Introduce Chat support

[kamymoshref]

Virgin mobile was matching your recent promo of $40 for 4 GB etc, they have call and chat support and dont require 3 months pay in advance for the service. This community thing is inferior to call or chat support. The least you can have is chat support if you would like to keep a good relationship with customers. 

[CaNuCk07]

@kamymoshref  This "inferior" community thing is what "Public Mobile" is built on, and certianly how they maintain a competitive cost structure.

If the cofmmunity support model was not to your liking then maybe a little more research before joininbg would help.

With that said chat is a great idea, IF the costs remained low.

[jun3280]

The community forum was fine - when the community was small.  However, the population has since ballooned and a more effective system is required to address consumer concerns.  

The Forum is still a great place for information, and I'd suggest stickies be used to highlight useful information (eg start up guides, how to deal with certain situations, etc).  With the new influx of customers, there are numerous threads that have been duplicated - pushing down valuable/useful threads.  Right now the community is a mess, and difficult to navigate.

In light of that - I would recommend using a FREE live chat system like facebook messenger, google chat, or what's app so that support can be done in realtime.  The delay of sending PM's is inefficient, and easy to lose track of.  How often are the moderators waiting on consumer responses?  It certainly isn't in anyone's interest to be lingering on the community forums - to check if a mod has responded.  In fact, you can see that many new users are becoming frustrated and sending multiple PMs - which isn't helpful either.

Just my 2 cents, but if the goal is to provide effective customer service, the existing model needs to be evolved - and it doesn't need to be anything groundbreaking as the technologies I've mentioned exist for free.

That said, hopefully the development team can work out the kinks with the system.

Cheers,

J

[makkahn28]

I think that the Call Center option should ONLY be as a LAST option when ALL other conventional means has been Exhausted

[kamymoshref]

"how they maintain a competitive cost structure." I stated that virgin mobile was matching their promotion. Plus you get call and chat support, as well as a monthly charge not every 3 months. Therefore, your argument is invalid as it not competitve compared to virgin.

[stonechucker]

@kamymoshref@' they are matching it because they saw they were losing customers.  I do not know if it was being matched country wide, but at least to start, it was Alberta and BC only.

PM, you do not need to use a credit card, no credit checks, and you get rewarded for community involvement, autopay rewards if you choose to use a credit card or visa debit, friend referral rewards, and locality rewards for continuous membership over a year.

Sure, if you're in a major urban centre, you get member benefits you can use from Virgin, but those benefits are not usable by me, as I don't live near the vendors who provide those rewards.

paying ahead vs behind is a nonsense argument, it doesn't matter.  Paying for a 90 day plan that doesn't have bill shock when you use services that you didn't plan to use, to me, is better than a monthly payment with added fees.

yes, the customer service right now is bad, but it's the fallout from the mass of new registrations.  How often do you contact the big 3 for service, wheneverything on your phone is working right?

i am still going to recommend PM over any other provider.

[jun3280]

I'm not sure what the point of the argument is - whether or not this is better or worse than Virgin doesn't solve the backlog customer service requests.  Why Public Mobile is not adopting a live chat model when it is readily available is the main issue I see.

[srlawren]

@kamymoshref @jun3280 this has been suggested in the past, more than once, and has been rejected by PM for whatever reason.  

Please see:

http://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Public-Lab/to-have-real-people-chat-online-for-the-use...

Not exact, but similar idea (of expanded support options) having been rejected:

http://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Public-Lab/Outbound-Phone-Support-for-Complex-Issues/i...

I find the likelihood of this idea being accepted to be quite slim.  Just setting expectations.

[kamymoshref]

you made good points in your second comment stonechuker. You are right, if i didnt have any issues with the port, i would not be needing customer service, and would not contacting them until there was a issue with bill payment or service. 

I think in that case, focusing on having chat support, which will be a live and cheap way to help ppl with their issues is a good feature to integrate.

also the benefits you mentioned about PM, the other providers dont really have anything like that where you can get a discount on your bill by being a member, so again you make a good point. 

[jun3280]

@srlawren thank you for your response.  I've suggested live shat support in the past as well - but certainly given the smaller user base at that time - it probably didn't warrant it.

However, given the significant population growth in recent months, it would certainly make sense to expand their capabilities.  

I simply do not see how the forum/PMs are a sustainable system.  The forum should a place for knowledge sharing in my opinion, and now that platform has been saturated with identical service requests and complaints.

Certainly if their onboarding process is improved that should help alleviate these customer service concerns, but at the end of the day the business should be setup accordingly to accomodate "black swan" events like this in the future.  

I'm having a difficult time understanding why Public Mobile would prefer to address customer support in a less efficient manner than what is available to them.

While I am generally satisfied with the price/service I'm receiving, I am disappointed with Public Mobile's position to not evolve with the needs (especially given the ease to transition to more effective solutions) as short sighted.  

As the private messages and forums have been exhausted, I've seen other users start to advise other users to use Twitter and Facebook.  More information clutter.  Address the items in realtime, and at least consumers get immediate feedback on where they stand.  I think people are generally fine with waiting, but do not like the idea of knowing where they stand in the queue.

[jchan]

Although I would have benefitted from a better customer support system, I also understand why PM doesn't have it. 

Yes Virgin was matching PMs plan in specific locations, and I'm glad PM is forcing some other carriers to become more competitive. But what we have to remember is that there plenty of people on Virgin with older, more expensive phone plans and they're the ones offsetting the costs of something like live chat customer support. 

I was with Telus prior to transfering to PM and I will say that the customer support was excellent, when I needed it. I think I may have called them two or three times over the 6+ years I've been with them (with a smartphone plan). I don't think those calls are worth an extra $20 a month. 

Now that I'm properly setup on PM (took about a week and a half of back and forth and forum talking) I don't think I will be needing a live chat system for the next couple of years.

In conclusion, keep PM lean and able to provide cheap plans for everyone. Force the other carriers to compete. If there are some viable free solutions for a chat system then maybe look into but I think the current system (however flawed) is good enough.