Submit: Great giffgaff Ideas

Being able to FREEZE airtime credit

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Being able to FREEZE airtime credit

Really convenient because saving up airtime credit to purchase next goodybag sometimes (for me, ALL the time) proves difficult after your goodybag expires (and it is not on the recurring option through bank account) and you accidentally use it up by making calls, texting or using mobile data. Also

People who want to use £5, £7.50 or £12 goodybag need to buy £10 or £15 voucher. Usually from this you may want to save up that airtime credit in order to use it to pay for the next goodybag purchase. This is especially useful to the younger (or any!) GiffGaff members since their parents may not give them extra money for top-up if the extra money from their airtime credit is used up by accident.
Stops people from using up their emergency or saved up airtime credit accidentally right after their goodybag expires (because I'm sure this happens a lot)
This option would give many GiffGaff members (especially the younger ones!) more choice, flexibility and freedom so that they can get the best out of GiffGaff

Just have a 'FREEZE airtime credit' tick box option on the My GiffGaff page (which can be unticked anytime!).

THANK YOU!

"You cannot have two active SIMs"

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Considering that many people now have multiple devices and therefore need multiple SIM cards, I feel that the SIM activation pages are very unhelpful and need to be more user friendly and intuitive, thereby improving the member experience.

As it stands right now, a member with an existing SIM entering an activation code whilst logged/logging into their account is greeted by the SIM Replacement (SIM swap) page, with the very unhelpful statement:

"You cannot have two active SIMs. Activating a new SIM will deactivate your current SIM."

The member then has the option of continuing with a SIM swap, or backing out of the process. This results in members doing SIM swaps when they really wanted to change their number or register a second SIM, or backing out and not knowing where to go from here. This does nothing for the overall member experience, and causes members to become confused or frustrated by the whole process, and possibly them spending ages searching the knowledgebase or asking in the community.

The idea

I feel that this process could be much improved with a little modification to the current process flow, so that when an existing member enters the activation code from a new SIM they are presented with a series of option buttons or links, each taking or guiding them towards the correct path

For example

I want to:	Action
Move my number to a new SIM	Starts SIM swap procedure
Activate a replacement SIM	Explanation before starting SIM activation
Activate an extra SIM for another phone/device	Instructions to activate SIM on a new account
Change my number whilst keeping the same account	Instructions to change number via agents
Have an additional SIM on the same number	Explain this is not possible and give alternatives

Benefits:

Better overall member experience
Reduction in erroneous SIM activations, therefore reduction in cancellation requests
Reduction in Help & Support and agent questions relating to SIM activations

If you would like to see this idea implemented, please support it by clicking the button at the top-left of the idea

Status:

Simple Idea for great benefit, this is brilliantly laid out - thanks Figment and everyone who supported it. This idea has preliminary gone pass our Head of Member Experience and our Member Experience change champion. Next steps is to be scoped as a project and prioritised. Thanks again. Nice One.

Avoid misleading phone prices - use "from £xxx" where appropriate

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While perusing giffgaff's phone purchase pages today, I noticed that there is the potential for the prices being quoted misleading some people.

On the page that lists all phones (http://giffgaff.com/phones), and on the overview page for certain brands of phone (for example, the one for Apple's various iPhones), the prices quoted are the ones for the phones with the smallest data capacity. It's not until you click through to the details about the phone itself that you see that larger-capacity phones cost more.

For example the Apple iPhone 5s is currently quoted on the overview pages (linked to above) as being "£525" (this is likely to change depending on when you read this idea), but this only applies to the 16GB version. Only this page makes it clear that the 32GB version costs £606 (subject to change) and the 64GB version costs £681 (subject to change).

So I think where phones are being sold that have different varieties within them where price is affected, the overview pages should display a price preceded by the word "from" (i.e. "from £525" in my example above), so that they cannot be seen as potentially misleading.

EDIT (05/07/2014): A possible alternative to the use of the word "from" that would be even more transparent would be to display the range of prices the phone will cost, depending on which is chosen, so to continue with the same example, this might be: "£525 to £681". (Credit to @johncashman for this suggestion.)

Status:

Fundamentally we like this idea and think it's sensible. We're looking into this idea and enquiring with the different stakeholders about what the best way to do this is.

PayPal Payback Payout Selection

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How about giffgaff making it easier for us PayPal payback choosers by making it a one off selection.

To do this you go to the payback widget, choose the PayPal option, enter your PayPal email address, then finally click the "remember this email" option.

Then once every 6 months giffgaff email/text you saying:

Hi (giffgaff username),

You have chosen PayPal as your preferred payback method. We have the following email address on record (email address).

If this address is still valid then you can ignore this email. If not please go to (payback widget address) to update it.

Many thanks,

giffgaff.

HOWEVER if you earn less than £10 giffgaff contact you to choose either credit or charity.

