Stories from the front - An amusing tale of phone support

You guessed it. This is not a sales blog, nor is it meant to be a 'oh woe is me' blog. I am being as impartial as I can in the hope that we can all learn from this digital experience about what not to do when people hit the last straw and call customer support.

Just to be clear, my ideal outcome is that Lyca mobile will manage their brand and fix their processes so that I can avoid calling them disLyca mobile and moving my business and telling anyone and everyone whom I can share this story about my experience.

So the story started on a cold winters day in Switzerland. (Hey... it's a hard life...) I was on the All in one 15 plan in Britain, and I needed to be on an EU roaming plan. I called up support on the phone, and they told me that the All in one 15 plan was not suitable for roaming in the EU. Fair enough. £15 buys you "Hello this is..." generally on a normal roaming plan, if you are receiving a phone call.

So for £35 a month, I can roam unlimited all over the EU, with unlimited calls. Yep. Sign me up baby. You'll lose half a month's worth of plan, but you know what? I can live with that. £7.50 isn't that much, and I've been happy with the service so far. Why waste my time complaining?

"And for a while, it was good." I have to say, the network service was great, everyone was hearing me well, I was getting reception, except for bits and bobs on the train. Fair enough. For what I'm paying, this really was great. Amazingly so. I Lyca mobile!

Then poetic justice struck. Uncle Murphy, were you listening? Last Friday the 13th, at 3:25pm, I was cut off! Struck down by the dark side of bad customer service...

I was in the middle of a conference call to a bridge number in Switzerland, and I got disconnected. Huh. That's not happened before.

I redialed, and I got a cryptic message in German. "Diese nummer ist ungültig." (This number is invalid).

Umm.... no it's not. I was just on. Did something happen to my bundle?

I checked my bundle. It was active, unlimited, unlimited, and my old All in one 15 plan was still active as I had just moved. Huh. Everything OK.

On to dial Lyca Mobile support. "Diese nummer ist ungültig."

What? Oh boy... Oh well, I'll call the Swiss number.

After calling twice, they kept telling me to call the UK number. Um, but I can't call the UK number. It says it's invalid. At this point an angry phone support person told me that Lyca Mobile (Switzerland) is not Lyca Mobile (UK). I'll let the anger slide. Those phone support guys have a high rate of defenestration. I think all of them should be put on suicide watch with what they need to deal with. The plot thickens.

By this time, it was 6pm on Friday. I was still receiving calls on my phone to my UK number, and I was puzzled. What the dickens is going on?

I called UK support from my landline. Still couldn't get through. So I sent a message through their site:

Hi,

Name : Mr. Bayani Portier

Email : ####@#####.com

Lycamobile number : #######

Other Phone : #######

Enquiry Type : Customer Service - network/service problems only

Enquiry : Unable to make calls on my phone despite my plan being valid.

Thanks

I received this:

Dear Bayani, 

Thank you for your email.

                     

Further to your email, please be informed that the Bundle allowances given for the ALL IN ONE 15 plan cannot be used while the sim card is on International Roaming in Switzerland.

Also we could see that you have successfully latched to our local roaming network in Switzerland and you have been successfully using the bundle allowances of the EU PLUS.

Hence we can confirm that there is no discrepancy from our end. We suggest you to check the call history by logging on to my lycamobileaccount.

                            

Feel free to contact us if you have any question or need any help.

Alternatively you can contact our Customer Care Team on 322* from your Lycamobile or by dialling 0207 132 0322** and we will be happy to assist you.  We are open Monday-Friday 8am -8pm GMT, Saturday and Sunday 9am -6pm GMT.  

Call the world for Less!

Kind regards

Stalin Anthony

Lycamobile Customer Care

Um... OK. What am I missing here? Yes, fabulous. I know that my all in one 15 plan is not for EU roaming. I have been successfully using my EU Plus. What gives? Tried calling support again from my phone. Nope. Doesn't work. Tried calling from my landline in Switzerland. Nope. Doesn't work.

OK, time to send a response by email this time, and I do have to say, it felt pretty awesome to be able to address it to Stalin. Life seems to resemble a hollywood movie for me more often than not.

Dear Stalin,

This response is not appropriate for my situation. 

I had originally bought the All in one plan on the understanding and recommendation from Lyca Mobile staff that this would work for my situation which was explained. It did not function when I roamed to Switzerland, and was informed that I needed the EU PLUS plan, which I dutifully signed up for. Please note, that my All in one plan overlapped with my EU PLUS plan, meaning that I've in fact paid twice for a service that I am not receiving.

Can I get a clear direction or resolution please???

My plan was working, everything was functional, until as of 3:25pm on Friday. 

Resolve this situation, or I will engage the telecommunications ombudsman, as I am not receiving the service that I have overpaid for.

