Stay away from Bell Mobility!

Just when I was starting to think that Bell Mobility doesn't give a damn about their existing customers, I was really shown that Bell Mobility doesn't give a damn about their existing customers. Look at the lovely reply I received to my inquiry as to why I should cancel my account, and discard the loyalty credit, just to get the same deal as a new customer would (names are changed again):


Dear Mr. W,

Thank you for your recent email.

My name is Danielle and for your reference, my employee identification is
#######.

Upon full review of your email, I wish to inform you that many reasons
exist for which companies like Bell Mobility decide to make one choice
rather than another. These may be financial, technical, regarding
compatibility issues, exclusivity rights or a combination thereof. These
decisions are negotiated between Bell Mobility and its business
partners, the details of which belong to our internal business community
and are therefore private. I sincerely regret the inconvenience this
limitation may cause.

I would like to thank you, Mr. W, for using Bell's website and for
choosing us as your wireless communications provider.

Additional information can be found at www.bell.ca and we can be
contacted again at www.bell.ca/contactus.

Kind regards,

Danielle
Bell Mobility - Online Client Care

Basically "go away, we only care about attracting new customers and it's none of your business why". Well, I couldn't help but reply, which will be the final anything with Bell Mobility for myself, any of my family members, friends, or coworkers:

Hello Danielle,

Upon the full review of your reply I wish to inform you that the choices Bell Mobility made in this case will be negatively impacting their customer retention rates. Also, there is a term used in marketing, called "word of mouth" publicity, which is a very powerful medium when it comes to forming company reputation, especially in the current age of Internet. The long term effects of discarding loyal customer base can yield very unpleasant surprises for Bell Mobility and their business partners, especially considering positions some of these customers may hold with potential enterprise clients. But I'm sure that as a client care representative you have no invested interest in either continuing this discussion or bringing it up to your management and therefore I will no longer bother you with my attempts to convince a service provider that it needs customers to generate its revenue. Please feel free to "close" this case.

Sincerely,

Alex W.

Unbelieveable - Bell prefers new customers to current ones!

Here is the reply I received from Bell (names changed for obvious reasons):

Dear Mr. W,

Thank you for your recent email.

My name is Darine and for your reference, my employee identification is

#######.

Upon full review of your email, I regret that our services may not meet

your needs or that some of our policies may not address your concerns to

your satisfaction. I thank you for providing us with your opinion on

this matter.

However, if you choose the HTC Touch Diamond with a Smartphone Combo

50, the handset will be $199.95 plus taxes.

The original price is $499.95, you are eligible to get a credit of $200

for a 36 month term plus, since you get the Combo Plan of $45 and more,

you will get an additional credit of $170. For a total of $199.95 plus

taxes.

I would like to thank you, Mr. W, for using Bell's website and for

choosing us as your wireless communications provider. I hope to have

addressed your points and welcome your response if you require further

clarification.

Additional information can be found at www.bell.ca and we can be

contacted again at www.bell.ca/contactus.

Kind regards,

Darine

Bell Mobility - Online Client Care

I don't understand, if I have a "loyalty credit" of $200 dollars that I am applying to the full price of the phone, why do I have to re-sign a 3-year contract (I am purchasing the phone at full price!), and if I'm applying it to the 3-year contract price of the phone, then why am I still paying the same amount as a new customer? This is some marketing bait-and-switch scheme here folks. Besides, did anybody else notice some goofy math there with that additional $170 credit? I replied for clarification.

That's just not right...

A lovely lady from a *611 line, named Amber, has just confirmed what the in-store representative has told me. As an existing customer whose (second) 3 year contract just ran out, I am aligible to apply a $200 "loyalty credit" towards a new phone if I renew a 3 year contract with Bell. New customers get $300 off.

My only option as she has described is to - cancel my current account ("with no charge" - duh, there is no contract left) and re-sign up as a new customer. Rewarding customer loyalty? What's that?

