Mystery Caller: Push email

6: Virgin Mobile

“Are you looking for something on pay monthly?” Well, yes I am, like I said before. “Alrighty”, he said, like he was Ned Flanders from The Simpsons

Manner – 2/5
Understanding – 1/5
Knowledge – 1/5
Helpfulness – 1/5
Clarity – 1/5
Overall – 1/5
Total – 7/30

5: Orange

“Everything I told you before.” What? She had been babbling on about prepay before. I had made in clear always my interest is in contract email

Manner – 2/5
Understanding – 2/5
Knowledge – 2/5
Helpfulness – 2/5
Clarity – 2/5
Overall – 2/5
Total – 12/30

4: O2

All that for £30 seemed pretty good but Ayub had so far neglected to reveal one major piece of information. “You’ll have to pay an extra £5 for the unlimited bolt-on”

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

3: Vodafone

I got the feeling Ed was keen on small talk but I wasn’t in the mood for this after taking so long and trying so hard to find an answer

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

2: 3

That would bring my monthly charge to £23 a month, still well below what I was prepared to spend

Manner – 4/5
Understanding – 3/5
Knowledge – 3/5
Helpfulness – 3/5
Clarity – 3/5
Overall – 3/5
Total – 19/30

1: T-Mobile

When I said the whole push email thing was alien to me, he said: “Okay, no worries. We have a budget to work with so that helps a lot”

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

Summary

This wasn’t really an overly difficult enquiry and most of the networks should have done better. For some reason, Virgin’s Anna didn’t understand what I was asking about and Orange’s CSA wasted too much time on information I didn’t need.

Ayub at O2 seemed uncertain for a lot of the call and had a habit of springing nasty surprises. Ed at Vodafone was too informal. Louise put in a solid shift but was convinced all 3’s phones offered push email. T-Mobile was by far the best performer here, with Shaun’s a really decent performance.

Full review in Mobile News issue 460 (March 29, 2010).

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