Mystery Caller: Prepay handset under £100

Mystery Caller has £100 and is looking for the best prepay handset for that price. Each family member is on a different network, so he is also after a deal that includes a sufficient number of cross-network monthly minutes

6: Orange

Mark then asked: “So what do you need to know then?” His rudeness had sunk to new depths

Manner – 0/5
Understanding – 1/5
Knowledge – 2/5
Helpfulness – 2/5
Clarity – 1/5
Overall – 2/5
Total – 8/30

5: Vodafone

Tony was throwing phones at me. The average consumer would have been bamboozled

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

4: Virgin Mobile

“I can recommend one of our great phones, the Nokia C2-02,” she said. I’m still not sure what made this phone greater than any other

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

3: T-Mobile

There were more pauses, which I’m guessing were the result of her having to wait for the T-Mobile website to load

Manner –3/5
Understanding – 3/5
Knowledge – 1/5
Helpfulness – 3/5
Clarity – 3/5
Overall – 2/5
Total – 15/30

2: O2

Backa was quick to direct me to the O2 website if I had any additional queries in the meantime. Classic Mystery Caller

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

1: Three

Laura said this was the recommended choice for an Android device as I would be downloading a lot of apps. This was getting better all the time

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

Summary

Only two of the networks truly shone this week, which was hugely disappointing considering how straightforward this scenario was.

Orange easily finished bottom, which was down to Mark’s completely negative attitude and utter rudeness. For some reason Tony at Vodafone seemed to take ages to grasp the point of my call and while Virgin performed better this week, Grace recommended handsets that weren’t near my budget of £100.

The T-Mobile CSA was too hesitant and vague when it came to details, and Backa from O2 was solid until he was stumped on handset specs. It was Three’s Laura that put in a flawless performance, presenting everything in an easy-to-understand fashion and in doing so perfectly meeting my needs.

Full review in Mobile News issue 505 (January 16, 2011).