I still don't believe that this is right, so I am sending a following email to the billing department to try and get this sorted out:

Hello. I have been a Bell customer for 6 years now and recently my phone started having problems, so I am trying to see what options are available for me to upgrade it. My contract has ran out and I am looking to renew it for another 3 years. So far I am being told that I am entitled to a $200 discount of a non-contract price of the device I'm interested in (HTC Touch Pro) which means that I would have to pay $299.95 to get it, which is $100 more than what a new customer would have to pay if one was to sign up under the same conditions! This has been corroborated for me both by in-store and phone representatives over the past two days (and differs significantly from what my understanding of the $200 credit was, where it would apply to the 3-year contract price, if I was to sign up for another 3 years). I would like to know if this is indeed the case, and if so - how exactly is customer loyalty being rewarded at Bell and why would I chose to continue being a Bell customer, instead of going to a different provider where I would get a better deal as a new customer than I get from Bell after being with you for 6 years?

We will see what they say, because frankly Roger's 3G network is looking more appealing than Bell's EvDO (even with their highly publicised but poorely available HSPA network - all their new phones except for iPhone are not even on it).

P.S. Bell's "At Bell my voice is my password" phone support line authentication is useless - you sound like a dork saying it in public and then they still ask you for your personal information to confirm your identity (by the way, hitting # a couple time bypasses it just fine and you get a person).

Another year - another struggle.

So the HTC Touch started having problems again, having served me faithfully for well over a year. Since my contract has recently ran out, I decided that I would see what Bell can offer me, a loyal customer of 6 years, as an upgrade option.

After talking to an in-store customer representative for good 20 minutes, here is what I was told that I am eligible for $200 "loyalty credit" towards my new phone purchase if I re-sign on a 3-year contract. To clarify, I was told that if I signed a 3-year contract, I would be able to get an HTC Touch Diamond device for $299.95! Here's a kicker, new customers off the treet get it for $199.95! And no, the $200 is not applied to the "new customer" price, the representative was quite adamant about that.

So, my reward for being a loyal customer for 6 years is paying $100 more than anybody else? That's not right, I am going to call the billing department tomorrow and set them straight.

Finally!

Activated the phone, dropped the old one off at the Purolator office (at least they included the free shipping waybill)... This one actually has some signal bars and I can make phone calls and get my email. I have finally been serviced by Bell Mobility bureaucratic machine... it only took (almost exactly to the day) a month of me being without my email and my lovely, sleek HTC Touch that I paid $500 for out of my pocket and only got to enjoy for 3 months... Why would anybody sign a contract with a company that doesn't value its long term customers, does not have any good phones in the selection and does not allow you to get a phone of your choice and hook it up on their network... money grab is all it is...

Got the phone - still not out of the woods...

So, yesterday I finally got the call from the friendly Purolator lady asking me to come to their local location to pick up my package. Yay. However after picking it up, and looking at the bright yellow sheet that said something to the matter of "When you receive your phone, call this number to activate" and calling that number, I got a guy that told me that activating phones over the phone is against their policies and that I should go to a store to do it. After arguing for a few minutes that I was just following the instructions included with the package and that I have had the phone activated over the phone before (to which he retorted that whoever did that for me before should be fired), I got the guy's employee ID and name and hung up. Going to the store tomorrow to get this damn thing finally activated and get it over with. *sigh*

21 days, still no phone

Called Bell Mobility Customer Service this morning where a lovely girl called Mercedes passed me on to a talkative guy named Dmitri who then "escalated" me to some customer experience improvement person whose name I didn't bother remembering at this point, that offered me to take a month off my bill for the inconvenience.

Awesome - I don't have a phone, I don't receive my business emails, I can't talk to my friends and family, but I don't have to pay for it. Customer satisfaction at its best. To make a long story short - the HTC Touch, or rather Bell UTStarcom MP6900 phones are still "on back order"...

Update: Stopped by another Bell Mobility store on the way home - as long as I was willing to become a new customer, there were phones-a-plenty for me of "HTC Touch" models in both black and white colors... I feel so appreciated as a customer that's been with Bell for 4 years right now...