Hi all, there's a few ideas about community badges for completing tasks and doing things in the community (for example Marys here) but this is a little different. Various sites like Dropbox have a tutorial based achievement feature where you're rewarded for completing tasks associated with the core functionality of the service. 

Would it be feasible for giffgaff to have something similar? In Dropbox it's in a section labelled getting started and works on the idea of issuing challenges to the user, for giffgaff it could be:

• set up a reccuring goodybag,
• queue a goodybag,
• post in the community,
• give a kudos or accept a solution
• Access giffgaff.com on a mobile
• Follow us on Twitter/Facebook or share your refferal link.

Or things to that effect, challenges or achievements designed to introduce new users to the features and functionality of the mobile side as well as the community side. Below is the Dropbog getting started section using a challenge/ reward system as a tutorial.

And another similar example on the Steam platform

I couldn't speculate on the cost or effort involved in this but it would ideally be a part of the giffgaff.com member dashboard (so not reliant on Lithium).

The benefits are that you could immediately make new members aware of and using features such as reccuring goodybags, immediately get them posting and accepting solutions/kudosing on the community and sharing giffgaff on Twitter. Anything you'd want to encourage and think new members ought to know upon joining.

The reward could if you wanted follow Dropbox and offer traditional rewards (possibly payback points?) but could just as easily be a badge based rewards system. Leave a half finished challenge on someones dahboard with empty badge spaces and 90% of people will want to fill it and find their way around the site and features nicely.

How about a £12 voucher for the increaseed price.

Ant

Having seen a product call the OwnFone recently launch and really liking the idea i have looked into it a bit more and dicovered the people behind the idea will licence the system out to others and i was thinking it may be neat if Giffgaff could look into the idea?

The phone its self is basic, has no screen and can only call numbers you program onto it 

The specs can be found here 

The phone can take a mini sim which can be fitted at manufacture or after sales by the looks of it.

The front is printed onto the phone and acts as a big touch pad, and can be customised to suit the brand/image number of contacts etc.

The phone looks to be controlled by a web interface and could form as part as the giffgaff website and allow users to control and maintain there phones, for those less tech savy.

I think this would be a brillant idea and would be ideal for my grandmother.

If you support this idea or would like giffgaff to look into the idea please KUDOS these post

Cheers

Hg 

Am sorry if this has already been suggested before but i have used the search bar and not found anything.

I have just recently started giving out giffgaff sims using the official giffgaff leaflets which can accompany a sim and noticed they dont have some important information for example:

O2 phones work with giffgaff sims this information is not on the leaflet i tried to edit this on myself but i could not figure out how to edit the text.

You can earn payback which you can turn into cash for helping promote giffgaff and helping other giffgaffers.

I dont know who made the leaflets but maybe they could do some editing? just a suggestion anyway as i think it will help get more people on giffgaff as a lot of people have O2 mobile phones and who does not want to earn extra money.

This idea was brought up by several posts earlier (see 1,2) and Vincent has even posted

a partial solution, but apparently it hasn't yet made it to this page.

The proposal is to have the possiblity to handle more than one SIMs from

a single account. This would be useful for companies, families, couples

and any other groups, if handling of the SIMs' administration/finances

is performed by one person.

The point is not necessarily to have only a single account for the SIMs,

i understand that at the moment the system requires the creation of an

account for each SIM.

The point is much more to have the possibility to define a master account from

which you can access relevant settings of all the SIMs within the associated pool.

Not only to top-up (this is not a problem as you can top-up any number through

the giffgaff pages) but also to activate/inactivate  auto top-up or set speding limits, etc.

Another important aspect of a company/family pool os SIMs would be to handle the

credits more flexibly: to have the possibility to transfer credit from one SIM to

the other.  Tthere was some discussion about  implementing some form  of credit

transfere on giffgaff (1,2) - in my opinion company/family SIM pools would be a good

argument to push such a feature and also an excellent context for the development

and testing.

Firstly sorry for another idea so soon.

