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Issues, experiences, solutions, suggestions?

Korth
Mayor / Maire

Something in my private message inbox today:

 

"Hey Korth ... I'm currently interviewing for a role at Public Mobile, which involves us working on a case. The basis of the case is to focus on the customer experience for public mobile users. We have been encouraged to utilize any research methods to figure out 3 customer experience issues. As the community is at the core of the customer experience for our users, I decided I would connect with the source. From my understanding, you've been involved in the community for a while and have risen up the ranks (congrats!). My intereview is Wednesday morning, so I was really hoping I could connect with you tonight or tomorrow morning ... With your in-depth community knowledge, it would be valubable to get your insight on the top 3-5 biggest customer experience issues felt by users? Also, possible solutions/innovations that you had in mind (i'd love to advocate for you). I would greatly appreciate, if you were able to provide any feedback. If I were to get this role, I expect to connect with yourself and the other members on a regular basis to resolve and innovate on these customer expereince issues. I will definitely give you a shoutout with the team, if you were comfortable with that. Thanks for your time, hope to chat with you soon!"

 

I unfortunately won't be able to offer much help before Wednesday morning - dinner, shower, bedtime, up at 0430, and back to work.

 

But this communication was interesting to me. Because it asks for valid questions. And because it suggests Public Mobile is seeking questions to answer.

 

"Insight on the top 3-5 biggest customer experience issues felt by users" and "possible solutions/innovations"?

 

I've complained about lots of issues at PM and I've made many suggestions over the yeats, but for me the three biggest issues (and suggested solutions) are

- convoluted big corporate accountant-ledger Telus billing - it's not rocket surgery to figure out the math but it's also not user friendly and it's always confusing to new customers, Self-Serve automatically sets a sort of glacial monolithic corporate tone which looks like a big scary bill from the Powers That Be, Self-Serve should instead set a tone which more closely resembles the sort of simple and friendly service a customer expects from face-to-face point of sale interaction (because that's the sort of company-vs-customer interface all the competitors offer in the stores and kiosks).

- the Lithium/Khoros forum software is a bit klunky - it's jampacked with useless or dormant options while it's also lacking a lot of useful common features, it's quite mobile-unfriendly so it passively discourages people from visiting from their phones, it should instead be something which actively encourages visits from mobile devices, a lot of people want an app but I honestly think a streamlined browser experience would be far better overall. (Think of PM's websites as their "store front", a musty little shop which kinda feels like a ghetto thrift store with an idiotic clerk named Simon.)

- broken autopay and so many other *known* bugs in the system - causing some customers to complain every month, causing some customers to leave PM (forever) every month - it can't be too hard to fix sloppy AVR issues on credit cards, tweak the authorization/transaction schedules, extend a meager 24-hour grace period to renewing long-term customers, accept a wide range of payment types, etc - and even if it isn't easy fix, it should be a priority to avoid avoidable business losses, lol.

 

What sorts of feedback would you offer to these questions?

10 REPLIES 10


@darlicious wrote:

@Korth @will13am @CannonFodder @Jb456 @NDesai 

 

I've changed my mind.....had @helpersingh done his research he should have private messaged me. I've lost all confidence in his abilities now......


Sorry to say, that would have been a fatal mistake.  This person said their interview was on Wednesday morning.  There's no time to read a novel the size of crime and punishment.  Smiley Very Happy

 

 

🤔Should have searched and lurked instead. 🕵️‍♀️👀😉

@Korth @will13am @CannonFodder @Jb456 @NDesai 

 

I've changed my mind.....had @helpersingh done his research he should have private messaged me. I've lost all confidence in his abilities now......

darlicious
Mayor / Maire

@Korth  Im assuming by posting you will be directing the the interviewee to your post/thread for the feedback he/she seeks prior to their interview with public mobile. Already they are showing intiative by coming to experienced member(s) of the community....the backbone of public mobile.

 

I thought I would focus my comments on the customer experience that most often sets the tone of their time with public mobile. Acquiring a SIM card and and activating their service/account.

 

     Public mobiles low cost online only service model with the community at its core is almost unadvertised and it's marketing approach is mostly by word of mouth. How potential new customers find out about public mobile can be completely by chance (like me), by referral thru a friend or family member (like many), online research of cheaper mobile providers (articles, blogs,  website forums such as RFD, Reddit or websites such as nerdwallet) or the glimpse of the occasional marketing campaign by pm that may also utilize social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

     Most will get directed to the pm website to peruse the plans and decide if the the prices and the plans are right for them and if they can manage to live with an online only service model. The no call centre/customer service scares away many potential customers even the most tech savvy skilled computer user generation among us. But for those of us who decide to take the plunge the biggest complaint heard on the community before, during or after activation is confusion on how public mobile works.

