Mystery Caller: Mobile broadband

6: Virgin Mobile

Virgin doesn’t have hold music. It just plugs its services in a series of ads. Shame it couldn’t live up to its standards here

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

5: T-Mobile

Under pressure, I thanked Dana for the offer and declined. She had gone from being an excellent adviser to a pushy salesperson in moments

Manner – 3/5
Understanding – 4/5
Knowledge – 4/5
Helpfulness – 3/5
Clarity – 3/5
Overall – 4/5
Total – 21/30

4: 3

Hang on Lee, I’m a student and not an internet addict, and I certainly don’t want that much internet for the next 18 months of my life

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

3: O2

As a CSA he was very friendly, chatty and helpful. Unfortunately, O2 could not deliver what I needed

Manner – 5/5
Understanding – 5/5
Knowledge – 4/5
Helpfulness – 4/5
Clarity – 4/5
Overall – 2/5
Total 24/30

2: Vodafone

I had the postcode checked and was assured there was full coverage in that area. Plus, I had a seven-day cooling off period. Good, good

Manner – 5/5
Understanding – 4/5
Knowledge – 4/5
Helpfulness – 3/5
Clarity – 5/5
Overall – 4/5
Total – 25/30

1: Orange

I left the conversation feeling informed and confident but was surprised that Paul didn’t try to sell me a package

Manner – 5/5
Understanding – 5/5
Knowledge – 4/5
Helpfulness – 5/5
Clarity – 5/5
Overall – 4/5
Total – 28/30

Summary

Most of the networks coped fairly well with my questions and so Virgin stood out as the worst simply due to its lack of knowledge on what should have been a fairly straightforward topic.

T-Mobile and Vodafone were the most sales driven, but on customer service skills alone, Paul from Orange stood out.

He gave the most comprehensive and balanced knowledge and rather than bombarding me with a sales spiel of all the packages available, he followed up my request with a recommendation for a tailored package which was exactly the right approach.

Full review in Mobile News issue 457 (February 15, 2010).

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