I was looking at buying my next goodybag for the next month coming and realised that there was no way of directly using a voucher to buy a goodybag. Of course there is a fairly simple way - redeem the credit from the voucher then buy a goodybag with that credit. However there then becomes a couple of problems. For the first timers, they may not know how to convert credit to a goodybag, what do they do... asks in Help section.

The main problem though is the odd few pence that is lost (perhaps through background data) the member again goes to the Help section. They then have to talk to an agent - we all know how long that can take - all this happens and the member wonders whether he/she should have joined/ are giffgaff a scam etc. etc. 

When buying a goodybag, for the first or umteenth time, if there was an option to buy a goodybag directly from a voucher, this would reduce the work load of the agents and redcuse the costs to giffgaff as they no longer have to pay out odd penies all the time. Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves - as the saying goes

Other ideas that I would like to see which are relevant(ish) to this: 1, 2

Background

Firstly I should point out that this is a proposal based on an old project from over 2 years ago:

http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Contribute-Innovation-Promotion/Community-Additions-Earn-Badges/td-...

although it was proposed as an idea here by the OP:

http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Submit-Great-giffgaff-Ideas/Sidebar-Suggestions-Awards-System-amp-M...

although it is marked 'Idea Vault', it did actually become developed into a super secret project at the time – developed from the Contribute thread which seemed to surpass anything on the Idea thread.

The idea of badges has come up on the 'listening' thread a couple of times now and there seems to be a feeling that it could be used to compliment the current ranking system. There is discussion around these posts:

http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Contribute-Innovation-Promotion/giffgaff-this-is-what-we-re-thinkin...

http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Contribute-Innovation-Promotion/giffgaff-this-is-what-we-re-thinkin...

and this has brought the subject to the fore again in a Community with a much wider base and different dynamic to the Community of 2 years ago.

I am aware of ideas like these:

http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Submit-Great-giffgaff-Ideas/Badges/idi-p/1445987

http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Submit-Great-giffgaff-Ideas/Have-a-quot-donator-quot-badge-to-your-...

http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Submit-Great-giffgaff-Ideas/Award-a-vig-badge-for-a-achieving-a-set...

but this would be a separately managed system and cover a broader and more inclusive spectrum.

Proposal

A dynamic series of fun badges to promote and highlight individual knowledge but also encourage wider participation in the Community. Unlike the ranking system everyone could work towards the badges that they wanted and badges would be earned outside the current ranking system. Some would have to have criteria similar to the elements that make up the ranking system – however, I should stress I don't know what elements make up the ranking system :-). Everyone would have their own set of badges and would be able to earn badges irrespective of rank. (Durning the discussion on listening I made an analogy to the badges gained as a Scout or Guide).

For example – off the top of my head (including trying to remember what went before):

Knowledge based badges (based on criteria – and similar to the ones in the Contribute thread linked above). For example

• kudos badge (maybe 3 levels of bronze, silver and gold)

• solutions badge (similar to kudos with levels)

• OS badge (based on what operating systems you know – maybe linked to the phone you have)

• Tag badge

• and if the KB test idea goes forward a badge for passing the KB test http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/ideas/v2/ideapage/blog-id/ideas_01/article-id/96576/comment-id/9669...

 Wider Community Badges

• Doing something for the Community

  • Idea badge (submitting an idea that gets the 20 kudos needed)
  • Guide (making a popular top tips post or a contribution to the KB)
  • Blog for giffgaff
  • Project manager (inc Off Topic community projects)
  • Social butterfly (helping out regularly on Social networks e.g. Facebook, twitter and google+)

• Fun Off Topic Badges (taken from past and present Off Topic areas)

  • Movie night
  • Game night
  • Cooking thread
  • Photography thread
  • Fantasy football
  • Competition participant (for Community competitions in Off Topic)

• Random fun badges
  
  • Giffgaff morning lark
  • Giffgaff vampire
  • Giffgaff geek
  • Custom avatar
  • Signature

Special badges

• Creating an app for giffgaff

• Artist (creating custom banners or leaflets for the Community)

• Gardener

• VIG

• Founder

• Veteran (being active on the community for a year or more and with a certain amount of posts).

