

@darlicious maybe you need to apply for employment at PM so you can fix all our issues before the company goes bankrupt or shutdown! 🤔 🤣. Seems like more & more fed up, angry customers leaving all the time!

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@LitlLdy 

I am sure a number of us could help improve retention and improve giving good resolutions via customer service (CSA) But you have to be backed up to do so, by upper management. It would be up to Telus to shift to improve the quality and retention. Something  has to stand out, to want to encourage  people to stay.  Sure there will be a customer loss due to employers offering mobile phones as part of the job, while others move to higher incomes and better, in there opinion, plans, and some move to family plans. BUT if PM was better, loyalty and a reluctance to change, would override.  One reason why PM needs to move on the 3G plans to LTE. 

Years ago I built an excel file. And of course when I see numbers and potential options to use them with no additional  programming, I do. I have never shared this before. Not knocking PM and these are my numbers only. 

Account 1 

40 Months

18 referrals 10 left (and some are on a suspend with an imminent loss coming)

56% retention. 44% Loss

Account 2 

38 Months

19 referrals 11 left (and some are on a suspend with an imminent loss coming)

58% retention. 42% Loss

Account 3

15 Months

18 referrals 11 left (and some are on a suspend with an imminent loss coming)

61% retention. 39% Loss

Not that great is it?? Average rounded to 60% retention and 40% loss.

Me is batting my head against the wall every 30 days x 3. 

And I do know, if I was still working, that my annual bonus would have a retention % to meet along with other measurable goals. 80% would be the start number for retention and would increase every year. It's a no brainer. 

Bottom line spend some money at PM and make MORE money at PM instead of chasing the quirks and over all ineptness. 

[LitlLdy]

@darlicious maybe you need to apply for employment at PM so you can fix all our issues before the company goes bankrupt or shutdown! 🤔 🤣. Seems like more & more fed up, angry customers leaving all the time!

[darlicious]

I will update here since it seems @J_PM is following this thread. So after my little freak out a senior agent replied to my private message on the bf's account. First he gave me an update on my tech team ticket.....that there is no progress on my community accounts issues. More specifically my darlicious community account problem is sitting over with the telus tech team pondering how to fix it? Maybe I will try yet again to reset my maximum_gato community account's password to see if I can gain access?🤞

As far as getting the holiday gifts added to the other accounts the agent added them to one account. The other 3 accounts had their account pin#'s returned as unrecognized. So I decided to go back thru my private messages to make an accounting of this particular issue that I would now call an official public mobile glitch occurring at activation.👎

I had to reset an account pin # from an activation in late December 2021 but I think that issue stemmed from a mistake in my own notes. Since that time I activated 4 accounts at the end of May beginning of June. Two of those accounts I have had to deal with issues on them and the account pin #'s were accepted without issue. The other 2 appear to be fine but I have not had to use the account pin #'s so we will see if an issue pops up and they don't work when contacting customer support?👍

However of the 9 accounts activated after July 13th I have had to deal with issues on 8 of them and all 8 of them have had their account pin #'s chosen at activation rejected by the system. Obviously there is a problem with activation portal registering the account pin #'s on accounts. I'm willing to bet the 9th account has the same issue.....? 🎯

Getting back to my issues dealing with agents and conficting opinions on the account security policy as set by public mobile. The senior agent replied telling me that he had read messages by the other 2 agents to reply in-between our conversation and my requests to add the holiday gifts were not of a security concern. He added them to one account (as above) but with the other account pin #'s not recognized he asked me the additional verification questions which I supplied the answers to and followed up with the info about 8 out of 9 accounts having this account pin # glitch and would he please open a ticket or otherwise inform management about this glitch and the serious implications it could have affecting customers accessing their accounts and or recieving appropriate support?🤨

Oh and lucky me I had another agent reply reiterating that they will only deal with the actual owner of the accounts. And by no uncertain terms will they access the accounts without the owner contacting them? By all intensive purposes I am the owner as I manage them and in one case there is no longer access to the email on the account and the Sim card was lost so there is no way 2FA verification  can be completed to either change the account pin#  or verify by that means to change the email or the Sim card?😡