Best regards,

Bayani Portier

Yes, the ombudsman. Interesting. The UK ombudsman operates a bit different from the Australian Telecommunications ombudsman. Apparently, I need a letter of deadlock before they get involved.

I asked them for this on these occasions:

Jan 14th 7:09 PM (GMT + 1:00)

Dear Lycamobile,

If my complaint cannot be resolved, I am officially requesting a letter of deadlock.

Best regards,

Bayani Portier

Jan 15th 4:22 PM (GMT + 1:00)

Hi,

I quote reference number 52613121.

As I have stated previously, I am unable to make phone calls from Switzlerand on my EU Roaming Plan. I should be able to do so on the EU roaming plan as it is still active.

My previous All in one 15 plan, which was originally missold to me as being able to make calls from other EU countries has on top of everything been autorenewed.

Thus, I have two active bundles at the same time, which the All in One 15 was being drawn on when I was in the UK, rather than the EU all you can eat plan.

What I want:

1. Please immediately remove the All in one 15 plan and restore my service. It has been inactive since Friday, or refund my money.

2. Refund my money for this month of the All in one 15 plan.

If you are unable or unwilling to do one or both, please immediately provide me with a letter of deadlock so that I can take this up with the ombudsman. 

This is an entirely unacceptable situation. I reported this on Friday, and no action has been taken. If I do not hear back immediately, I will need to take my business elsewhere and will be aggressively sharing my experience on social media channels.

This is an extremely poor customer experience.

Jan 16th 9:30 AM (GMT + 1:00)

Hi,

I want a letter of deadlock, as the service was advertised as unlimited, but only is 1000 minutes. This is twice the amount of the lower plan and is a bait and switch tactic. 

This has caused all sorts of issues for me. If I had known it was only 1000 minutes I would have made alternative arrangements. 

This is not right. 

No letter of deadlock, but I did get a volley of emails such as:

Dear Bayani,

We apologize for the inconvenience caused.

Further to your email, we could see that the allowances of the EU plus bundle are used successfully in Switzerland.  If you face any issues in using the international minute’s allowances of the EU plus bundle, please help us with the details below so that we can escalate to concerned department for investigation.

Destination number (sample numbers that you called): 

Where you able to call this number before:  

Dialling format you are using: 

Error message while making call : 

Handset model : 

Exact DATE and TIME of the problem? : 

Location and Post code: 

Feel free to contact us if you have any question or need any help.

Alternatively you can contact our Customer Care Team on 322* from your Lycamobile or by dialling 0207 132 0322** and we will be happy to assist you.  We are open Monday-Friday 8am -8pm GMT, Saturday and Sunday 9am -6pm GMT.  

Call the world for Less!

Kind regards

Jeganath Jayaraman

Lycamobile Customer Care

And

Dear Bayani,

Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Further to your email, we could see that you have registered your Lycamobile number (#######) on the 1^st January 2017. The purpose of registering the Lycamobile number is to manage the Lycamobile account online. When you register the mobile number an online login password will be sent to your registered email address provided at the time of registration.

If you have not received the online login password, we suggest you to use the forgotten password option at https://account.lycamobile.co.uk/login.aspx?lang=EN&affiliatedcode=0  to reset the password. You will be asked to enter the ICCID number (19 digits on SIM card) and the date of birth while resetting the password.

Please enter the date of birth in format MM/DD/YYYY. Please let us know if you still face any issues in using the password. The Password will be sent to your mobile number and also as an email to your registered email address.

Note: Online password sent is case sensitive. You can change the password after logging in your account details.

Alternatively please help us with the security details below to assist you with the password.

SIM number (19 digit number on the SIM card):

Date of birth (as registered):

Feel free to contact us if you have any question or need any help.

Alternatively you can contact our Customer Care Team on 322* from your Lycamobile or by dialling 0207 132 0322** and we will be happy to assist you.  We are open Monday-Friday 8am -8pm GMT, Saturday and Sunday 9am -6pm GMT.  

Call the world for Less!

Kind regards

Jeganath Jayaraman

Lycamobile Customer Care

www.lycamobile.co.uk

But here's the real kicker, and this is where we are at today:

 Dear Bayani,

We are extremely sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Please ignore the previous email from our end.Further to your email, please be informed that the issue has been forwarded to our concern department in order to check and update the details and the same will be completed within 72 business hours. Once we receive an update we will update you at the earliest. Feel free to contact us if you have any question or need any help, please email us at cs@lycamobile.co.uk . Alternatively you can contact our Customer Care Team on 322* from your Lycamobile or by dialling 0207 132 0322** and we will be happy to assist you.  We are open Monday-Friday 8am -8pm GMT, Saturday and Sunday 9am -6pm GMT.   Call the world for Less ! Kind regardsHina FathimaLycamobile Customer Care

Brilliant. So am I to understand that "Customer Service" has outsourced "Customer Care", which has outsourced "Customer Concern" into a different silo? I need some aspirin.