Allow Top-Up with international bank cards

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The little black leaflet on spreading giffgaff suggests that sims be handed out at universities. Most students taking up the offer of free sims, I assume, will be international students or exchange students. Therefore I propose that giffgaff allow top-ups to be made using both UK and non-UK bank cards. If any of them are like me, I would keep my sim card after completing my studies, keeping it active for my next visit to the UK, at which time they most probably won't have access to a UK bank card anymore, nor the top-up vouchers. It could well be a very lucrative hole in the market that gg are missing here.

The other alternative is to allow top-up via PayPal, which I know has been suggested before.

If you support this idea, please do so through the usual channels (clicking the kudos button). Comments are welcome.

varify email address

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hello,

i have come accross lots of people who, for one reason or another, did not put the right email address when setting up thier account, and the only time they find this out is when they try to reset their password, the email does not arrive in thier inbox!

my idea is to enable giffgaff to put a measure in place as part of the activation process so that an account that has been set up is varified before someone can begin to use giffgaff

this will mean that people can be sure that they have the right email address linked to their account and have not made any errors when entering the email address.

also, i think people tend to change thier email addres, so giffgaff could periodically put messages on the dashboard to remind people of the need to kee pthier email addres up to date.

there seems to be another idea, similar to mine, that was suggested by someone before myself. Please support that idea.

4G at no extra cost

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Hello all,

As many of us are excited as 4G is finally rolling out in the uk. Has it not occured to you that it could cost extra, much like EE are charging loads more for the service.

Well as giffgaff is know as the 'affordable' network I belive that it should be implemented free or at very very little extra cost.

The network 3 (THREE) are not charging user anymore so it would be just like connecting to 3g everyday. This is a massive selling point and my friend has moved to three due to this news, so to stop users from moving we shouls annoce that there would be no major price differance if any on the new 4G network.

Thanks, please support me with a kudo if you feel its a good idea (only if you want to, Im not asking you to, but feel free to do so)

Status:

The consultation is currently up here with our Day 1 offer, please do give us your feedback here: http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Contribute/4G-Launch-Update-Official-feedback-thread/td-p/12127982

Email when a sims ordered of your url link

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Good evening
Email when a sims ordered of your url link

This hasn't worked for a long time on my account

Can we please have this back as its a very useful tool to gauge where sim orders are coming from and help members target the best place give out their sim card allocation and not waste them
ie
Facebook , twitter ,websites

It's a real shame as I said earlier it was very useful and a bit of encouragement when you saw the email in your inbox

If you agree please kudos the post to give support

Status:

This idea is set as Under Consideration - the reason the emails stopped were because of a bug in the system which sent the joiner both their and your email about the activation. It's logged to be fixed and needs to be prioritised now. Cheers.

Calls & texts from laptops & tablets: o2 Tu Go for giffgaff?

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Just came on here to search for & give Kudos to any suggestions for this - the only thread I found was back in March when the feature was unknown & wasn't picked up - currently only available to o2 pay monthly , but this feature would go down a storm with GG users.

I have been testing it today & have to say (in agreement with a very good Android app review) that it does seem to work better on higher end phones (could not call on my SG mini, but on the SG note it works perfectly). This may be the thing that brought me back to GG after the data charging fiasco.

link to o2 page for those interested:

http://www.o2.co.uk/tugo/want-it

A couple of media links:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21623810

http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2013/03/o2s-tu-go-app/

http://www.mobilemadesimple.co.uk/tugo-the-low-down-on-o2s-latest-app/

Vodafone users looking jealous!

http://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Chill-lounge/Tu-Go/td-p/1367196

Please can you seriously consider this one? This plus the improved £10 GB could make me consider trying GG again.

Status:

Official Update: After a recent idea on calls over wifi doing well, the Top Team now want to seriously pursue a Tu Go style app in 2014 - Kudos the Idea to receive personal updates for it and we'll let you know what's happening.

Two Step Logon

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For those who have never heard of this, two step logon, (or two factor authentication to us techies) is an optional method of increasing the security of an account. It works by requiring two means of identifying yourself. These are something you know, (your password), and something you physically have, (in this case your phone). Putting this in place would make it much harder for someone to hack into the account as they wouldn't have the means to generate the information required for the second stage. The user logs in as usual, but instead of being taken to the my Giffgaff page they're asked for a code. This can be generated either by a text sent to their phone or by using an app such as google authenticator. Only after that code has been entered will they be allowed access to the account itself. In case their phone is lost or stolen, an emergency code could be provided during the setup process, or an alternative would be to allow backup one time codes to be generated and downloaded. This is the setup which many online services are now using, examples of which include Facebook, Twitter and google. Another option to consider is to have only the areas in which sensitive information is accessed and managed protected by this feature. Sites such as Amazon often require customers to verify their password in order to edit their details and even to complete a purchase. This would create a compromise in that the user would not need to worry about going through an extra step to access the community, thereby hopefully minimising the inconvenience.

e-Mail Confirmations - Extra Security

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Currently, if you're logged into an account on giffgaff you can update any of the details without actually having to confirm the details. Once a detail has been updated, such as an e-mail or password, it sends an e-mail to the current, or new, e-mail address to let you know the changes have been applied.