• http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Submit-Great-giffgaff-Ideas/The-Very-Important-Thread-thread/idi-p/...

• recruiter (getting a certain number of people to join giffgaff e.g. 100 – although could be bronze, silver and gold levels)

• exceptional newbie (to encourage newbies to participate. Closed to anyone who has been registered for more than 2 months but highlights exceptional contributions of new giffgaffers in the first month or so on giffgaff)

These proposals are just ideas and are by no means set in stone :-)

Challenges

Within the original proposal Vincent highlighted several obstacles e.g. not being able to display them beside current user names and taking a lot of development:

http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Contribute-Innovation-Promotion/Community-Additions-Earn-Badges/m-p...

Gaming was also another consideration.

Some of the badges would require management by the Educators who already have a heavy Community work load.

There were concerns expressed that any further award would create divisions in the Community.

I expect that it would largely need to be developed as part of the 'apps platform' and be a seperate page.

Benefits

• Highlighting knowledge of individuals in the Community setting

  • everyone is different and has their expertise in a different area

  • Helping new members identify who is providing good information based on their skills set but irrespective of rank

• Encouraging people to participate in all areas of the Community

• Tailored to the individual – after all a Community is made up of individuals :-)

Precedence

• we already have a ranking system

• exceptional members have gained the VIG badges and early adopters have a founder badge. Other badges e.g. the Very Important Thread badge have been proposed

• exceptional giffgaffers can gain a special rank

This would reward achievement on a wider scale while incorporating the elements that already exist for highlighting participation. It would be open to all to do as little or as much as they want.

I think it would be good if there was an option to delete goodybags so you could buy a new one (before the month is up), especially when your minutes are low. This was a problem on my old network too, I had to wait a few days before topping up again because the 'bundle' hadn't expired yet.

Also, I can't see why networks don't have this option. My friend and I were talking about giffgaff the other day and he said he needs to top up again as he's used his minutes already, but this was only after 15 days. Sometimes people have months where they overtalk and need to top up again.

Giffgaff Recruit Manager

The Idea

I have thought for a while now that someone should have come up with this idea, but they haven't - so I'm going to share it with you. The graphics aren't great but hopefully you'll get the idea! [Click on images to see them fullscreen]

My idea is to have a Giffgaff 'Recruit Manager' under 'Spread Giffgaff'. The Recruit Manager is a place where you can simply manage your recruits and visually track your progress.

It sets your orders into different categories and sub categories within them to refine results. There are small icons on the right hand side, as you will notice, that are the steps that you are going through to reach your goal - an activation! Icons change from a dull, grey to a happy vibrant white or yellow when the task has completed.

From an URL order there are 3 steps:

- Sim dispatched

- Sim received

- Sim Activated

From a HOME order (Sim order to your home to then give out) there are 4 steps:

- Sim dispatched

- Sim received (at your home)

- Sim given

- Sim activated

When hovering over an icon a box appears to tell you what the icon means - much like My eBay.

When the Sim Given icon is clicked upon, a box appears to change the status of this. You can only change the status of the second last icon (home order) - Sim Given and you can insert the name of the person you have given it too (if known). The rest change automatically when giffgaff mark them as so The Sim Arrived is an estimate. (Second icon)

There is also a Conversion Rate section (top image) that calculates the percentage of Sims that you have actually given and URL orders that have been activated.

Edit: There could also be a sort button, to order by date (Thanks to billythekid)

I believe this 'Recruit Manager' would not be awfully difficult to implement and would be a valuable tool for the eager recruiter!

Please leave kudos if you support the idea

Feedback is always welcome!

Tom

As I mentioned in another forum section, I propose an international goodybag... where you get text bundles for sending texts abroad.  Basically like your fiver bundle you have now but one that enables you to text abroad.  Perhaps one with calls too though a text one would be better for me!!

No other networks offer this (as far as I'm aware) and giffgaff is already one of (if not the) cheapest networks to text abroad so this could be a big seller.