But I do have to say, this is really good too:

Further to your email, we could see that the allowances of the EU plus bundle are used successfully in Switzerland.  If you face any issues in using the international minute’s allowances of the EU plus bundle, please help us with the details below so that we can escalate to concerned department for investigation.

What I interpreted was that I had successfully latched on to the EU plus bundle, and that everything was all hunky dorey. Keep on using the service! duh...

What they actually meant, but didn't express was "you have exceeded our 'fair use policy' of 1000 minutes." Now that's a whole new discussion around what is meant by "all you can eat", which can be found here. (
http://rantingaboutdigital.blogspot.com/2017/01/when-unlimited-collides-with-unfair-use.html)

So going by the dialogues, does Lyca mobile think that apologies matter when the Service department no longer has "Care" in their dictionary, of which the Care department no longer has the word "Concern" in theirs?

Never mind, Lycamobile customer "Care" is:

We are extremely sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Please ignore the previous email from our end.

A friend of mine today told me a story about what he told his daughter. He said that she says sorry for everything, and just thinks it's the end of the matter. She thinks that saying sorry is a free pass to do whatever you like.

He told her, take a plate, and smash it on the ground. Now say sorry to the plate. Does the plate care?

By that logic there are a lot of apologies at Greek weddings.

I have a slightly different analogy. Imagine if you accidently hit me in the face. You know, it happens. "I'm sorry!". Ok, you didn't mean it.

A few minutes later, you hit me in the face again! "I'm sorry." OK, now I'm getting annoyed.

A few minutes later, you hit me in the face again! "I'm extremely sorry." Yeah, this is a trend, not an incident. Do you enjoy hitting me in the face?

Apparently this is a higher level of sorry. My plate is still broken, and again, I feel like I have been punched in the face. Oh well. Turn the other cheek and all that. You can't blame the individual, and the organization always has these sorts of things. Careful though, as we have fallen foul of a thought terminator.

So let's talk in flow diagrams what has happened here. This is my personal perception of reality. I'm surely hoping you won't find it in any internal company material.

Here are my thoughts on how this could be done better:
1. Don't come back with "we have investigated, and your problem is solved"
The problem is rarely solved just by itself. If you have done nothing, state you have done nothing, and you are escalating. At the very least, ask if the problem was solved, and react to it.

2. Continuance in the discussion
It is painfully obvious that no-one knows what is going on, or what has been said previously.
- Try to keep the same people answering the same messages - expensive I know, but this is the best answer. Surely you don't get so many complaints that you have that much to do?
- At least read the paper trail in the email. Better yet, have a good CRM that empowers your support staff to effectively treat the problem.

3. DO NOT EXPORT RISK AND RESPONSIBILITY
This one I can't emphasize enough. Every department says it's 'not their problem'. Yes it is. It is "everyone's" problem. Take ownership and bring solutions.

I will keep updating this page with what happens next. I am really looking forward to how "customer concern" and above responds at Lyca.

If anyone out there on the interwebs has experienced something similar, then please, add comments, pass this post and it's "all you can eat" (
http://rantingaboutdigital.blogspot.com/2017/01/when-unlimited-collides-with-unfair-use.html) cousin along with it.

So here is my open letter:

Dear Lycamobile,

your network and price are fabulous. Fix your customer service and you are a true market disruptor.

Are you willing to do the right thing by me?

Sincerely,

Your Customer

When Unlimited collides with (un)fair use policies

"No sir, please, don't take the steam tray!"

Mmmmmm..... All you can eat. Thank you USA for bringing this concept to dining, as it has changed the landscape for most services, including telco's.

This article shows us all some lessons we can learn about when a mechanism for reasonable consumption can not only fatally erode customer goodwill, but also begin to breach such basic principles as bait and switch laws.

This is a bit of a story, so settle down with your coffee and stay away from sharp objects if you are the empathetic kind. Especially don't read this post. (http://rantingaboutdigital.blogspot.com/2017/01/stories-from-front-amusing-tale-of.html)

At the end, I will talk about how this situation works in the digital world, and the importance of such basic principles such as transparency, and how the word "reasonable" is an expression that simply causes division and unmet expectations.

So on with the story. Bring in Lyca Mobile. You know what? For the price, they are a pretty good network. For service, well, let me share an experience I just had with you.

I was working as a consultant in London, and have passed my phone number on to many clients. For personal reasons, I am moving back to Switzerland, and my employer is kind enough to enable that for me.

