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srlawren
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité
Status: Brand new

The current add-on purchasing system in self-serve is too confusing for folks that are trying to use it for the first time (or the first time in a long time).  This is being compounded by the a lot more folks wanting to purchase add-ons recently due to the new US Roaming add-ons roll-out.

 

The current system stems from the fact that in the entirely pre-paid PM system, everything needs to be paid for by funds from your PM account.  Because of this, if you don't already have enough available funds* in your account to pay for the add-on purchase, you first have to make a one-time payment for the amount, and then purchase the add-on from those newly-available funds.

 

(*most people usually have an available amount of zero, especially if they are using auto-pay for renewals.)

 

This system is really confusing because it looks like you are purchasing the add-on during the first step, and some people stop there and then wonder why their add-on isn't working and they are showing an available balance.

 

It should be possible for PM to merge the two steps into one.  You should be able to add the funds as part of the purchase, in one step.  This is effectively how auto-pay works--the system first pulls money from your stored credit card and adds it as available balance on your PM account, and then makes the purchase of your renewal from that stored available balance.  Purchasing add-ons should work in exactly the same way, transparently

 

Thank you for your consideration!

 

EDIT I really like @david_l's suggestion to at least update the first step to make it clear to the customer that they are not finished at that point.  Maybe this could be done quickly now, while we wait for the full feature to be prioritized and implemented? 

9 Comments
stonechucker
Mayor / Maire

@srlawren, This could be applied to the plan-change and auto-pay setup also.

 

I saw the problem when I went from 30 day to 90 day, as I expected the plan change to happen before withdrawl of funds, however it took full amount for the change, but renewed the smaller plan.

 

When I went from 6 GB to 12 GB, I prepaid my funds, and everything worked.

 

Maybe the ideal system, is to setup the process to accept your money first, then ask what the money is to be used for ??  I don't know...

 

I will Bravo.

srlawren
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

Thanks for the feedback, @stonechucker.  There could be some impact to plan changes as well, yes.  

david_l
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

Yup. Even if they aren't able to merge this step into one for technical reasons or whatnot, the purchase confirmation page should at  least do a better job of explaining that the add-on hasn't been purchased yet after step 1.

srlawren
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

@david_l that's a good suggestion!  Should be simpler and quicker for PM to implement.  Maybe they could do that as a stop-gap before completing the cadiallac single-step solution? 

david_l
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

@srlawren Thanks! On a side note, I just tried to buy a US roaming package and it said generic error has occurred and told me to log out and log in again. I did so, and I noticed I had $20 on my account now. So step 1 was completed already despite the "generic error". Super confusing and buggy system.

jaswest2754
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

@srlawren I noticed this after the ever increasing issues with the USA roaming. Maybe they did this as a temoporary soloution to fix that because after that much less people came forward with USA issues. Correct me if im wrong but before I believe it was one fluid pay and select at the same time before the USA roaming issues. 

srlawren
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

@jaswest2754 I have to admit to not having puchased very many add-ons in the past, but I seem to recall it working that way when I bought a long distance add on back in October or so of 2015.  But I could be wrong.

srlawren
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

@David_J@Jeremy_M this is continuing to confuse customers and prevent them from using the add-on services they think they have already purchased!

 

I'm going to attempt to cross-reference these now as they come up in hope that you will understand this process needs to be simplified, soon.

 

Here's the most recent one that came up today:

http://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Plans-Add-Ons/Going-to-Montreal-for-a-week-living-in-T...

 

panditra1
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

I thank David for good explanation of the issue. However as many folks have commented, system can be made much simpler. Also at least prompt as to what the payment was made for and what is the next step. Then confirm that process was completed properly.

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