Additionally I don't personally have a way of contacting Chris Hatfield, Miley Cyrus and Ozzy Osbourne can barely keep his sanity let alone his Sim card. If it wasn't for Sharon reaching for my help with his account he wouldn't be connected to the 21st century at all? So here we are 18 days later barely any progress made at all with 3 accounts still without their holiday gifts and now a 6th account of mine that I have lent out to my rock and roll guitarist friend who is completely clueless when it comes to technology and can't reply to any texts if he is still using my little flip phone with a smashed screen also needing the holiday gifts. I knew I should have just spoken with the better half on how to reply to the text?🙄

So here we are.....one step forward two steps back? How about it @J_PM can you take one small step for telus that will result in one giant leap forward for pm's mankind ? 🌚

Oh wait that would be getting VoLTE implemented for public mobile customers?😀

Rather can you send out a memo to get all of customer support on the same page and set some standards for proper customer support and the security policy because I have never had such issues in the past until the account pin # glitch started occurring. Oh and can I get my community account private messages fixed?  I have waited far too long.....it's been fixed 5 times previously what's the hold up ?!! Seriously is my only choice to communicate with public mobile via the CCTS?😲

Feedback is all well and good but you need to actually use the feedback to improve on the areas that public mobile is failing at....or flailing about at? But maybe that's because you were not here back in the days when public mobile used to actively seek feedback from the community and act upon it? 🤔

As of today and a new message sent......no one has touched or responded to my last message on Friday or my follow up today. I guess they did red flag me as I suggested? 🚩

[darlicious]

@CountyDownIeUk 

Yes. The bf recieved the bonus RAF from December 2021, May '22, September '22 and October '22 with only the September RAF having an issue. Another account was on the recieving end of the December '21 RAF and referred on the May RAF and the September RAF and also had a problem with the September RAF.

I'm not sure where I should post my update in this thread or the other.....?

[CountyDownIeUk]

Right....blows my theory. Other than, did any one account receive 2 to 7 RAF Promos? 

As per @Pop_Eye 

[darlicious]

@CountyDownIeUk 

If you count last year's "more is merrier" $30 credit that was paid out starting in January 2022 then pm can handle paying out at least 6 RAF bonus promotions per year in addition to at least 2 phone credit promotions paid out in the same manner (Sept? and Oct). There have been the following promotional monthly RAF credits:

1. December 2021 "more is merrier" RAF credit $30 ($5×6 months)
2. February 2022 RAF credit $25 ($5×5 months)
3. May 2022 RAF credit $25 ($5×5 months)
4. August 2022 RAF credit $25 ($5×5 months)
5. September 2022 RAF credit $25 ($5×5 months)
6. October 2022 RAF credit $25 ($5×5 months)
7. November/December 2022 RAF credit $25 ($5×5 months)

[CountyDownIeUk]

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@darlicious said

Momentarily satisfied with that answer and with ability to share my long sought after resolution with the community my thread on that experience helped some but many other customers continued to run jnto the same issue over and over again. Another empty promise from public mobile kind of like the bonus RAF promotion a seemingly empty promise from public mobile of 5×$5 credits for both new and existing customers who refer or get referred to public mobile. And for referrers an embarrassment as we promise and upsell our mobile provider only to have our word trashed by agents either unclear on their job description, duties and purpose or just so poorly recruited and trained that they are truly clueless on what a customer support agent occupation entails?

While in the past I have not had many $25 or $30 RAFs I don't recall how they paid out...as $25 RAF....but the current one I am on, says "October RAF". And I assume the Nov 28th one that rolled into the Dec 1 one would be paid out as Nov RAF, or Nov/Dec RAF or Dec RAF.  And now paid in last week of month vs first Friday of month. What that appears to me is that each RAF is identifiable and labelled appropriately to manage by PM  and perhaps the misnomer of 1 per year per account is no longer true or wasn't to begin with. Just playing with RAF NAMES and payouts in different weeks, PM appears to be able to handle 4 RAF's a year. 

[darlicious]

@wetcoaster @LitlLdy @CountyDownIeUk 

Thank you for sharing your personal experiences with customer support agents in the past year as it only goes to show how widespread this problem has become. In particular the return of the promotional $25 RAF bonus credit that was a delight initially for community members who actively seek referrals to lower their bill and for points program members a reward whose value was left untouched and the one true reward they could count on to consistently earn enough regular points that they could redeem $15 bill credits alongside the $5 monthly credits actively reducing their bill.