Now to my phone. I have options. I can keep my number in Britain and still call from Switzerland, and enter the "Roaming Empire" with a normal provider, or I could take up Lyca Mobile with this fantastic offer!

Being Swiss, I did my homework. (Note screenshots were taken on Tuesday 11th of January, 2017. I suspect this will change shortly after publishing)

http://www.lycamobile.co.uk/en/bundles

Wow, great deal. Let's see the details!

Fabulous! Exactly what I need!

Plus roaming from WHERE?!? OK... Sold! And hey! Website of the year 2016! How can I lose?!?

Trust me, there are no cookies.

Well, after experiencing not being able to dial out, I decided to phone support. As it's a long story, you can find it here. (http://rantingaboutdigital.blogspot.com/2017/01/stories-from-front-amusing-tale-of.html)

In summary, what came out was that I had "used up" my unlimited plan. Umm... isn't it all you can eat?

 =

No?

Sadly, no. Apparently, all you can eat, means you get 1000 minutes of calls. In the voice of the sea captain: Time for the goons, Aaaar!

Further to your email, we could see that the allowances of the EU plus bundle are used successfully in Switzerland.  If you face any issues in using the international minute’s allowances of the EU plus bundle, please help us with the details below so that we can escalate to concerned department for investigation.(excerpt from full email shown here.)

Craftily, the 1000 minutes was only declared verbally, but when you know this, the statement makes sense.

So. We have a case of all you can eat, not being all you can eat. When I order, I place trust and faith in you to provide me with what I'm looking for. If I have a misconception on the service this is the time to call it out.

When I saw the ad, and spoke to a human customer service salesman, I came to the logical conclusion that all you can eat, means I am same to imagine all you can eat shrimp!

 = 

In reality, this is what Lyca Mobile sees:

 = 

Bit of a difference. Nicely presented, still great value, tasty when you eat it, but you know what? If this is the deal, then why when I check my balance, do I see this?

Apparently, "Unlimited"/"Unlimited" is "Contradictionary".

What... "Contradictionary" is a perfectly "Cromulent" word.

Contradictionary (n) Where the actual meaning is the complete opposite to what is defined in the dictionary.

cromulent. adjective. Appearing legitimate but actually being spurious : These citations are indeed cromulent. [a word used by the schoolteacher, Miss Hoover, in an episode of The Simpsons, in which she defended one made-up word by making up another] http://www.dictionary.com/browse/cromulent

Yeah, so I have unlimited left, right? Even if I'm being unfair to Lycamobile? We'll talk about what's fair shortly.

If I am being unreasonable, at best, this is mystery dining. It's not transparent at all.

Am I eating shrimp? How much shrimp do I get? Have I finished my shrimp? Am I in fact eating Shroedinger's cat?

Who knows? I may be, and may not be at the same time!

If I know what's going on, and it's communicated to me, you are managing my expectations. You are managing what's fair.

Inescapably the judges of what's fair and what's not, lays with your customer. Why? You always want to provide your service. Your customer is the limiting factor to your business growth. Anything else is simply short term thinking. And to those of you out there who believe that short term thinking is the right way to go, as in the long term we're all dead anyway... those who think short term tend to not be around in the long term. We are discovering that as a society now, but that's a different story.

I would love to hear what's fair and what's not from my dear readers. Is 1000 minutes at £35 a month, as a hard "fair use" policy fair? Is it fair to cut you off cold turkey, with no explanation whatsoever, especially when you have received advice from their bundle people?

Tell me, at what point does a "Fair Use Policy" become an "Unfair Use Policy"? Look, I get it. You can't give away the farm, and nor should you. I want to pay you what the service is worth, because I want you in business next month, next year, in fact as long as I need a phone and my other connected to the internet.

(And as a consultant, you can take my connected devices of my cold, dead hands.)

In fact, when does it really become a bait and switch? My perception is that I have unlimited calls to anywhere, from anywhere, in the list of countries shown. The reality is I have 1000 minutes, with no messaging. Even support seems to have the dickens confused out of them.

Am I buying a new Rolex, or a "mostly new" watch?

Why the deception? Aren't you confident enough that you products will sell on their own merits?

Well, Lycamobile, the ball is in your court now. The reason why I thought I would invest all of this time, is because at least somebody in Lyca invested a lot of time to get a product to us that does work, and does deliver value. Surely, this is just a mistake, and when the right person sees it, it will be rectified.

The Simpson's had a happy ending. The sea captain had a new promotion to bring in customers, Homer allegedly ate twice his weight in shrimp. Only Marge had to suffer public humiliation.

I wouldn't mind if this were my outcome, although I'm sure that my poor long suffering wife will relate to Marge as she cringes again while I follow my never ending trend of not taking bad customer service without talking publicly about what we can all learn from it.