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STRONGLY recommend AVOIDING PUBLIC MOBILE

DuncanC
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

The customer service problems are totally out of hand.  If your reading this and have not signed up with them.  Save yourself a huge headache and DON'T.  

 

WORST PHONE PROVIDER EVER.

 

WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE OF ANY COMPANY DOING ANYTHING EVER.

 

HORRIBLE HORRIBLE UNACCEPTABLE NOTHING WORKS EXPERIANCE


SUPER FRUSTRATING


DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR MONEY!!!

 

35 REPLIES 35

ace065
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Don't blame ya...I have an issue stemming back from October 2018 and up til now still not resolved..my problem is only small

Iows
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

@Horemansuk

 

I gave up on PM a while ago but I signed in after seeing your message popup in my email. In my case I could not activate my SIM, the service received was terribel. Tell me how a 'problem solver' would fix that...

 

The private messages I received after highlighting my frustration on this message chain were helpful but the so call community support by 'MODs' was terrible. This is a paid service. The "I'll get round to it on the weekend' approach does not work.

 

I'm no longer a PM customer.

Horemansuk
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Some people are problem solvers, some expect a perfect world. The former do well AT PM. The latter should pay for phone support, as long as they have the time to wait for an agent to pickup their call.

ace065
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Well posted a complaints back this September on the forum and gotten no resolutions or replies to Private Message, I think there is still bugs in the system. But other than that Public Mobile offers great plan and prices..they everybody else beat and I love my plan.

Good day to all

@Mary_M Thank you for replying here, though I must say that I am quite suprised since I have yet to see a mod reply to ANY of the posts where I have specifically called out the moderator team.

 

Yes, I did get your reply. BUT no, it did not answer all my questions and it is a real mess. I have 9 open PM threads and you were only able to address about 6 of them AND in some cases the answers did not use the latest info I sent in, highlighting one of the problems going on.

 

By your own acknowledgement, your team clearly does not have the right tool(s) to manage the flow of info. Why you have to try to filter the flow is beyond me. This is the 21st century and PM tools have been around for a very long time. Everyone of the ones I use has the ability to link all individual messages into their associated thread and keep the flow of conversation together, without filtering. This clearly shows that management is not properly equipping you, and surely is what is contributing to long processing times.

 

On top of that one of your colleagues (and not the only one) is sending out contradictory information (see their info reply here), which was corroborated to me by one of your managers. So it is rather hard to know what is really going on. So either the staff are not knowledgeable about the tools and/or processes or the tools are truly ineffective, or both.

 

And BTW, consolidating all customer replies into one and then replying is actually NOT very efficient as then it makes it very hard to track and/or follow-up from a customer perspective. This is a VERY BAD practice. I can see how your limited tools may be causing you to feel you have to do this, but it is not a good practice. 

 

Anyway, I am in the process of replying back to the messages but like I said, it is a real mess and is taking me some time to re-sort this all over again (I had already done it once and collated all my info but that is NOT what was used for the replies back to me...ugh).

 

Clearly, some of these issues have nothing to do with the mods, including yourself, but it is a reflection of a broken process (BTW, I was a business process analyst for many years... that is what I have done for a living, and I can see many of the disconnected points PM has, so I am not speaking as a layman in these matters, though I do not have full visibility).

 

I'll be in touch.


@mimmo wrote:

@pm-smayer97  I do agree with most of your statement, except the out of touch,  and the brushing off part (at least from cummuity members).  Community members are just trying to help out as best they can with the available tools/knowledge  they have.   If only the higer ups would start adressing some of the issues to make this a truely self serve model.


Thanks for the acknowledgement. That said, I do still say it is out of touch, because to say PM is intended for self-sufficiency but not deliver tools for both customers and its staff to make it so, and for PM to set the service level expectation and not even come close to meeting it and then condensending customers by implying that it is the customer's problem if they are unsatisfied IS completely out of touch with the user experience out here....

 

I agree, the the higher ups need to address the issues to meet the business needs of a self serve model AND equip both customers and their staff so they can work efficiently and effectively.

rndwng
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

I would recommend you to stay and port once you receive an offer from Koodo Smiley Wink

Mary_M
Retraité / Retired
Retraité / Retired

Hey @pm-smayer97,

 

Mary here-  I had sent you a message a few days ago responding all of your questions - did you receive it? I hope that I was able to clarify all of your questions.

 

I wanted to clarify something in regards to what my colleague had stated that to the tools we use. Sending multiple requests does not bump you or make you lose priority - if you send me an initial message on Tuesday 2pm, and then send me another one Wednesday 3pm, it will not lose Tuesday's priority. That being said, it does cause backlog - as we need to filter through each and every single message. This also applies to commenting/creating multiple threads - it will create more messages which then becomes more time consuming to look into 1 case as they will not appear on the same thread on our end (it will create multiple threads)

 

I also understand the frustration that may arise from the technical issues you experience, such as activation issues. Technology is not perfect, but our team is constantly working on improving the system.

