Mystery Caller: waterproof phones

Mystery Caller is heading abroad once more, and wants to impress her Facebook friends with some underwater footage of the Great Barrier Reef. Can the networks help waterproof her camera phone?

6: T-Mobile

According to the CSA, the highest number of megapixels available on a smartphone is eight – I was shocked by her lack of basic knowledge

Manner – 4/5
Understanding – 1/5
Knowledge – 0/5
Helpfulness – 2/5
Clarity – 2/5
Overall – 2/5
Total – 11/30

5: Virgin

We ended on a rather bizarre note, with the CSA telling me that Virgin had only launched the Sony Xperia Z that week

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

4: O2

About 15 times Tony claimed O2 ‘does not have the knowledge’ to say whether the Sony Xperia Z would meet my requirements

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

3: Vodafone

Michael was just repeating information he had obtained from his colleague and didn’t know much about the phone himself

Manner – 4/5
Understanding – 3/5
Knowledge – 2/5
Helpfulness – 3/5
Clarity – 3/5
Overall – 3/5
Total – 18/30

2: Three

Richard displayed detailed knowledge when he told me I would need to start recording before I placed the phone in the water

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

1: Orange

Mark at EE happened to be a ‘photographer by trade’ as well as a CSA, which gave him an instant advantage over the others

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

Summary

Quite a low-scoring Mystery Caller this issue, with T-Mobile and Virgin doing particularly badly owing to their CSAs’ lack of knowledge.

Tony at O2 was lucky to come as high as fourth, with his insistence that I contact Sony becoming more annoying each time he said it.

Having said that, most of the CSAs weren’t sure just how waterproof the Sony Xperia Z – the most recommended handset by default – is.

Michael at Vodafone seemed to have a decent general knowledge of handsets, but didn’t know too much about the Xperia Z, which he was trying to sell me.

This is why Three and Orange’s CSAs stood out – they both displayed a specialist knowledge of the handset and fed the information through to me with clarity.

Full article in Mobile News issue 543 (July 15, 2013).

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