Why Wind Mobile lost two customers today

37051 Views 153 Replies 35 Participants Last post by g011um, Jan 23, 2011

hugh

Discussion Starter · Dec 30, 2010

This morning I read about the Wind Mobile All in the Family plan.

I thought, excellent, I am going to sign both my kids up with new phones.

Went to my local Blockbuster and asked for the deal. The helpful sales clerk apologized and said that he couldn't give me the deal and that I had to talk to "corporate." The guy is a nice guy and I wanted him to have the sale but he said the only way I might have a chance was to go to a corporate Blockbuster store.

Okay, so I hopped in the car and drove ten minutes to the Blockbuster store at Parklawn and Queensway. Went inside and asked the clerk how to sign up for the All in the Family plan. She said I had to have a "form". I said, I don't have the form but I would like to sign up for the plan. She then proceeded to tell me how I could sign up for "better" plans and so on.

I said no, I wanted the All in the Family plan that I had read about. She refused to offer me the plan and refused to tell me why some people were eligible and I wasn't.

Result:

An hour of my time was wasted.
Wind Mobile lost two customers.
Wind Mobile has gained a vocal critic for its refusal to even exlain to me why I was not eligible for a deal it was offering some and not others.

Seems like Wind has learned about customer service from the Big Three!

101 - 120 of 154 Posts

rsambuca

· #101 · Jan 20, 2011

The article was incredibly unobjective. The fact that Hugh couldn't bring himself to write down any "Pros" for Wind Mobile speaks volumes. I could understand if Hugh wrote the article the same day as when most of the debacle occurred, but he didn't. Hugh posted this days after the event, when he should have been able to look a little more objectively at the situation.

Hugh - can you honestly say that there are no possible "Pros" to using Wind Mobility? I guarantee that if you pull any 12 year old kid off the street and have them do a pro and con list, they will be able to find some pros. The fact that you can't shows your childish unobjectivity in this matter.

I think your posts in the forum are fine, but to post such an unobjective review is irresponsible at best. Whether it is deserved or not, you and your site have become a rather trusted source for consumer electronics information, and frankly, I would expect much better from a review on your site. If your intention was to write some trolling flame-bait drivel to create 'buzz' and drive traffic to your site, I guess you succeeded. Sad, really.

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otafool

· #102 · Jan 20, 2011

Hugh, why not post a poll? E.g. was the Wind review helpful.

Rockjock

· #103 · Jan 20, 2011

His issues would have just begun, the billing, coverage, dead zones, lack of handset choices, customer service failures, data down, network down.. God forbid he have an issues and post it on the wind forum just to have it deleted. No no he got a glimpse into the future of wind.

rsambuca pull a 12 year old off the street? really? And ask them to pros and con of a cell service their parents would be paying for? Hmm good point.. A service that works everywhere? oh thats not wind, one that I can count on to make my calls, not wind again.. do not get into this p!ssing contest my friend. You will not measure up. Wind is a company that had such promise.. they stood on a platform of no hidden anything. Well ownership is an issue.. network, CSR, back office/front office.. there is quite a list.

So please do tell me.. Wind is for sale do you think the new owners will change things? Since the old owners have said they will not put in anymore money into wind, well the shareholders have said this, what is next? Looks like the talk of Mobli buying wind is true?

I for one applaud Hugh for his article. He is not the first to document his experience with Wind. And clearly not the last.

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hugh

Discussion Starter · #104 · Jan 20, 2011

The comments keep flowing in and the reaction has been enlightening. One comment that keeps coming up which I should address is the "Friends and Family" plan. People say that I should have "known" that friends and family plan was only for Friends and Family.

Can one of those commenters please explain how marketers define a "friend or family"?

I have spoken to several marketers today and they all laugh at the term. Like me, they consider the term "Friends and Family" to be meaningless. They tell me its like saying the "spectacular sale". They told me the term was meaningless advertising and the ONLY thing that matter was the "Conditions of Sale" or "Disclaimers".

I investigated and in less than five minutes found over 20 sales in the last year that were billed as "Friends and Family" that placed no restrictions on who could buy except maybe the need to input a coupon code which was well known.

Here is a quick list of companies that have had Friends and Family sales in the last year which were really open to virtually anyone.

Adidas
Aveda Canada
Best Buy
Carlson Hotels
Flamingo Hotel
Footlocker
Futureshop
Holiday Inn
Intercontintental Hotels Group
Mac Cosmetics
Monster
Nine West
Puma
Reebok
Sears Canada
Softmoc
Sport Chek
The Bay
Urban Behaviour
Verizon Wireless

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profets

· #105 · Jan 20, 2011

The "friends and family" is really just that. friends or family of wind employees. the top of the form even mentions that:

This holiday season we’d like to share our All in the Family program
with our family and friends. It’s an extraordinary offer exclusively for
the family and friends of WIND employees

They had the program in November, and it worked by a wind employee pre-registering their friend of family member (there was a max number of invites they could do), and partially filling the form and passing it to their friend/family along with a password for the person to verify when they called up to register the plan.