This isn't secure.

The first change I propose: when an e-mail is changed on an account, you have to confirm, by clicking a link in an e-mail, both the OLD address and the NEW address - to ensure it is you making the change. Or, in case you cannot access your old e-mail address, you can opt to have a verification code sent to your giffgaff mobile number, which you have to enter on the website to prove you are the owner.

The second change I propose: when changing the password, an e-mail confirmation, with a link to verify, is sent to the current e-mail address.

This will ensure higher security levels as changes have to be physically verified.

tech team call or text back

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Well i was thinking when you have a problem and you contact the agents they try to resolve your issue

At this point your just waiting for a soloution It can take days then if they cant resolve it gets passed to the tech team

So wouldnt it be a good idea if at that point the agents told you it was being passed to tech team and you gave them a alternative contact detail

Once the tech team looked at the problem they gave you a non returnable text or call back

Hi were looking in to your problem

Etc

and the same once fixed

Hi we've resolved you problem It was etc etc

There nothing worse than waiting in the dark its frustrating and causes members to post agents are rubbish and iam leaving etc when just a little communication could make members feel like there not forgotten

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Dedicated giffgaff 4G news page

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The idea:

A dedicated giffgaff 4G ‘news and updates’ page, perhaps www.giffgaff.com/4g similar to www.tescomobile.com/4g and the other networks who have had, for several months, a page dedicated to the benefits of 4G and details of a likely timeframe. A way of registering for e-mail updates would also be fantastic.

Why:

There is huge interest in 4G from quite a significant number of users, myself included, who would like reliable updates on the giffgaff 4G situation, yet there is no recent official communication regarding 4G from giffgaff. Searching the giffgaff website for this information yields a lot of member opinion/speculation. A wider Google-search just yields an article from November 2012 featuring Gregg Baker’s (of giffgaff) comments, but this is very out of date, and again contains no specifics.

This leaves those of us wanting 4G ASAP in a state of limbo. Should we continue to wait for official communication on likely timeframes, or should we defect to one of the mainstream networks? An official giffgaff 4G news/updates page would at least give some certainty to the situation.

Status:

http://giffgaff.com/4g - thanks for the suggestion and congrats on being our 500th implemented idea. We will keep working on this page to add further functionality during the lead up to 4G next year.

Ability to see Payback on a monthly breakdown not just collective from Dec to May

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I think we should be able to see what payback we got for each month broken down, as at the moment it just shows my collective from December to May.

As sometimes i forget what my payback balance was the month before so am unaware wether i earnt anymore payback this month.

please kudos this idea its well needed.

500Mb then 1p per Mb tethering on unlimited internet goodybags

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OK another tethering idea but one that should now be possible due to the new tethering detection and the existing system that already monitors/handles data allowances and charging on the existing limited internet goodybags.

Problem

Many members are caught in the dilemma of wanting to mix some tethering and normal mobile internet but find the limited allowance tetherable goodybags (1Gb max) too restrictive.

Others are caught out by not understanding the restriction on tethering on the unlimited goodybags and simply can't use the internet in the way they expected.

This is losing giffgaff customers who would like to stay but need more flexibility.

Solution

Include a small amount of free tethering allowance (I suggest 500Mb) with all of the unlimited goodybags and then charge (I suggest 1p) for each tethered Mb over this allowance from airtime balance.

The price of the existing unlimited internet goodybags and other allowances to remain the same so this is just an additional benefit.

The system would need to warn the member they were using their tethering allowance at the start of the tethering internet session so instead of the existing detection system simply cutting off the internet with a warning, change to just a warning message. The warning message should include the remaining tethering allowance or the charge rate and remaining airtime credit if allowance has been exceeded.

Subsequent tethering data used will be deducted from the allowance (or charged from credit if allowance has been exceeded). Note: this is much the same process as for the limited internet goodybags so most of this has already been designed and implemented before.

Include a further tethering allowance indicator on the My giffgaff goodybag display.

Include a switch to allow members to opt out of tethering charges, this to be ON by default. (prompted by lnb1996's input).

Benefits

Provides tethering options for those wanting the benefits of both unlimited internet and tethering.

Small amounts of tethering would be allowed at no extra cost (great for checking emails etc on trains with laptops).

No need to worry about deciding on the need for tethering up front and so true flexibility. No add ons, no special tethering goodybags, no changing to an additional SIM, no need to regret not getting a different package.

