Case Study: One Phone, Two Hours and a Lesson in Prevention
The one where I get in a hotspot of bother
Last week I was on a train from Dublin to Limerick. It’s a beautiful journey, made for staring out of the window as the emerald-green fields of Ireland roll by.
Not that I saw any of that, because I spent nearly the entire trip trying to get my data roaming to work with EE.
Two things before we get into this. Firstly, I don’t normally name the company, but I don’t have much choice with this as it’s fairly obvious from the screenshots. And secondly, well, this story isn’t going to end up where you think it is.
I barely use my phone as a phone. It’s more of a on-the-go router, primarily there as a hotspot for my laptop for when I’m traveling on trains, working in cafes, or my wifi isn’t working because the front of my house has been ripped off.
And it works brilliantly. Except when I’m abroad.
This train journey was one of those moments. The train wifi was predictably bad, so I went onto the hotspot, and as usual, no luck.
However, the EE app has a helpful ‘Help’ tab, with lots of options for contact. So, I tapped the tab, tapped the ‘Message Us’ link, and waited to be connected.
Nothing can quite describe the feeling of disappointment you get when you think you’re going to be speaking to a human and you realise you’re messaging a chatbot instead. It’s a feeling of deep disappointment, pre-emptive regret for the future time you know you’re about to lose, and deep breaths to control the anger that’s inevitably going to arise. Perhaps there’s a german word for it.
Anyway, my first contact was with the bot. It didn’t go great.
First, it thought I wanted to talk about my Apple Watch, telling me how to set roaming up
Next, it suggested that to fix my roaming problem (remember, I don’t have a roaming problem; I have a hotspot problem), it suggested changing my ‘spend cap’, something I don’t have
Eventually, reaching the end of its ‘I’ve scanned the FAQs’ abilities, it suggested I do the thing I’d wanted to do from the start, and speak to a human. But it couldn’t connect me to someone directly. I was going to have to phone 150 to get through.
When you phone EE, they have quite a smart system where you say what the problem is, and it sends you an SMS link to take you through to a webchat with the right team. I used to really like that. This time though, it had changed, and instead of connecting you to someone, it takes you to… a series of FAQs on the topic it thinks you want to know about.
First, it told me how to set roaming up on my phone, and was very pleased to confirm to me that data roaming was, indeed, included in my contract.
Next, it told me there were no network problems with my network at home, a distance of about 500 miles.
Finally, with me trying multiple combinations of options to try and unlock the code to speak to a person, it sent me a message with the option to get a callback. It’s fair to say this didn’t go to plan. But did end with them, suggesting I call 150 if I want to speak to someone.
By now I am, of course, apoplectic with rage. But by some miracle, I managed to find the right combination of clicks to get through to a real person on a webchat.
I’ll be honest. It didn’t start well. The first fifteen minutes was spent taking me through security, which I didn’t see as necessary to answer my first, basic question about what could be causing the issue. Luckily, as we were dipping in and out of reception, some of my more frustrated messages didn’t get through.
And my mood didn’t improve when, having eventually proved my credentials, the chap told me he was in the Billing team, was unlikely to be able to help, and that I’d probably need to call 150 to speak to the right team.
But then, rather than ending it there, he did something that seems quite rare at the moment. He took ownership. He said to me ‘you’re my customer, and I’m going to whatever I can to help’. He looked at my contract, looked at my settings, and suggested a possible fix.
You don’t have a Spend Cap in place. You won’t reach it as everything is included. But, not having one can sometimes restrict your Data Roaming services anyway. Shall we try putting one on to see if that helps?
So, we did. And:
Not all heroes wear capes.
What I find interesting about this story (and I hope you do too) isn’t the obvious ‘make it easier to contact someone’ conclusion. It’s all of the opportunities that existed to stop me having to contact someone - to save me nearly an hour of my life, and EE a lot of money - that were missed.
Firstly, yes, it’s brilliant that a human came in to rescue the day, understanding the nuance of the problem, thinking around the issue, and taking real ownership of the problem.
But the eagle eyed amongst you will spot something here. That Chatbot I spoke to right at the start? Well, it did actually suggest the spend cap solution to my problem. But the explanation wasn’t clear as to why that might be the solution, suggesting that ‘you may have a spend cap that is affecting your roaming’, whereas the actual problem was that I didn’t have one at all. And because I knew I didn’t have one, I discounted that as a possible option.
However, we can go one step further back from that, too. I’ve been with EE for years. I hotspot a lot, and I travel a lot. I suspect EE have the data that shows how much of a hotspot user I am and how much of a data roamer I am.
Spotting that pattern would have made it easy for them to be really proactive and give me an exceptional experience. John, we notice you hotspot a lot. Did you know then when you go abroad, if you don’t have a spendcap, your hotspotting may be restricted? Click here to set one up now’
If a customer needs to contact an organisation, it should be as easy as possible for them to do it. But better is making it so that they don’t have to in the first place, using everything you know about them to make their life a bit better, a bit more simple.
That’s what a great relationship really looks like.