Freedom Mobile Needs To Better Inform Their Staff About How Their Service Works So They Can Better Inform Their Customers
After Christmas my wife and I made the move to Freedom Mobile from TELUS. I’ve also written about their network coverage a couple of times as well as helped a couple of people who had issues with Freedom Mobile set up their iPhones to maximize their experience on it. The only thing that was left to report on in my mind was our billing experience as from previous personal experience as well as the experience of my clients, this is where things can go badly. Now I wouldn’t call this bad as such. But I will explain why Freedom Mobile should really do a better job of explaining what will happen on their first bill among other things that I will get to in a second. Let’s start with the billing part. And let me use this breakdown to illustrate what I mean:
I’ll get to the circled part of this in a second. But going through this bill, everything up until the (Watch) section of the bill was what I was expecting. What I wasn’t expecting was a $45 connection fee for the Apple Watch. I say that because when we signed up, we were told by the Freedom Mobile staff that they would waive the connection fee for each phone. Which they did. However they didn’t tell us about the $45 connection fee for the Apple Watch. The thing is that the connection fee for the Apple Watch is easy to find on their website:
On the Freedom Mobile website, if you find the Apple Watch plan and click the question mark in the circled area, you see this:
There you will find the mention of the connection fee. Which means that it’s in Freedom Mobile’s interest to tell customers about it. And while I admit that while I am not your average person when it comes to tech, I can say that if I had signed up online I would have clicked on the question mark and read the details and said “Oh okay” and moved on with life as I would know what to expect. But we were not told about this fee at the kiosk that my wife and I went to. That in turn led to us being caught off guard when our bill arrived. No to be clear, my wife and I aren’t mad as we both know that telcos will find new and creative ways to extract money out of your pockets whenever possible. Thus this fee isn’t a shock to us. But if I were a “Joe Average” consumer, I can see a scenario where they would be mad and call into customer support to express their displeasure as they would perceive that the connection fee for the Apple Watches should have been waived as well. And I would pity the Freedom Mobile employee on the other end of that call as it likely wouldn’t be pleasant.
Now combine that all of what I wrote above with this experience that my wife and I had when we signed up for Freedom Mobile:
Now originally my wife and I went to the Sherway Gardens location as we had to do some other things in that mall. Thus it was one stop shopping. But when we started talking to the staff there, they said that Apple Watch plans are not something that Freedom Mobile offers and the only company that does is “TELUS and maybe Bell”. Even when I showed them Freedom Mobile’s website on my phone which clearly lists Apple Watch plans as an option, they denied it was even a thing.
What both of these experiences suggests to me is that Freedom Mobile needs to make sure that their employees are better equipped with a deep understanding of their product offering, as well as being able to be completely transparent about billing and expectations so 100% of customers have the best customer experience 100% of the time. I say that because from a tech perspective, I think based on what I have experienced so far that Freedom Mobile is going in the right direction. And Freedom Mobile’s pricing is on point. But the customer experience needs work. If they take care of that, the “big three” telcos may have trouble holding onto their customers.
This entry was posted on January 5, 2024 at 2:21 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Freedom Mobile. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Freedom Mobile Needs To Better Inform Their Staff About How Their Service Works So They Can Better Inform Their Customers
After Christmas my wife and I made the move to Freedom Mobile from TELUS. I’ve also written about their network coverage a couple of times as well as helped a couple of people who had issues with Freedom Mobile set up their iPhones to maximize their experience on it. The only thing that was left to report on in my mind was our billing experience as from previous personal experience as well as the experience of my clients, this is where things can go badly. Now I wouldn’t call this bad as such. But I will explain why Freedom Mobile should really do a better job of explaining what will happen on their first bill among other things that I will get to in a second. Let’s start with the billing part. And let me use this breakdown to illustrate what I mean:
I’ll get to the circled part of this in a second. But going through this bill, everything up until the (Watch) section of the bill was what I was expecting. What I wasn’t expecting was a $45 connection fee for the Apple Watch. I say that because when we signed up, we were told by the Freedom Mobile staff that they would waive the connection fee for each phone. Which they did. However they didn’t tell us about the $45 connection fee for the Apple Watch. The thing is that the connection fee for the Apple Watch is easy to find on their website:
On the Freedom Mobile website, if you find the Apple Watch plan and click the question mark in the circled area, you see this:
There you will find the mention of the connection fee. Which means that it’s in Freedom Mobile’s interest to tell customers about it. And while I admit that while I am not your average person when it comes to tech, I can say that if I had signed up online I would have clicked on the question mark and read the details and said “Oh okay” and moved on with life as I would know what to expect. But we were not told about this fee at the kiosk that my wife and I went to. That in turn led to us being caught off guard when our bill arrived. No to be clear, my wife and I aren’t mad as we both know that telcos will find new and creative ways to extract money out of your pockets whenever possible. Thus this fee isn’t a shock to us. But if I were a “Joe Average” consumer, I can see a scenario where they would be mad and call into customer support to express their displeasure as they would perceive that the connection fee for the Apple Watches should have been waived as well. And I would pity the Freedom Mobile employee on the other end of that call as it likely wouldn’t be pleasant.
Now combine that all of what I wrote above with this experience that my wife and I had when we signed up for Freedom Mobile:
Now originally my wife and I went to the Sherway Gardens location as we had to do some other things in that mall. Thus it was one stop shopping. But when we started talking to the staff there, they said that Apple Watch plans are not something that Freedom Mobile offers and the only company that does is “TELUS and maybe Bell”. Even when I showed them Freedom Mobile’s website on my phone which clearly lists Apple Watch plans as an option, they denied it was even a thing.
What both of these experiences suggests to me is that Freedom Mobile needs to make sure that their employees are better equipped with a deep understanding of their product offering, as well as being able to be completely transparent about billing and expectations so 100% of customers have the best customer experience 100% of the time. I say that because from a tech perspective, I think based on what I have experienced so far that Freedom Mobile is going in the right direction. And Freedom Mobile’s pricing is on point. But the customer experience needs work. If they take care of that, the “big three” telcos may have trouble holding onto their customers.
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This entry was posted on January 5, 2024 at 2:21 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Freedom Mobile. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.