A couple of weeks ago I picked up an iPhone 4S on a 24 month One Plan contract with Three. I have used them for the last 10 months as my data provider for my iPad and generally have had a good experience with them coverage-wise. I have had one or two difficulties with support, but nothing particularly out of the ordinary. I can’t suggest that my experience this time is anything other than an anomaly but it was an interesting insight into the workings of it all.
Unfortunately, this time was a little different; admittedly much of the problem was caused by a slip of the finger on my part. When I submitted my number transfer request on the Three website I entered the temporary number as ‘…9714′ rather than ‘….9174′. This resulted in my old number being transferred to a PAYG mobile broadband account with which I have no connection. I find it quite extraordinary that it is possible for me to have transferred a number to an account that I have no administration over, but I am told by Three that this is what happened. The lack of authentication such as requesting the SIM ID on their form must have made this possible. As an aside perhaps this opens up the door to an interesting prank: Provided you know the details of a Three customer it would seem to be perfectly possible to change their phone number. This seems like a fairly large security hole.
A few calls later, I found myself calling early on the 27th October only to discover that the notes on my issue didn’t seem to exist. I was informed that the internal transfer request to have my number moved from this mobile broadband account to my One Plan account had been made again on the wrong account. I have learnt that everything with Three seems to be quoted as taking 48 hours. Again I was told that the request had now been submitted, escalated, and would take 48 hours with an assurance that it would be effected by the end of the week.
36 hours later nothing had happened and it was now heading into the weekend. I called up again and was told that it had again been escalated but would take 48 hours. However, after a long-ish exchange I was told that because it was already the weekend where the Customer Support Agent was located it was likely that my request would take even longer (I find it interesting that customer support hours are quoted as being 8am until 10pm (UK Time) with no suggestion that support will work on different times). Given I had spoken to several people by this point I asked to speak with a Supervisor. Frankly, I felt that I was being lied to by Three. I have little doubt that the people I was dealing with were making their best efforts but it seems that one department can only request things from others with little ability to rush things through. In the end I believe emails were sent directly from Support to the team that deals with number transfers.
Within 24 hours of my most recent call my number was transferred. I am expecting a call on Monday (31/10/11) to confirm that things have been sorted. It is unfortunate that this was my experience, but I am left with the impression that the only way to ensure something happens is to get a bit unreasonable, or at least to stop being understanding. Throughout the process I was dealt with courteously and politely by a team that made all the right noises to suggest that things were happening efficiently, but the reality did not reflect this. A ‘mood graph’ of @mjdh‘s tweets mentioning Three over the last two weeks would be interesting and, I suspect, sinusoidal.
All this being said, I have far better coverage with Three than I ever have with O2 in both OX1 and OX11, and am on a very generous plan. Considering how often I expect to need to contact a Support team I can live with the trade-off. I guess that the moral is to triple check everything you submit on forms.