But it's been a promotion fraught with disaster with customer service agents interpreting the either the terms of the promotion or how and when the $5 credit every which way but Sunday? They were pretty consistent with one aspect as many of us argued with many of them over whether a customer was eligible for one $25 credit per promotion or per year? With the latter consistently being chosen by agents as the answer they were going with despite a multitude of evidence to the contrary. When challenged we were told that they had consulted with their colleagues or supervisors or even management and they were right and we were wrong! It was only once I told them in no uncertain terms that I was going to get the matter settled by the CCTS that in no short order I was contacted by a supervisor who apologized for the confusion, credited the entire $25 to the 4 affected accounts and promised to address the lack of clarity of the wording of the promotion (the wording has always seemed pretty clear to me?!!) and use my experience as a teaching/learning moment for the agents involved.

Momentarily satisfied with that answer and with ability to share my long sought after resolution with the community my thread on that experience helped some but many other customers continued to run jnto the same issue over and over again. Another empty promise from public mobile kind of like the bonus RAF promotion a seemingly empty promise from public mobile of 5×$5 credits for both new and existing customers who refer or get referred to public mobile. And for referrers an embarrassment as we promise and upsell our mobile provider only to have our word trashed by agents either unclear on their job description, duties and purpose or just so poorly recruited and trained that they are truly clueless on what a customer support agent occupation entails?

@J_PM 

I hope you are continuing to monitor this thread if your words are genuine and public mobile does indeed value their customers feedback on their experiences with customer support. Maybe if review links were mandatory to send to customers rather than voluntary public mobile would get an honest and true assessment of the customer service and support customers actually recieve? I would be willing to bet that there would be an instant improvement to the customer service that some public mobile's customer support agents have failed to deliver on in this past year?!! 🤔

[statusquo]

These are very interesting posts and I think a little troubling if customer service agents are not all being consistent with public mobile policies and I agree with everyone here that the agents need better training if customers are getting different responses to their questions from different agents. 

[CountyDownIeUk]

I am somewhat concerned about @darlicious and her rants/issues. But she does bring in customers, she does a lot of good trouble shooting for the community, and is using the only online option there is. 

And I have to support  some of her issues in regards to CSAs. Keeping in mind WE are a customer, and the code of CSA should be act on behalf of the customer to the best of their ability. If they are not, more training required, and still if not, then their future employment should be reconsidered. Being all online or not,  one goal for sure is to keep your customers happy. In my recent 6 months, I dread having to  contact  a CSA. 66% of them are anti customer and are not on the same page. That is “if” there is a page to be on, that is supplied supplied by PM. 

Ie. 5 x $5 RAF

I give a friend my referral code within the range of dates of the promo

The friend activates a SIM with my referral code within the dates of the promo

We both understand the guidelines 

We have done our part. 

$5 is to be paid throughout the first Friday of month.

It does not happen. 

Now you are dealing with 1, 2 or 3 CSAs and the first 2 are anti customer. 

It is “so bad” that I have a list of them. 

So you give the friends number and referral code. 

They confirm that they can see it as well. 

Then you are asked for full number of friend. 

Then you are asked for friends PIN number. 

Then it is suggested your renewal is in a few days and it will happen then. 

The latter does not happen and is a clear cut “stall”

Then you are asked if friend changed phone number and ask for that full number. 

A few other questions of no value are also asked which have slipped my mind. But are stalls and time wasters. 

Then I am reassured the codes have been set and will work next time. And it doesn’t. 

I am also reassured that this CSA will personally ensure the payment will happen, as it is being monitored, the next first Friday. And it doesn’t.

So am I not now supposed to feel to be mislead? Are they hoping I will give up? Are they incompetent to fix? Is there no fix tool for them to use? I don’t know but just out of principle I will pursue. But those that don’t pursue are probably on the fence for “stay or leave”.

Then later in the day you get a nice CSA and they give you a system credit and miraculously you begin to receive your $5 credit without any human intervention. Like it was supposed to be from the “get go”. 

So for holding out on 5 bucks ...  how much CSA payroll did you spend? How does the current CSA experience negatively affect customer retention?

I have 3 accounts. 

1 with a couple of first Friday payments left and same account with 5 payments due to begin last week (day unspecified) of January. 

1 other account with 5 payments due to begin last week (day unspecified) of January. 

Surprise me please!!

EDIT. 