 

Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions.

 

Kind regards,

 

Mary

 

 

 

** Please do not post private info such as: phone number, account number, pin etc.. This is a public forum. **

mimmo
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

@pm-smayer97  I do agree with most of your statement, except the out of touch,  and the brushing off part (at least from cummuity members).  Community members are just trying to help out as best they can with the available tools/knowledge  they have.   If only the higer ups would start adressing some of the issues to make this a truely self serve model.


@will13am wrote:

@Excommando wrote:

Totally disagree....you must be very lacking basic phone skills if you’re having problems. I’ve had a fantastic experience with PM and have recommended to many friends. If you require lots of technical help maybe this isn’t the place for you. 


I have to agree with this statement.  This service relies on a self serve model.  People who enjoy this service most are those who are very self sufficient.  The number of customer service agents here are far less than the so called "full service" brands.  It is not so much the brand is bad but rather the brand may be a bad fit for certain customers. 


You really seem to be missing the point. Since you are an oracle, clearly you have been here a long time but it appears you have lost touch with the newcomer trying to get on board.

 

Since this is a self serve model, it would be fine IF there were adequate tools to be "self sufficient". But what people are often complaining about is the difficulty in either getting out of the gate because of long-delayed problems in getting set up OR because they have to rely on moderators to do some functions that are NOT available for self serve. You should know what I mean by looking at the many requests for improvements to the self serve functionality (I won't insult your intelligence by trying to re-interate them here). 

 

And the other major problem is that PM used to promote a response time in hours, then later changed that to responses within 48 hours, which is now being stretched to 72 hours. And they cannot even meet those service level agreements, which they have set up as the expectation... so when customers are getting wait times measure in days, with some as long as 7-12 DAYS, you cannot blame them for being rather miffed. If they would promote the reality of the service where wait times can reach many multiple days, they would not attract nearly as many customers (which makes me wonder what the retention rate is let alone the abandonment rate is for those that never quite make it on board).

 

Then to top it all off, to then eventually find out that if a customer sends a second PM before their first one is responded to, any previous PMs get bumped to the back of the queue with the last one. Where have you ever seen that? Or that moderators get easily confused if there are multiple requests because as one manager explained it to me, they simply cannot clearly differentiate the requests by the same customer, as apparently they do not see the topics, or some such thing. This tells me that the staff do not have adequate tools to manage the flow of requests.

 

For a company that chooses to be 100% online with the only form of communication being a forum (which was not always the case), they are woefully poorly equipping both their own staff and the customer. Even the messaging system does not have the ability to link an entire conversation... 

 

I won't bore you with the details but I have struggled with numerous onboarding and technical issues as a relatively new customer. And this after researching PM beforehand and even participating in this forum months before joining...but I never had visibility to the number and types of issues I encountered. So, it is no surprise that many customers are caught off guard.

 

So for all this, you cannot blame customers that are having a hard time. And the reason many do not leave is because they are attracted by the lower cost, so they try to tough it out hoping to get to that place that you and many other longtimers have gotten, where they no longer need much support, if any. And most do not realize how long it will take to get to end of job when they first get into it, and probably are falling into the old adage of "in for a penny, in for a pound".

 

So let's be real about the situation here and not brush off what many are experiencing.

limegirlfab
Great Neighbour / Super Voisin

Thanks Mary M...i did hear from Cedric who told me that I would hear from your IT Dept within 48 hours...72 hours later I'm still in the dark and I've been without phone service for 8 days now. Can someone find out what is happening with this? 

GreatCanadian
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

@DuncanC

My bill was $9 last month. In the 8 months I've been here with 4 separate accounts, I haven't had an issue. I doubt you'll be happy wherever you go. If you were happy where you were you would have stayed there. I bet if you have trouble with your computer or car or refrigerator you jump on the appropriate forum and ramble like a child as you did here. Kudos to the patience of the mods for putting up with your childishness. I still don't know why you are still here after your May hissy fit. Just because something does not work for you doesn't mean it's no good for someone else. You call us fanboys? We wouldn't be here if it didn't work for us. That doesn't make sense at all. Wherever you decide to go, enjoy your $50+ bill. I'll stick with my $10 payment for 4.5 GB data and TROUBLE FREE service.

 

GC 

Horemansuk
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Couple of bucks?

Major dollars if you check.

I have had issues near the beginning and the mods sorted it quickly.

Yes, a bit more patience is required, but once set up PM us rock solid.

Pound
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

Nonetheless, it doesn't mean other wireless carriers are better. Lack of competition aside, it's never been about customer service or satisfaction. 

 

Take "winback" as an example. The fact that there are offers exclusive for the so-called customer winbacks, it means they are treating their current customers like bleep. 

