English | EN Never forget your users, or it could cost you dear!
Dec 13, 2013
I often travel abroad, and I continue to use my smartphone in foreign countries, either to make calls, or use the data connection to be connected to the internet since places where I stay do not have free Wifi access available.
I was recently in a rather awkward situation: I had to show a technical demonstrator to potential customers in a foreign country, and this demonstrator needed to be connected to the internet to work fine.
As there was no Wifi/free internet access available in the meeting room I was, I simply created an access point with my smartphone, and used it to connect my demonstrator to internet using 3G roaming data. As that day I probably used this data connection more than usual, I received a SMS from my cell phone operator, telling me that my 3G data consumption was over 40 euro.
It was just a SMS as many others, simple, concise, informative only.
I did not take care. I continued my demonstration with other customers, and less than one hour later, I received a second SMS from my cell phone operator, telling me that my data consumption was over 50 euro, and consequently, my data connection was immediately disabled.
And my 3G roaming data was effectively disabled at the time I received this SMS.
First reaction: I wondered why my demonstrator ran suddenly in degraded mode… and had to face to customers reactions and explain them it was a connectivity problem.
Second time: I discovered by this SMS, than my roaming data consumption was limited to a maximum of 50 euros. It could be a good idea in case of theft, or to limit user data consumption to an average amount in case he forgot… but in my case, what a tragedy!
Third time: How could I solve this issue as quickly as possible, in order to let my demonstrator working fine again?
This issue should have been easily solved: I just had to call my cell phone operator, telling him to raise my limit, and that’s done.
Ideal case: Not the reality.
Just have a look at the two SMS I received: No phone number displayed to contact operator’s hotline (and I did not put the hotline number of my operator in my smartphone address book, did you?), but worst of all, this second SMS displayed only… an internet link to go the operator website!
At that moment, I wondered if anyone in operator’s Company had even thought 5 seconds to user’s situation before writing the content of this SMS.
When a user is abroad, and is using roaming data connection, 99% of the time, it is because he DOES NOT have wifi access! And so, this roaming data connection is THE ONLY WAY to be connected to internet. So asking user to go to internet to reactivate its 3G data connection is really a bad joke!
At this point, I just wanted to sue this phone operator for his lack of professionalism!
After finding an internet connection with the help of a third-party, connecting to operator’s website, finding the right phone number to reach hotline from abroad, calling and waiting 15 minutes to have someone from the hotline (at my expense of course)… what do you think it happened?
The hotline told me that they were not able to raise the upper limit of my 3G connection, I had to pay first the 50€ with my credit card directly from… their website (same stupid feature, once again!!!), reboot my smartphone, and then I’d have my 3G data connection reactivated (with a brand new 50 euros limit)… and no other possible solution. What a joke!
I was trapped! And I had to follow this stupid process to be able to have my 3G connection back to life…
I do not know if customer service will in the future allow user’s to pay directly by phone, but one thing is sure: my user experience was very bad because I was put in a very uncomfortable position, due to a bad internal/ communication/paying process, a lack of thought of its marketing/user interaction team, or a will to reduce its own costs to a maximum, ignoring this way in what dramatic situation users could be.
The image I have of this operator is definitely deteriorated, and for a long time.
It should be so easy for this operator to make a better service:
- Send a longer SMS with more information such as direct hotline phone number (no additional cost).
- Better, continue to accept 3G connection in a degraded mode: Only to allow users to access its subscriber area on its website in order to pay its bill using its 3G connection (small additional cost, paid by user, so no additional cost finally) .
- Or even better, for a premium service, the operator/hotline could immediately call back the user by phone to help him in the process of reactivating its 3G connection (a higher additional cost, but for a huge service to user, with .
As a conclusion: Never forget users interactions when you will build business process, specify your algorithms, or create a system in direct interaction with you users/customers, or it could cost you dare, degrade your brand, or even cause you lawsuits!
NB: I might change my current cellphone operator to a probably little bit more expensive one, but with a better customers service. Lesson learned ;-).
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