I hope this is not happening. But if a CSA is incompetent, not trained properly, bitter, having a grumpy day......are they just playing games so the issue gets passed on to a different CSA??

[wetcoaster]

Thanks, @darlicious , @Patchio  for putting things so eloquently.

While I'm personally one of the luckier ones - *heavily knocks on wood* - when it comes to my own, older accounts with minimal need for CSA interactions, I have lost every single referral, that signed up in the last year or so, to other carriers (or what supposed to be referrals, with the system not registering my referral code in the two most recent cases over BF / BD, as well as their promo code not being accepted). While 2 jumped for better deals only, the other three were heavily encouraged to switch after encountering lots of hassle or outright lies when asking for CSA help with system glitches, and/or quality of voice service getting worse and worse.

Needless to say that none of the later group stayed within the Telus environment. And I'm sure they will voice their opinions accordingly. So to think that this customer service disaster is good for the overall Telus group bottom line might backfire eventually.

In the six years with Public Mobile, I've never built a huge referral base, and 2022 seemed an exeptional year in that regard, but I think I might be just stopping trying to increase the number of referrals... I can spend that time better, and it's only actually saving money if [my] time is considered worth nothing.

[LitlLdy]

@Patchio , very well said! Thank you so much for chiming in! I find some get enjoyment out of attacking other customers on here instead of actually helping! Customers that come on here asking for help & advice are already feeling bad enough, frustrated & fed up with issues as it is without making them feel worse! No wonder customers keep leaving & this is a public forum for ALL to see!

[LitlLdy]

@darlicious , I’m sorry you’re still having so many issues! I would be long gone! I simply have no energy left to keep constantly fighting & begging for things to get fixed! I’m tired of being lied to by CS_Agents all while making no effort whatsoever to fix the issues! Out of all the ones that have responded there has  only been 1 that has made an effort to actually put the efforts in to help me! Now I address all messages to that 1! I wish I had the energy you have to post all the issues I’ve repeatedly had! Very reasons why everyone I know flat out refuses to switch to PM! I can not keep fighting/begging for things to be constantly fixed on their end so I will not be here much longer.

[darlicious]

@cgzhao 

Yes I think this is a new glitch.....it happening on a singular account no one is the wiser. But a couple of others have mentioned it and I can confirm it's happened on at least 5 of the accounts I have activated this year. 

[darlicious]

@J_PM 

I can only hope it doesn't fall on deaf ears this time.....as this isn't a rant from an isolated incident with a new customer. It would also help if I could actually get support on my community account as this is the 5th or 6th time I've had this "glitch" with my community account so there is a fix.....I don't know why it's not being applied?

[J_PM]

@darlicious We appreciate the feedback. It's important for us to hear these cases so we can ensure customers are receiving correct information from our CSA team. 

[cgzhao]

about the four digits pin, i was told it was wrong, which i never changed. this is weird.

[darlicious]

@Patchio 

I couldn't have said it better myself....in fact I didn't you did! If I didn't know any better I would have thought you've been a fly on the wall of my interactions with customer support this year. And bravo....for being brave enough to speak up.

[Patchio]

@darlicious 

PM has unfortunately been coasting on its initial underdog reputation and customer goodwill for far too long. The long-term customers with the most to lose (due to loyalty rewards and accumulated referrals) have been more than willing to overlook any and all shortcomings even when they are legitimate and persistent.

Telus is running PM like a business that has been acquired by a private equity firm. The original business had a good reputation, goodwill with customers, and brand recognition and loyalty. But after the acquisition, the private equity firm has cut costs everywhere, to the point where the business bears little resemblance to its former self. This bare bones business can continue to survive because the cost to maintain its operations is minimal compared to the cost of changing, fixing, and improving things.

It’s like buying a house and stripping it down to the wooden beams. From the outside, the house resembles a house, but people who have been inside know it’s just a shell of a house and nothing more.

Look around the Community forum, or RFD, or Reddit, and see what happens when you criticize PM. It’s like someone fired up the bat signal and the PM loyalists immediately start to attack, even when the person has a legitimate reason to be upset or criticize the CS agent/PM.

You will often see comments in support of PM in these threads, which don’t help the original poster’s issues, but are made to invalidate the criticism and to portray the poster as some sort of bad faith user or someone with an axe to grind.