This may sound crazy but my friend is partialy blind and has a blind handset he asked me the other day how do you check my balance and be able to hear it instead of reading it and i told him to ring 4444 but i dont think it works this is no major problem as i do understand there will be very little amounts of people with this problem but i was wondering if this will be created as it whould help alot and would be handy to all of us thanks people.

Kudos me if you agree.

Call Catcher gives you the facility to find out who has called if your phone has been out of coverage or switched off. Once your phone has coverage or is switched on, you will receive a text message telling you who called and the time/date.

Kudos this if you would want this feature.

Idea 'in a nutshell'

Issue: It's a big, confusing world out there when you're new! Often you don't know anything or anyone when you start somewhere new.

Solution: Every new GiffGaff member should be able to choose to have a 'buddy'.

Main benefit to:

…the new GiffGaffer

The new GiffGaffer has a single point of contact for their first few days. Help might include how to set up their account, to joining in with the community to getting help on what to do about issues.

…Agents and Educators

Time will be freed up to concentrate on the stuff that helps everyone or to deal with the newcomers with problems.

…volunteer ‘buddies’

Kudos and/or payback points could reward those who do a good job.

…community pages

the community pages will become more powerful by containing common problems, questions, updates and areas of interest to all GiffGaffers. There will be less ‘noise’ caused by new people just trying to find answers. 

…GiffGaff

A free way to maximise help for new customers by empowering community members (unlimited resource) and reducing the amount of ways Agents and Technical teams (finite resource) need to simultaneously divide themselves. It promotes the fact that GiffGaff is people powered, builds a better experience for new customers and in general provides an all-round positive feeling!

Reason for suggestion

I'm a new GiffGaffer who hit a major issue on the day I joined (7-Feb 2012).  I’d had no time to learn how to navigate the community pages and use Agents, and had no idea about the Educators.  I needed someone to help me figure out what was normal, what I needed to get fixed and how to go about doing it.  Luckily, I got chatting to another GiffGaff member, who helped me to cut through the confusion.  He didn’t have all the answers, but just having someone who has been around for longer than you is a good start!

That's the idea! (I've added more detail below...)

Idea in a bit more detail

There’s a lot to take in when you join a new service (and it’s not always easy to find out what you need to know), whether things go smoothly or whether things go wrong!

The ‘buddy’ will be a volunteer from the GiffGaff community.

The ‘buddy’ will be the one person a new GiffGaffer can ask any question to.

The ‘buddy’ will probably know the regular stuff; not everything, but they may well know someone who does, or at least the best way to get to an answer.

The ‘buddy’ might expect to be called upon to help out the newcomer for their first 18 days to a month – basically until they’re settled.

There could be a community page for ‘buddies’ to discuss common issues or share experiences.

Differentiators (from current offering and previous suggestions)

The interactivity of this idea is the crucial part.  Other ideas suggested (introductory emails, texts...) are either passive and/or depend on finite GiffGaff resources.  It will improve new customers' experiences of joining GiffGaff who aren't used to dealing with a system where you don't just pick up a phone and speak to someone. It helps to promote mutual giving and support the infrastructure and values upon which (I think) GiffGaff operates.

Right now if you join giffgaff with an iPhone, you're likely to need to enter a whole multitude of settings by hand to get things working properly, and even then there are a number of things you can't set yourself, including the network name, and really, who wants to stare at "O2-UK" all day?

That's why I'd like to propose giffgaff contact Apple (via O2 if need be) to put together and submit an official carrier settings (.ipcc) file containing all the settings needed to make an iPhone work perfectly with giffgaff. That file would then be distributed automatically via iTunes, prompting giffgaff customers with iPhones to install all the settings needed with just a single click, as well as hopefully preempting the possibility of O2-specific updates being pushed over the air, undoing giffgaff settings in the process.

Now, credit where credit's due, tobyriding has done a great job producing an unofficial ipcc file for giffgaff, but unfortunately (as he's noted) with the release of iOS 4.0, homemade IPCC files like his no longer work. Thus, we're pretty much in "giffgaff needs to do this themselves" territory, though at least it seems like most of the work we're talking about here consists of giffgaff contacting Apple, as these files aren't terribly complex to make.

