Mystery Caller: Cheap prepay/handset packages

Mystery Caller’s teenage nephew is back from the Middle East for the summer and needs a cheap prepay/handset package to let him contact his UK friends

6: Virgin Mobile

He then asked how many handsets I wanted to order. What? Why did he think I was placing a bulk order?

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

=4: Orange

Ian hadn’t finished his conversation in the office when he picked up the phone
and introduced himself. “Yeah yeah, I know…thank you for calling Orange”

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

=4: O2

Perhaps Michaela fell asleep in that training session, or O2 just forgot to mention it

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

3: Three

Calling again meant I had to endure the iPhone spiel once more, but at least this time I got through to the mildly more helpful Rory

Manner – 3/5
Understanding – 3/5
Knowledge – 2/5
Helpfulness – 3/5
Clarity – 3/5
Overall – 3/5
Total 16/30

2: T-Mobile

This wasn’t really what my nephew was looking for, plus she noted six weeks of school holidays wouldn’t let him take full advantage of such deals

Manner – 3/5
Understanding –4/5
Knowledge – 4/5
Helpfulness – 3/5
Clarity – 3/5
Overall – 3/5
Total – 20/30

1: Vodafone

“That way he could go for broke and not end up spending as much”

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

Summary

This was a case of two extremes. Lou at Vodafone couldn’t have been more helpful and knew the products he was o… ering like the back of his hand.

Akbar and Caris at Virgin failed miserably on all counts. They delivered little-tono information, seemed disinterested in the nature of my call and persisted to try and clinch a sale.

T-Mobile’s Chris and Nicola were the second best of the bunch and managed to deliver a half decent answer between them after bouncing my call around the office. Somewhere in the middle were Orange’s Ian, O2’s Michaela and Three’s Rory, who all let themselves down by delivering very limited answers without going into any great depth of detail.

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