 

         Educating customers and public mobiles retail partners, authorized dealers and their sales staff about public mobile, their plans, rewards, current promotions and most importantly the community is key to creating a positive experience from the very beginning. This is a two pronged approach. Public mobile needs to equip its retail business side with better training, manuals and knowledge. For those customers that turn to the retail environment for their activation should be able to depend on that dealer/retailer for their information needs. Even if it's just poring over the website on the stores computer to answer their questions. There should be no excuse for the sales staff to be selling expired promotions, not entering referral or promo codes, not selling SIM cards without in store activation or charging fees for activations.

          This is a failure on public mobiles part....to insist upon better sales staff training when continuing and procuring new business relationships. Unlike when selling other mobile providers plans there is no easy (pick up the phone) option to correct salesperson mistakes and as a prepaid mobile provider generally there are no refunds so no recourse for the customer when sales staff make a mistake or sometimes a colossal and costly mistake. Public Mobile must make education and training on the retail side a priority so customers coming from this side of activations don't start with their new mobile service provider feeling ripped off, scammed, in need of immediate help or just plain lost and confused.

 

        In preventing the negative experience and overall first impression of public mobile by newly activated in store customers and online activated customers the card holder the comes with a public mobile SIM card needs to be redesigned. While it's design is meant to be simple and has public mobile .ca/plans on it. It makes no mention of the community, the online service model only go visit the website. This needs to be the beginning of the education process because this is where it starts. Explain the basics of the community and how to navigate the website. Make it very clear to customers to join the community. This is not like any other mobile providers community's which are often completely useless, full of techno jibber jabber or just plain dry, boring, utilitarian environments best left alone while you pick up a phone to eventually connect to a human for help.

 

        The community next to low prices is public mobiles best feature. It puts the human touch and experience onto the service. This is the one place that can change a new or otherwise customers bad experience into a good one. (Goodwill gestures and credits go a long way too!) The really smart customers find  the community first. @Ed404 is a good  example of this.....he came along a month before finally activating. Asking questions, gaining knowledge, assessing and waiting out promotions until he finally snagged the best of the entire year the black Friday promotion and he managed to earn a community reward along the way. By promoting the community as the heart of public mobile the more new customers know about it, experience it and join it the better their overall experience from the very beginning it will be. Armed with knowledge gained from it the less likely promotions will be missed,  customers will catch mistakes before they happen and they will definitely know public mobile never charges activation fees.

 

       As I often do when I happen to be in a retail location is I educate the sales staff or correct their mistakes. They should be trained better.... but if the community can train the customer before they activate then it's a win win for everyone and the customer feels comfortable reaching out to community for help in the future knowing it's role in managing their account and service. It should almost be mandatory to join the community before activating with public mobile.

 

     


@Jb456 wrote:

@will13am  this is the thread of that guy yesterday

 

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Self-Serve/Looking-for-Community-Feedback/m-p/495985


In the private message to me, this was for a Wednesday morning interview.  I guess this person knows that the job is lost and war trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat by asking community members for help.  Might as well invite me to the interview, lol.  


@will13am wrote:

This must be that helpersingh character sending private messages to everyone.  Actually there was also a post of the same thing in the community forum a day ago.  If this truly a person trying to get a job with Public Mobile, posting in the community forum would have been an excessive expose that would scuttle any job opporunity if I were the hiring manager.  @Tiana_V , can you confirm or deny someone interviewing for a position with Public Mobile and was asked to present on the topics as noted in the OP.  It is pretty sad if true.  Not much creativity begging community members for answers.  


That's how it SOUNDED to me too, when I read the OP.

will13am
Oracle
Oracle

This must be that helpersingh character sending private messages to everyone.  Actually there was also a post of the same thing in the community forum a day ago.  If this truly a person trying to get a job with Public Mobile, posting in the community forum would have been an excessive expose that would scuttle any job opporunity if I were the hiring manager.  @Tiana_V , can you confirm or deny someone interviewing for a position with Public Mobile and was asked to present on the topics as noted in the OP.  It is pretty sad if true.  Not much creativity begging community members for answers.  

I agree...

I've seen PM change a lot over the years. I've seen them go downhill, I've seen them make some stupid, costly, shameful blunders. But I've also seen PM recover from each setback and tenaciously continue to (slowly) evolve forward.

 

The PM I'm with now is not the same PM I signed up with long ago. It increasingly feels like little more than an outsourced Telus department running on autopilot. Apparently not even trying (not even bothering to pretend to try) to move ahead of the competition. I may never forgive them for the murder-coverup crimes they committed on the Build Your Own Plan calculator, lol.

 

But every now and then PM still surprises jaded old crusty grognards like me with something new and impressive. I'm still with PM because PM is still the best deal in town. Indeed, even without counting the Loyalty Rewards I pay less to get more from PM today than I did when I scored a killer promo at signup.

NDesai
Oracle
Oracle

Some good thoughts. They do get a lot of feedbacks from us on what's the biggest issues to tackle down. They already have gathered ton of issues to fix and improve the customer side experience. We will have to wait and see how this year goes. So far it looks promising Smiley Happy

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