 

It's not about winning back loyal customers to make them happy. It's about turning customer churn into another marketing campaign. It's about writing off the winbacks as new business, although the actual number of customers may remain the same. It's about locking you in for another two years by signing you up with another new gadget you don't need at all. It's about an ever increasing ARPU to make their shareholders happy.

 

All in all, it's never been about customer service. I simply could not see how I would have been better serviced by another carrier. 

 

 

Excommando
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

In your situation you’ll never be happy....go to Telus as I used to be, and pay double. 

Excommando
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Thanks a lot....gotta love Public Mobile!

skifan
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

@DuncanC      Perfect......the sooner the better I would suggest.  Let's hope you are much happier there.  Ciao.

Anonymous
Not applicable

A couple bucks?

I'd been with Telus since the old Motorola brick phone. I recently had a substantial lifestyle change. I no longer needed what all I was getting. Going to the loyalty department at Telus yielded me a cost of about $65. Best they could do apparently.

I moved to PM and am spending almost half that. My next renewal I'm going to spend almost a third of that.

That's not a couple bucks.

If a customer thinks they're going to need all kinds of support and help NOW when they need it then sure, no, PM is not for them. For those that can wait and aren't in any rush to get something working then the savings are totally worth it.

DuncanC
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

You don't have to accept either getting ripped off on the price or getting terrible customer service. 

 

Virgin is cheap, but has awesome customer service.  I'll be taking my business back to them.

 

mimmo
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

@DuncanC for a couple bucks you might be right, what about all the people that are paying 1/2 of what they used to pay at their old provider.

 

You are entitled to your opinion and are free to share it. If the service does not fit your needs there are several other options out there. You need to weigh the benefits and the drawbacks and make your own decision.

 

Good luck.

CS_Agent
Customer Support Agent

Hi @DuncanC

 

Once more, our ways of operating have been explained to you and it is understandable if you do not agree with them, but as you noticed, by the service I've provided you with, we are here to help.

 

It has already been indicated that you are within the delay time to receive help, so as we all know this is a PUBLIC FORUM where folks come to get help.

 

Let us all keep our comments as helpful and least hateful as possible!

 

Thank you for your understanding.

 

Ashley

DuncanC
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Apprently it was unfair for me to advice people to avoid switching to public mobile while my phone was not working and I was waiting in the 48 hour queue to get help.  

 

So now that my solution is underway and my phone is back on the way to working and I can be objective about it, it's apparently a more fair time. 

 

I STRONGLY ADVISE ANYBODY READING THIS WHO IS NOT ALREADY USING PUBLIC MOBILE NOT TO SWITCH TO THEM. 

 

The couple bucks you save simply aren't worth it when anything goes wrong and you have no option but to wait days for very slow service to get it dealt with.   They don't have a adaquate system to deal with customer issues (PM a mod on the forum is a joke, not a system).  They don't have adaquate staff to respond in timely manner.  Don't believe the silly fanboys, public mobile needs much fixing before their ready for any more customers. 

mimmo
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

@Mary_M great to see you (and mods) replying to forum messages it great way to show that the forums are monitored and that action is/is being  taken.

 

Keep up the good work.

Iows
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

@Excommando

...lacking basic phone skills ....

Great response! Five stars and $2 dollars off your next bill. 

 

hxj140
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

I love Public Mobile. I researched their service and support before joining so I knew exactly what to expect and I have not been disappointed or surprised at all. Their service just works.

Mary_M
Retraité / Retired
Retraité / Retired

Hey @DuncanC, @Iows and @limegirlfab

 

Thank you all for taking the time to express your concerns.

 

This is just a quick update that we don't take your situations lightly and we will look into it asap. @DuncanC - my colleague Ashley will be replying to your message shortly.

 

@@Iows I've sent you a private message directly

 

@limegirlfab my colleague Cedric will be sending you a message within the next hours.

 

Kind regards,

 

Mary

 

 

** Please do not post private info such as: phone number, account number, pin etc.. This is a public forum. **


@Excommando wrote:

Totally disagree....you must be very lacking basic phone skills if you’re having problems. I’ve had a fantastic experience with PM and have recommended to many friends. If you require lots of technical help maybe this isn’t the place for you. 


I have to agree with this statement.  This service relies on a self serve model.  People who enjoy this service most are those who are very self sufficient.  The number of customer service agents here are far less than the so called "full service" brands.  It is not so much the brand is bad but rather the brand may be a bad fit for certain customers. 

Iows
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

@DuncanC

 

Whining, what a lovely word. That was not me. Probably another miserable PM customer.

GreatCanadian
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

@DuncanC

 

Weren't you whining back in May about Public Mobile? Did you not get your issue resolved that time? If so, why did you stay? Doesn't make any sense to me.

 

GC

Excommando
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Totally agree. 

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