This idea is similar to: 

Expand-quot-Do-you-want-to-hear-about-us-quot-options

Except I'd like the option of being able to control which texts we receive from giffgaff not just emails.

After asking for help from the community on how to disable SMS's which I do not deem important SMS-from-43431-and-quot-Do-you-want-to-hear-about-us it seems it's not possible.

I've already disabled Contact permissions on My Details and Balance Notifications under Phone Settings. 

OK, I accept they are not that often, on average once every week or two, compared to every day when I first joined and hadn't disable marketing preferences. But the ones that still come through from 43431 I still don't find useful nor important. 

Examples of the ones that still come through are:

"Hi your goodybag is about to expire on xxx. If you haven't already, go to giffgaff.com to set your goodybag to recur."

- I already know this and my goodybag is already recurring...

"Thanks for helping giffgaff in xxx, so far you've earned £x.xx. Check out your latest recommended plan at My giffgaff. Cheers".

- I already received an email summarising this.

So I'd like the option of what type of SMS's (and emails) I can receive:

- marketing

- goodybag expiry

- balance alerts

- low balance

- important announcements

In this case, I'd only like to receive very important annoucements by text. By this I mean, where giffgaff really need me (not want) to take action concerning the topic of the SMS. Random example of what an important message might be: "your account will be terminated unless you topup in the next 10 days". 

Receiving an SMS or phone call, to me, is more direct and normally means I need to take action. I prefer to receive general information by email which I can check at my own leisure. I also travel a lot and have my phone switched on for emergencies. So I hate when I'm in a different time zone and get a text (or worse a phone call) from the UK which wakes me up in the middle of the night, for a bit of sales and marketing.

Contact preferences, should be enhanced to include email/SMS preference and giffgaff should properly categorise what is considered as important announcements. 

Hi all,

When you’ve ordered SIM cards from giffgaff to share with friends, you may have received the new flyers that you can share with your friends. They’re great – But there’s one issue that could be affecting the business model: Presentation.

The issue:

When you receive the SIM pack, you’re asked to cut the flyer in half with scissors to share with your friends. And there’s your problem – Cutting. Unless you have a guillotine in the house hold, you’ll never be dead straight. As a result of this, it makes sharing the flyers with friends look a bit poor. Nothing says join giffgaff like a messy first impression, right? How would you feel if you wanted to join giffgaff and got this through the post?

The proposal:

The solution is actually very simple – Cut out the middle man, i.e. cutting the flyer yourself. This is where I propose giffgaff use a ‘tear and share’ system. For those of you that know about perforated cutting – It’s where a machine comes along and punches lines in the paper to make it tear-able. Like your notepad that allows you to pull pages out easily? I feel by using this same technique – It will give giffgaff the look and first impression they deserve.

Show me more:

Graze – (a business dedicated to delivering healthy snacks) use this method for grabbing new recruits and it works very well, see below:

As you can see they use small tear and share methods so I can share this with friends. This could easily be implemented with giffgaff’s flyers by adding a perforated line here:

The main advantages of this idea are the following:

• Much more professional first impression
• More efficient for members to spread the flyers
• Flyers can still be produced in bulk –  Only one more stage is added to the printing process
• More customers – Due to the ‘tacky’ first impression being eliminated.

Thank you for reading this idea, your support and comments are greatly appreciated.

James.

Brilliant idea! - Lithium can't implement it, sorry!

That would be brill! - Shame Lithium can't do it.

Time and time again this is the response to so many ideas. Brilliant ideas.

I think it is time to wave goodbye to Lithium and get some staff to create an independent website. If giffgaff wants to move forward, it should have forward thinking technology implemented on its site. Giffgaff could keep the exact same setup, with more powerful stuff running in the background. It would enable custom icons to be placed next to threads. It would also allow GIF images to be posted - that are larger than a miniscule 333k! 

Please leave kudos if you support the idea

Its run by us, it can be changed by us.

Tom