Mystery Caller: roaming rates

Holiday season is upon us and Mystery Caller is jetting off to Egypt. We know the networks can handle European roaming enquiries, but how much do they know about ‘rest of the world’ rates?

6: Virgin

David’s performance left a lot to be desired – he didn’t know anything and he was rude too

Manner – 2/5
Understanding – 3/5
Knowledge – 2/5
Helpfulness – 2/5
Clarity – 2/5
Overall – 2/5
Total – 13/30

5: Orange

Namir was an expert in turning off data roaming on my device, so it’s a shame he was so unhelpful when it came to tariffs

Manner – 3/5
Understanding – 2/5
Knowledge – 2/5
Helpfulness – 2/5
Clarity – 3/5
Overall – 2/5
Total – 14/30

4: O2

The first CSA I spoke to was clueless – O2 would have done much better if I had got straight through to the second CSA, Stacy

Manner – 3/5
Understanding – 3/5
Knowledge – 2/5
Helpfulness – 3/5
Clarity – 3/5
Overall – 3/5
Total – 17/30

3: Vodafone

Ben gave the impression he didn’t know what he was doing – this was confirmed by his audible relief when his computer system came up with some answers

Manner – 4/5
Understanding – 3/5
Knowledge – 3/5
Helpfulness – 4/5
Clarity – 4/5
Overall – 4/5
Total – 22/30

2: T-Mobile

Jo told me data roaming on T-Mobile is a ‘little cheaper’ than on EE, but the figures she then gave me didn’t support this statement

Manner – 4/5
Understanding – 4/5
Knowledge – 3/5
Helpfulness – 4/5
Clarity – 4/5
Overall – 4/5
Total – 23/30

1: Three

Heather was keen to help me and her knowledge was very good too – just a shame Three is so expensive from Egypt

Manner – 5/5
Understanding – 5/5
Knowledge – 4/5
Helpfulness – 4/5
Clarity – 4/5
Overall – 4/5
Total – 26/30

Summary

Mystery Caller was shocked by some of the data roaming tariffs for Egypt, which were never going to be an easy sell for the networks.

However, some were better than others at handling my request, with Orange and O2 CSAs passing me on and not bothering to hide their unwillingness to help me.

They were beaten into sixth place by Virgin’s CSA David, who just didn’t know very much at all.

Vodafone and O2 put in decent performances, with the latter being let down by an unnamed CSA who fed me incorrect information.

Both Jo at T-Mobile and Heather at Three were very enthusiastic to help me, and matched this with high levels of knowledge.

Full article in Mobile News issue 542 (July 1, 2013).

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