Lengthier agent response times,

sloz

A member of staff mentioned a few weeks ago about giffgaff,s concern with customers waiting longer than usual for a response from an agent and were investigating the root cause of this

Has the investigation been completed and in which areas/ agent categories has there been an increase in customers asking for help

Should helpers make more of an effort to find the cause of the problem by troubleshooting and asking questions rather than posting an agent link straight away

Additionally

asking pertananent questions and then advising so a particular problem or difficulty doesn't occur again,

One situation is, adding credit then finding they've lost a a penny or a few pence and can't convert to a gooybag,

There should be no possibility or reason why this should happen

I hate to criticise fellow helpers but almost all will just link to an agent with advise to ask for a refund without any advice to prevent it happening again

persco

I also lay blame of lengthy wait to the social media team referring to agents as well. Yes I know now a few staff on there try to troubleshoot especially with signal issues but a lot are sent in the agents directions still.

I have a feeling they also want increased in activity for the agents to justify their work but there are simple things that doesn’t need to go to the agents. I also know social media ‘help’ works a bit different in that they don’t want to drag things out lengthily in public and not enough allowed texts/words to fit like in the forums but a bit more effort can save a few referrals to agents.

Saying that though, they have improved a lot from about 2yrs ago but I agree we should be doing more on troubleshooting

woodyuk

@persco the giffgaff social media accounts are manned by the agents at Firstsource so as you say,Twitter and FB could well be seen as a work creation scheme for them because we've both seen plenty of occaisions when there were direct solutions to problems but the agent manning the Twitter account has told the member with a problem to AaA and provided the relevant link.So if I were being cynical I could well think that the agents are using social media to keep themselves in work (or possibly get a bit of overtime) at the expense of members with problems.

The only time that the giffgaff social team themselves get involved with social media is related to when giffgaff are sponsoring TV shows and Twitter and FB are used to get chummy with the punters and harvest tweets to be used in commercial breaks etc.

jaymailsays

@sloz Quite possibly the delays are down to increased workloads put on Agents by members for services that aren't your typical trouble shoots. I can think of 3 off the bat.

1.The introduction of GDPR offering free access to the data held on you. Previously £10. Members can't help.

2.The huge increase in complaints to agents about the dubious phone valuations which has led to giffgaff suspending the phone buying operation. The complaints pile in and can only be dealt with by agents not members.

3.We have been told that there has been a large increase in members requesting phone unlocks and staff are trying to understand why. Again helpers cannot assist.

I am sure there are other reasons like the raised awareness to billing errors that occurred and failure of goodybags recurring or renewing on time causing credit depletion.

The solution? Start recruiting more agents.

endorphin

@sloz wrote:
One situation is, adding credit then finding they've lost a a penny or a few pence and can't convert to a gooybag,
There should be no possibility or reason why this should happen

I hate to criticise fellow helpers but almost all will just link to an agent with advise to ask for a refund without any advice to prevent it happening again

Are you saying that the loss of a penny or two is down to background data usage instead of the penny glitch?

giffgaff20147

@sloz

there are far to many newbies coming on and just asking for agents link and won’t let us help ,

the missing penny glitch is something I always cover as a lot of them leave data on when buying goodybag after old one has expired ,

the other networks explain it so it’s beyond me why they just get referred to agents and worse same members make same mistake time after time ,

the network is growing and so it’s no wonder agents are busy

we the helpers should stop all this unessesary referring to agents and happen educators should educate those that keep doing it

harrrrrry

@sloz

Should helpers make more of an effort to find the cause of the problem by troubleshooting and asking questions rather than posting an agent link straight away

I think they should. Many times we see a question that is so ambiguous it cannot be answered except by asking questions. And then, somebody comes along with a blanket "you'll need to ask an agent about this", usually without even giving a specific agent link. You can be sure that the member needing the help asks the agent an equally vague question so it probably wastes a lot of the agent's time.

