Why Wind Mobile lost two customers today

Final Entry: January 22nd

After work last night, my wife took the phone to a Wind Mobile store at Yonge and Dundas. After waiting for 10 to 15 minutes, my wife spoke to a clerk.

After explaining the situation, the clerk refused to issue my wife a refund. He essentially said that he could only issue refunds on phones that were sold in that store and that she would have to take it back to the store that she bought it at.

Once again, my wife explained that it was bought through the toll free number and that we had been told numerous times by Wind Mobile staff to go to a Wind Mobile store to return it.

The clerk called over the supervisor who told her essentially the same thing. Needless to say, my wife was not pleased and explained that we had been directed to a store blah, blah, blah.

At this point the supervisor or store manager decided they would call the Wind Mobile regional manager. <sigh>.

Once the store manager explained the situation to the regional manager, the regional manager asked the manager if he had read his email. The store staff then checked their email. They had received an email saying that if I showed up asking for a refund, that I was to get it.

In summary, the store refused a refund on the phone. A store that was, "once again" not a "take-out" store and a "corporate store." We were forced to escalate the refund through a supervisor and a regional manager and it appears, the only reason my wife got a refund was this forum thread.

A fitting end to a miserable story.

Schooling Wind Mobile on ITIL - here's a freebie

This entire saga is completely down to poor customer service procedures within Wind Mobile.

hugh said:

Once the store manager explained the situation to the regional manager, the regional manager asked the manager if he had read his email. The store staff then checked their email. They had received an email saying that if I showed up asking for a refund, that I was to get it.

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A proper ITIL-based system would never involve email in that manner! The ITIL app (there are several excellent ones on the market such as BMC Remedy and HEAT.) contains the entire work flow through the complete customer service cycle, cradle to grave, and does not allow an end-run like the email from the regional manager, which was clearly ignored or just not seen.

In a proper ITIL-based system the original trouble ticket in this entire sorry tale would never be lost, nor would a new one be opened anywhere along the line. It would change and morph through escalations, attempted closings, etc. because all transactions would be part of that original ticket's history. Everyone at every level would have the authority to escalate the ticket or flag it as urgent, bumping it to an appropriate place in the queue as has been planned and implemented. Documents, scans of them, faxes, emails, etc. etc. are easily embedded in the trouble ticket, with each level having authority matched to their ability to solve the problem(s) and/or escalate. An ITIL-based system is "knowledge management".

The regional manager would have had authority to flag Hugh's original ticket to the highest priority, and no CSR would ever be able to claim that they had no knowledge of the latest status of it. Even if the lowly front line CSR could not be of immediate help, the ticket would include the steps to be taken.

ITIL-based systems cannot be bought and rolled out in a preset configuration. A workflow analysis must be conducted first by a qualified professional who should also be around for a year or so of overlap once the app is configured/customized in order to match the workflow so that the system is adapted to best suit the situations at hand.

It's up to you to roll it out now, Wind. Any more of these very public customer service fiascos and your company will probably not survive the backlash.

tvisforme said:

Rockjock, again, it's not about defending Wind. In fact, if you look at some of the strongest complaints against Hugh's post, they all make it clear that the treatment he received was not acceptable. The problem is in the way Hugh's post - as an official statement on behalf of the site - is unbalanced. If he had simply described his experience and positioned it as his personal bad experience with Wind, this might not have been an issue. His calling it a "review" (which, in the public's mind, suggests an actual assessment of the product), his positioning it as an official recommendation from the site, the complete lack of any assessment of the actual telephone and data service, the fact that DH gets picked up by international news feeds - all of that is what made the post inappropriate.

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I respectfully disagree. I did not take it as a review, nor would anyone that read it IMO. I took it as his personal experience. His facts were correct and his assessment fair. He could not comment about the service as they did not give him any. I do honestly think the pro windies are more hurt by his honest account of how he was treated and if this was a Big 3 post no one would care. His post was linked on the Wind site and the usual answers were given, troll, lies, how could this be true, shut him up, shut him down and then when people would side with him they promptly deleted it.

Having been with all the the big 3 over the years, Wind in Europe and here in Canada, Vodafone O2 eplus t-mobile.. I can say I never have had so much trouble as when I was with Wind here in Canada. But that is just me. I expected my handset to work. Silly me.

Hugh you are dong a great job!

TorontoColin said:

Anyone who reads the review enough to see him recommend against Wind will see that he didn't actually review Wind service.

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No, actually, they wouldn't; he does summarize his experience, but at no point does it suggest he would not be assessing the phone or data service, which is what one would expect a review of a cellular company to do.

TorontoColin said:

Also, I'm not sure what relevance the international news feeds have, as Wind is only trying to sell service in Canada.

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Influencing Google's search results is very relevant, as a Google search is someting that many, many Canadians are likely to do when researching a change in mobile providers. Moreover, it further demonstrates the influence the site has, and as such also stands as yet another reason why the site's owner needs to separate articles presented as professional reviews (which implies a full assessment of the product) from personal experiences. Again, note that most of the strong reactions to Hugh's review are careful to make the point that they are surprised that Hugh would have done this; if peopl (myself included) did not respect him or his site, they would not have been so astonished by his post.