Honestly, it ended in late november or early december (can't remember exactly) but the program ran relatively smoothly (especially compared to AITF back in april). Why they brought it back during december and made it partially available to the public is beyond me. All it did was create confusion, and reps were never up to date with proper info. They should have either just made it publicly available to everyone, or keep it private like they initially did in november.

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Rockjock

· #106 · Jan 20, 2011

Hugh this " friends and family plan " was open to anyone. That much is fact. YOU had a terrible experience and wrote about it. The previous F&F plan was limited and sales staff were selling the invites. Wind then simply opened it up for all. They need the subscribers badly. Wind could do a simple account audit and then find out who is a legitimate friend or family member.. there even was a " dummy " referral code in the system.

What has happened to you has and is happening to others.. just the others choose to post on the Wind Forums where its deleted promptly.

Rockjock

· #107 · Jan 20, 2011

Profets we both know the F&F was a sham. The first go around people were selling the plans.. and the second time same thing happend so that is why wind just let it go. It got them more subscribers and thats all they cared about. The " dummy " referal code in the activation system is damming enough. When I read the article I thought classic bait and switch.. then as I read on it was clear Wind is in trouble. Less than a year in and afor sale. thats pretty bad, they should have just reached out and made Hugh the offer of his promised plan then he could have said it was smooth and painless.. then fingers crossed the network billing and handset did not fail him he could have been pro wind. As it looks Wind failed yet another person.

james99

· #108 · Jan 20, 2011

The bottom line is line: If he wasn't eligible for this plan then they shouldn't have: processed the order, sent out a phone, attempted to activate the sim card, etc.

Would his experience been any different if he simply ordered from the website using an advertised plan?

atolibot

· #109 · Jan 20, 2011 (Edited)

Having been led here out of curiousity from the Wind Forums (this article is being spammed there constantly), I would have to say yes, hughs experience would have been different if he had used an official plan listed on their website. It seems to have been the root of his actual problem with Wind customer service.

Was his experience with Wind customer service horrible, hell yes. They lack proper training and never seem to be fully aware of all the current promotions and plans. When I was in purchasing my phone, a new CSR wasnt even aware of their advertised buy one get one free blackberry promotion and the customer actually had to explain it to them. BUT as it was listed on their website, he had no issues getting it. Winds biggest downfall right now is rooted directly in customer service.

The minor annoying network issues pale in comparison, and most people are giving them some lee-way as they grow. Im a pretty heavy user and I'd say I'm 90% satisfied with the service, technically speaking.

That said, I was able to walk in, buy the phone I wanted, with an advertised official plan. 25 minutes later I had a working handset and happy as a clam.

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Rockjock

· #110 · Jan 20, 2011

james99 said:
The bottom line is line: If he wasn't eligible for this plan then they shouldn't have: processed the order, sent out a phone, attempted to activate the sim card, etc.

Would his experience been any different if he simply ordered from the website using an advertised plan?

James I agree with you! lets just say for a moment you are the CSR and he explains to you what all he has been through, and tells you I want the plan that I was promised.. you do it for the customer of course OR find someone who will. Plain and simple Wind needs each and every sub they can get.

tvisforme

· #111 · Jan 20, 2011 (Edited)

Again, I think some people are missing the point: Thompson, as the voice of this site, has a responsiblility to make sure that posts reflecting the site's official position are balanced and based on a complete professional analysis, and not driven by personal frustrations. You may not think it fair that that Thompson has to meet a higher standard than those of us who only post in the forums, but it is a reality of the responsibility he has assumed through his position in the information industry. If Digital Home was merely a small-time personal blog, Thompson could write whatever he wanted and people would take it in context. That is not the case, however, and it is little different from the way in which news presenters have to be very careful when stating personal positions on issues. The fact that DH has the ability to influence an international news feed just reinforces that fact.

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james99

· #112 · Jan 20, 2011

tvisforme, the fact that he is the owner of this site and writes a monthly Globe and Mail column is a benefit to Wind Mobile IMHO (since it obviously increased the exposure of the issue).

Wind can either fix the issue (if they agree there is one) or take legal action.

His story was his experience and his experience only. I doubt anybody took away anything different.

My experience was a good one with Wind but I went in person to a store and was able to get everything done in a few minutes (the store surprisingly was empty and this was the Saturday before xmas).