Much of the processing logic is already there so this should be the simplest flexible method of including tethering on the unlimited internet goodybags and therefore I really do think it will be looked at seriously by giffgaff.

Attract new members and retain existing ones. I don't think any other providers offer anything like this

Make sense to me and hopefully to you but please do add your comments (and support as always welcomed )

Edit: apologies to those that have already voted but I have changed the OP to increase the initial allowance having done some further maths.

Status:

Not For Us: This idea went into the Bi-monthly goodybag review with our Product Manager and after discussion we decided our stance on including tethering in unlimited goodybags with whatever implementation is that it's something that we wouldn't want to pursue. Any idea like this would increase the average usage of our data, and for free or nearly free, which isn't sustainable for us financially. Whilst we can't implement this, one of the things we are looking into which is relevant to this is data add ons. Historically add on's aren't popular, members like the option, but then don't purchase them when they are available features - however it's something we want to do a 'register your interest' for as our own research into our own memberbase. Thanks for raising this Idea.

one account 2 sims

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At the moment giffgaff gives an option 1sim per account which is not bad but if giffgaff offers 2sims per account or even more than it makes life easier for lots of people.
Who thinks giffgaff should do this

individual emails when ordering bulk Sims

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Can this be stopped please because its rather annoying receiving 50 emails when I order 50 Sims...

Thanks

"Posted from..." - Bring it back

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Hi
The observant among us will have noticed that the "Posted from..." that appeared at the bottom of a post made from a mobile device has now disappeared.
The not-so-observant will have missed it
This is actually quite annoying - and restrictive to the helper - when people had problems before and you could see if the message was posted from an iPhone or an Android etc it was much easier to suggest the solution in some cases. Now we have no idea what device unless they mention in the OP (which they rarely do!)- a real pain
And the dreaded multiple c&p settings for every phone under the sun have reappeared as a result

As an additional observation, I've also noticed that against my username and avatar on the full site, I had enabled my mobile phone info to be displayed on the forums by going to preferences>personal information >mobile phone and typing in LG Nexus 5 32gb -...

That's also disappeared - despite still being current in my preferences??

My suggestion is simply this :

Bring both back.... Please

Status:

We are looking into bringing this functionality back in some form, as long as we can guarantee that it is reliable, accurate and helpful to both the member posting and the member answering the question. (See more details in comments.)

Transferring a number, add a date picker.

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Hello, my mum got a new phone recently and I decided to get her on giffgaff. Part of the process is to transfer her number so that she doesn't have to send an annoying text telling everyone to change her number in their phones. After getting her PAC I went to https://giffgaff.com/support/transfer to transfer her number, this page asks us to select a date which we would like the transfer to take place. Currently this field contains some placeholder text telling the customer what format to put the date in, and since there is no real confirmation of the date selected, if you made a typo and put say 20/01/2014 instead of 10/01/2014 you could wait a week before you realise your number hasn't been transferred, and even when you realise this you won't know why as there is no confirmation that you have asked to port your number.

The current transfer number date field, showing the placeholder text.

So to reduce the chances of someone entering the wrong date, why not have a date picker instead of/ as well as a text form. Grey out unavailable dates like the current day and weekend/bank holidays, and if it's after 3PM grey out tomorrow. You could use a similar design to the event calendar.

I think allowing the customer to pick a date off a calendar is more user friendly than them figuring out when they could port their number, and then having to put it in using the date format, any mistakes could be problematic. With a properly made date picker it would be impossible for the user to make a mistake.

Status:

7th May 2014: After further investigation, having a number picker in the agent form previously caused a bug in the form so we're cautious to implement this Idea, however it's not off the table completely. We're also looking at implementing a 'Confirmation Email' for porting in, so members would get confirmation of the date their chose, if it's wrong, they'll notice much sooner than currently. Thanks for the idea, and let's see what we can make happen.

Network Virtutal Interview

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Hey,

I do know that o2 is a thirdparty. But they are also giffgaff's supplier for the network. So i do think giffgaff should arrange a chat (with us) with o2 tech guys to find out about how giffgaff's supplier is improving to give us a better service and coverage.

But this idea is about setting up a chat with o2 to find out about what happening on the whole network, and to give them some feedback direct through the chat.

i do understand its giffgaff techs pass onto o2 techs but giffgaff always say they don't own the infrastruture for the network. Its time for giffgaff to arrange a chat like this so we can ask question about the infrastruture.

Such as :

When is 4G coming to this area ?

What kind of coverage ?

And so on....

This idea was powered by o2 community recent virtual interview -

http://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Welcome-News/Network-Virtual-Interview-30-04-14/td-p/652627

I do think this will really popular. So show your support and let us make this happen

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User	Kudos Count
figment_uk	186
bertiebat	182
roshpl	156
ian011	135
mizanmiah89	97