I will echo stampeder's opinion about Wind needing to implement a good ITIL-based solution. E-mail is not the best form of communication when it comes to dealing with multiple parties, as e-mails can get lost/not read/etc. With a centralized ticketing system, everyone would have at least read access to see what the status of a case is. The fact this would also unify ticket numbers (something Hugh touched on in his review) is another major benefit.

Wind needs to realize just how many people they are supporting. Until they realize that and implement an effective support solution, incidents like Hugh's will become more and more common as time goes on. Yes, there are a lot of happy customers (just like there are in any company). The true test of a company however, is how they deal with issues when they occur. This is where Wind is failing right now.

jshel101 said:

Telus, Rogers, and Bell have more complaints than Wind ever gets on HOFO. So this does not mean anything regarding their customer service. I myself was not defending Wind, I was merely telling my side of the story on how good their customer service has been to me. Anyway, if you are the same Rockjock from the Wind forums (back before they launched), then you have always been against Wind, before they their service was ever tested.

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Yes I am he, but before they launched I was pro wind. Hoping they would be like their sister companies in Italy and Greece. Then asking questions and not getting answers. The longer I stuck with wind the more I saw the problems. 6 months and the same first of the month madness, the issues with home zone roaming.. there really is quite a list. I even had the round table talks at coffee shops all over the city. People from the big 3 and wind mobli public would get together and talk and give ideas etc.. ahuh same bloke.

I also got flack for asking questions, making comments etc.. reminding people what Wind said they would do and what they have done..

But you are correct the big 3 have more complaints than wind.. but wind is rapidly making up for it. But I fully expect someone to reach out.. Rome was not built in a day, the customer decides with their wallets, and a few other catch phrases that wind put out. Yes I am the same one.

tvisforme said:

Influencing Google's search results is very relevant, as a Google search is someting that many, many Canadians are likely to do when researching a change in mobile providers. Moreover, it further demonstrates the influence the site has, and as such also stands as yet another reason why the site's owner needs to separate articles presented as professional reviews (which implies a full assessment of the product) from personal experiences.

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So because Wind and it's employees sucked so bad that Hugh wasn't able to get service from them, he shouldn't have been allowed to write his article? He's only allowed to review their service? I read his article as a review of the company.

With respect to separating personal experiences, I dare you to find a single review of any product or service that isn't someone's personal experience. When CNet editors review a piece of tech, for example, they report how well they perceived the product did in certain tests, how easy or hard they thought it was to use, how they feel it compares to similar products. It's 100% personal experience. That's why review from different organizations differ.

And of course Hugh's article should appear in Google. At the top of the search results I hope. Yes-men, fanboys and shills are not lacking on the Internet. Any review that is 5/5 or 10/10 is suspect for me. A negative review is far more interesting in my opinion, and far more useful in helping me make a decision -- what are the problems? do I think I might encounter the same, or am I in a different situation? -- those questions are only answered by reviews like Hugh's, not the glowing praise of the marketing and PR department.

Would I consider Wind if they were available in my area? Perhaps, but I'd approach them as a much more informed consumer having read Hugh's article and the experiences he reported in this thread.

g011um said:

So because Wind and it's employees sucked so bad that Hugh wasn't able to get service from them, he shouldn't have been allowed to write his article? He's only allowed to review their service? I read his article as a review of the company.

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The notion that he's not "allowed" to write is a red herring; who has said that? Equally off the mark is the crazy idea that those who are taking issue with his opinion piece think that he is expected to only write positive statements. It is the unbalanced and incomplete nature of the piece that is the problem. I agree with you that a "review" that is fluffy, sweet, and full of superlatives is of no value to the consumer. However, it also does the consumer no good to have a respected site mislabel a piece as a review when it clearly is not. If a reviewer is going to recommend against using a particular service, I expect them to actually use the service, to fairly assess the quality of the service, and so on. If they were unable to use the service, or if they have problems with trying to get the service, fine, write a piece saying that they were unable to review the service because of x, y, and z. Where it crossed the line - in my opinion, and apparently in the minds of several other people - was in still calling it a review, and in attaching an official "do not use" recommendation.

tvisforme said:

The notion that he's not "allowed" to write is a red herring; who has said that?

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It seemed to me that you as much did. Fine, take the word "allowed" out -- So because Wind and it's employees sucked so bad that Hugh wasn't able to get service from them, he shouldn't have written his article?

If a reviewer is going to recommend against using a particular service, I expect them to actually use the service, to fairly assess the quality of the service, and so on. If they were unable to use the service, or if they have problems with trying to get the service, fine, write a piece saying that they were unable to review the service because of x, y, and z.

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I think we're looking at the article differently. I didn't see it as a review of Wind's service (customer service maybe). I saw it as a review of Wind, and his recommendation being to stay away from the company. Their cellular service may be fine, but the company is horrible to deal with. If he ever gets a phone to work on their network, I'd bet he would then write a review of their cellular service.

Where it crossed the line - in my opinion, and apparently in the minds of several other people - was in still calling it a review, and in attaching an official "do not use" recommendation.

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Would it make everyone feel better if he had called it an "opinion piece" instead of a review (although I personally don't see the difference, other than semantics)? The end result would still have been his recommendation to stay away from Wind. And I'll echo my previous comments from this thread; everything he writes, whether a "review" or not, is the official viewpoint of this site, because it his site. It's nice he lets us hang out here in the forum, but our voice really means nothing.