Perhaps instore sales are better handled.

Rockjock

· #113 · Jan 20, 2011

tvisforme said:
Again, I think some people are missing the point: Thompson, as the voice of this site, has a responsiblility to make sure that posts reflecting the site's official position are balanced and based on a complete professional analysis, and not driven by personal frustrations. You may not think it fair that that Thompson has to meet a higher standard than those of us who only post in the forums, but it is a reality of the responsibility he has assumed through his position in the information industry. If Digital Home was merely a small-time personal blog, Thompson could write whatever he wanted and people would take it in context. That is not the case, however, and it is little different from the way in which news presenters have to be very careful when stating personal positions on issues. The fact that DH has the ability to influence an international news feed just reinforces that fact.

I do not see what the issue is here. If this was a Rogers bash you would have no issue. I think you and many others are pinning your hopes on wind and are blind to the fact that they are no better and sometimes worse than the big 3. I remember tony atop his soap box claiming they will be different no hidden fees and they will always tell you how it is. Then they stopped the roaming in a home zone so they would not have to pay rogers for the lack of network they had. Totally understandable.. I mean why should you get what you pay for?! I mean really! While the big 3 lowered the cost of a sim wind raised it.. no official reason.. lets not forget they limited the unlimited plans and but a cap on the infinite plans also. Hugh did not report on any of this? He did not touch upon how all the debt is held by a company offshore. Nor did he say how the numbers of subs is fudged each time the pitchman for wind speaks. Not a word about the sale, out sourcing, lack of handsets etc.. I think Hugh was more then honest with his experience trying to become a Windie. Of all the points what he brings up, all the short comings..all that can be picked out is why were there no pros to wind.. well maybe since he never got to be a client he could not find out. So the fault falls on Wind.
Try posting this on the Wind forums and see how quick it is deleted.

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U

· #114 · Jan 20, 2011

Wow reading this whole thread just reminds me of something my Dad always says: "You get what you pay for..."

Personally the review wouldn't stop me from considering WIND as a provider, however it would certainly weigh in... I take it for what it's worth which is someone's detailed (bad) experience dealing with WIND. As usual with anything YMMV.

BGY11

· #115 · Jan 20, 2011

While I realize that mistakes can happen with any company (we're all human after all), it's always how a company tries to resolve an issue that determines whether I will support them or not. Based on Hugh's experiences in dealing with Wind to resolve the issues he had, I would definitely give them a failing grade here. That said, I probably wouldn't use this as my only judgement in determining whether I would go with Wind or not.

Everyone is free to have their opinion on this article, but Hugh simply told it the way he saw it.

Jase88

· #116 · Jan 20, 2011

The industry as a whole here in Canada (and likely in other countries) has perhaps the worst customer service.

If they can screw up a new order for equipment and service this badly, my concern would be billing issues. I'll avoid any business that makes it very difficult to conduct business with them. Any cost savings that you may realize are cancelled out by the time and frustration spent trying to resolve issues.

g011um

· #117 · Jan 20, 2011

tvisforme said:
Again, I think some people are missing the point: Thompson, as the voice of this site, has a responsiblility to make sure that posts reflecting the site's official position are balanced and based on a complete professional analysis, and not driven by personal frustrations.

This has been said a few times, and I fail to understand it each time. Is Digital Home not his site? Isn't anything he posts the official view of the site, by virtue of it being his?

Or are you trying to state that he can't write an article unless the entire forum membership agrees with his viewpoint? Were that the case, he'd never be able to post anything. To me, the forums are not part of the site. They are ancillary; a nice place for us to discuss articles posted on the site (and he graciously allows is space to discuss other things as well).

rsambuca

· #118 · Jan 20, 2011

I really would like Hugh to respond to the question of whether or not he can see zero "pros" to Wind Mobility.

g011um

· #119 · Jan 20, 2011

james99 said:
Would his experience been any different if he simply ordered from the website using an advertised plan?

I'm inclined to say no. Fine, perhaps he wasn't supposed to be allowed to sign up for that particular plan (but they did let him!) However, the plan he selected didn't cause the problems with the SIM cards, didn't cause the CSRs (even second level support) to be inept, and didn't cause a store that should have processed a return to not process that return.

BGY11

· #120 · Jan 20, 2011

rsambuca said:
I really would like Hugh to respond to the question of whether or not he can see zero "pros" to Wind Mobility.

Based on his experience (and his experience alone), I don't see why he should be required to state something positive about Wind. Good plans or network coverage is meaningless without the ability to actually activate a phone that was shipped to him. In this case, the negatives definitely outweigh any positives he could have taken from his experience.

101 - 120 of 154 Posts

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