We'll probably never get rid of the "ask an agent, even if you're not sure its an agent matter" brigade altogether, but putting the "generic ask" link in the swearword filter would at least ensure they had to find an appropriate category.

adding credit then finding they've lost a a penny or a few pence and can't convert to a gooybag, There should be no possibility or reason why this should happen

It's not possible to prevent members adding credit before buying a goodybag, which is the primary cause of this problem.

What's needed here is education -- a categoric instruction on the topup page itself would help:

Do NOT do a topup if your intention is to use the full value of the topup to buy a goodybag. Instead, go to https://giffgaff.com/buy/goodybag and buy the goodybag without topping up first.

That could potentially solve the problem not just of pennies disappearing but of members forgetting to buy the goodybag afterwards.

harrrrrry

@persco

How about this as a blueprint for replies in twitter:

if the question does not need the member to contact an agent and you can provide a full answer in the 160 characters that twitter allows, then go ahead and answer it there. But 160 characters will rarely allow a proper answer unless it's a very simple question

if it needs more than 160 characters, then instead of attempting to answer it (and instead of telling them to contact an agent) copy the question to the opening post of a Help thread, optionally add a reply and answer it (properly, not by asking them to contact an agent) and in the twitter reply say just "we have copied your question to [url of help quesion] where it [has been answered] or [should be answered shortly].

persco

@harrrrrry you mean for the gg twitter handlers or members offering help? So far every member on there troubleshoot non account related issues in full. It’s the social media team am referring to.

Twitter help in public domain works a bit different to h&s and that isn’t just giffgaff. Every other company I have seen offering help are quick to drag issues out of public view to PMs and to be fair, I get why that is. There are ways like screenshots and bitly to help circumvent the 160 character limits a bit but still limited somehow in detailed troubleshooting. I have also seen members advice with a link to the community for help so these are already being done. It’s the giffgaff twitter handlers am on about.

jaymailsays

endorphin wrote: Are you saying that the loss of a penny or two is down to background data usage instead of the penny glitch?

I wonder if giving every member who tops-up a free extra 2p of credit would halve agent's workload overnight. As it appears the 'penny glitch' is an ever present feature that cannot be solved, the free 2p would soon be recovered by the penny glitch syndrome.

ujo55

Isn't an added complication to this, for those who use vouchers to purchase the £25 goodybag and cannot purchase a £25 voucher, meaning that they must first top up with a £15 and £10 voucher then purchase the GB, and finding they have less than £25 credit.

I do understand that O2 offer a £25 voucher, but not every member appropriates that this can be used, and the problem seems to crop up frequently in H&S.

harrrrrry

@ujo55

vouchers to purchase the £25 goodybag

I already raised this with @antonlg who is looking into it.

£25 giffgaff vouchers may come, but for the moment I suggest we try to get the message across that £25 o2 vouchers are available and will work on giffgaff.

But having a £25 voucher will not in itself solve the missing pennies problem if members continue converting the vouchers to a topup first. So at the same time we should promote not just that £25 o2 vouchers can be used, but that they should go to https://giffgaff.com/buy/goodybag to buy the goodybag direct from the voucher (making sure they don't choose the recurring goodybag option) or use 43430 option 2 not option 1.

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jaymailsays

@ujo55 Expanding the range of add-credit vouchers is a red herring in relation to Agent response times.

giffgaff is a victim of of their own success. Ever increasing membership equals ever more penny glitches that only an agent can refund but yet are powerless to cure.

If each month your Bank had a penny glitch sending you into overdraft mode, how long before you changed Banks?

So is it laziness or the ongoing software incompetence? Why not directly address the glitch, and save the hundreds if not thousands of Agent work hours that are used in resolving member's balance deficits.

sloz

Thanks for all the replies, all valid and relevant observations,

It'll be interesting to discover in which agent categories has seen the biggest increase in customers queries

Yes as the customer database increases, there's going to be a gradual increase in response times,

But the delays in agent responses over the last 4 to 6 weeks seem over and above what is expected

Here's a thread from a customer waiting 27 hours and counting who's topped up £25 and lost 5p

https://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Help-Support/been-over-24-hours/td-p/22323789

Advising that they can buy £25 o2 vouchers and can buy a goodybag direct with a voucher will go some way to reduce the agent work load