“I don’t have any issues with my PM service, it’s completely reliable”

Telling another PM user who’s currently experiencing issues that you don’t have any issues with your PM service is like telling that person water is wet. How does that even help the other person? Are PM loyalists so defensive that they need to re-affirm their commitment to PM whenever someone is casting doubt over it? Just because your service is fine and working doesn’t mean that’s the case for someone else, so keep that in mind if you want to be “helpful”.

When people post criticism or issues on the Community forum, they’re not doing so because they have an axe to grind. A majority of PM users would be happy to never use the Community forum. The only reason they’re posting is because the activation website, or the self-serve My Account website, or the auto-pay function, or the multitude of other glitches that are a systemic part of PM has failed them and this is their only way of resolving the issue.

Sometimes even submitting a ticket can go wrong, especially when the PIN you select during activation isn’t actually recorded by PM during the process, so when you try to confirm and verify your identity with your PIN during the last step, you won’t actually be able to proceed because the PIN you selected will NEVER match the empty field PM has recorded.

“PM isn’t suitable for everyone, maybe you should switch to another provider”

If PM isn’t suitable for someone like darlicious, who dove headfirst and embraced PM for all its good and bad, and it’s not for people like me, who will take the time to read and understand bugs and glitches that commonly occur on the website, then who is this service really for? Are you folks trying to suggest that PM is only for people who don’t experience any issues whatsoever and are willing to defend the PM business model at all cost, even when it is actively hurting them in the end?

“PM’s support is online only, if you had done your research you would know that. That’s how they’re able to offer these low prices”

I suspect most people have different ideas of what an online only support model looks like, and they probably envisioned one where you could actually instant message/chat with a CS agent, or CS agents that actively monitor the Community forum and handle issues that occur in real time, things that other third-tier low-cost wireless providers can offer their customers.

But with PM, getting any support is more difficult. You need to use the “preferred method” chatbot, but that requires a Community forum account and a Self-Serve account. Even if you can bypass the chatbot with a private message, you’ll still need a Community forum account and access to the Self-Serve in order to confirm your identity. You’re basically screwed if you don’t have access to the Self-Serve or can’t submit a ticket, because that’s the only way to contact customer support.

I’m a newbie, but I remember when PM loyalists used to praise the CS agents (moderators) for handling issues quickly and effectively several years back. These days, you can still get a competent CS agent, but you can also get some totally incompetent CS agents that can’t differentiate between a private message and a Community forum post; don’t want to read what you’ve written and are just replying with copy and paste scripts at their disposal; or the worst, a power hungry CS agent hellbent on gaslighting you and telling you something that is completely wrong while insisting they are correct and the authority on the matter.

Like in December when someone posted that they didn’t receive their holiday giveaway add-on’s, and when they contacted customer support, the CS agent told them they would have to switch to Public Points in order to get the add-on’s added to their account. Meanwhile, other users had no problems getting the add-on’s added to their account after private messaging CS agents. It only took them 10 minutes of time.

Or when some users are missing the $5 x 5 refer a friend bonus referral credits that should be applied automatically, and they contact customer support to get the credit. Some CS agents will tell the users to keep waiting until their next renewal, or to contact customer support each subsequent month if the issue is still on-going, even though that’s a complete waste of the user’s time and effort.

It would make everything so much easier if customer support was COMPETENT and CONSISTENT. Having CS agents that are incompetent, unprofessional, or unwilling to perform their basic job responsibilities is a disservice to PM and it’s users.

I would gladly give up Public Points or the annual holiday giveaway add-on’s as a trade off if PM hired and trained CS agents properly, or even brought back some of the old moderators who seemed to care about what they were doing when they were interacting with PM users on the Community forum.

Side note - When the moderators were still competent and actively monitoring the Community forum, PM users who were getting their private messages filtered and “blacklisted” by the internal messaging system could actually get out of purgatory when the moderators manually released the messages that were filtered. That doesn’t seem to be happening any longer, which is another sign of the declining quality of PM’s customer support.

It’s hard to support a company like PM when there’s this mentality that PM users should be grateful for what they’ve been given. If I’m paying full price for my service, and my wireless provider is failing to fulfill its obligations by intentionally leaving computer bugs and issues unfixed due to “budget constraints”, why should I be grateful for a broken and crumbling system that is teetering on the brink of being overwhelmed at any moment?