honestlyreal

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A little end-of-contract feedback for O2

…after about ten years as a pay-monthly customer.

Things you could have done better

1. When my contract came up for renewal at the end of last year, you might have let me know. Obviously, I’m a grown-up and could have kept track of the date myself, but it would have a) given you an opportunity to transfer me to a nice new lucrative contract, and b) not made me feel five months later that I was still paying top whack for what was now a very uncompetitive contract and a handset at the end of its life.

2. Remember that bollocks about me having to prove to you that I was 18? That.

3. Have a data signal available in London. Even just sometimes. Oh, that massive black hole between Battersea and Croydon? Up to an hour of my working day, every day? That too. (Your competitors don’t have this problem, you know. It’s not an insurmountable engineering problem, honest.)

4. Customer service. When I ask for stuff to be emailed to me, rather than having to grab a pen and write it down–this is not some modern, crazy self-indulgence on my part–it’s how normal people communicate.

5. Insurance. Oh dear. I paid you £7.50 a month for a comprehensive policy, including accidental damage. When my phone stopped working, firstly I had to work out the magic words to say: not, apparently, “it’s stopped working”, in which case you were not prepared to help me, but “it got dropped in water” or “I lost it”, in which case you were. How stupid do you think your customers are? How many conversations are suddenly interrupted at that point by the sound of a flushing loo?

6. Actually, you must think they’re fairly stupid. At the end of nearly three hours of my time spent chasing paperwork that you “needed” for the insurance claim, you then told me about the excess–rather more than the handset was worth. Thanks for that. Another tick in the box.

7. And when I went to my new mobile provider, they said, “check your home insurance policy, you’re probably covered”. And I was. So thanks for taking that rather-more-than-£200 in premiums for something I didn’t need.

8. Calling me to sell me other services, like broadband, no matter how often I asked you not to.

9. Junk-texting me. Ever.

10. Stopping one of your really useful services–the ability to buy an overseas data bundle–meaning the only option was a usurious £3/MB and NOT MENTIONING on your website that the option didn’t exist any more. Resulting in your customers going around and around the site in circles for an age, trying in frustration to find where you’d hidden it.

Things you did well

Nothing, really.