3 ways Bell.ca can stop blowing the customer experience

I’ve got a MiFi 2372 from Bell. It’s a cool little device that I’ve been recommending to almost everyone… until a couple of weeks ago. What the device does is this: it connects to Bell’s wireless data service and acts as a wifi router, allowing you to use 3G wireless Internet to access the Internet with laptops, non-3G iPads and other devices that don’t have 3G natively on board (hello hi speed at the cottage!)… until a couple of weeks ago.

On May 3 Bell disabled all MiFis on its network because of an issue with the MiFi’s battery. It sucks, but these things happen.

What really sucks, though, is that many Bell customers found out about this the hard way — by trying to get online (in my case in a mission critical situation), finding it didn’t work and trying to solve the problem.

And what sucks even more is that it’s really hard to get a straight answer about what Bell’s going to do about the problem. A recorded message on 310-BELL said to take the unit back to point of sale; retail said to wait for a replacement (or maybe some other non-equivalent wireless product) in the mail; call center said replacement would happen by mail but couldn’t confirm whether or not they’d actually be replacing the MiFis with MiFi’s or not.

It’s unfortunate. It would be so easy for Bell to communicate with all stakeholders in a way that clears up all the confusion and that keeps the recall in the “bummer” category and out of the “fiasco” category. Here are three ways Bell, and especially their Bell.ca Web site, could stop failing at customer service:

• Be fast and be proactive — communicate early and often with customers about what’s happening with the recall
• Leverage online channels — use email and the Bell.ca Web site to keep customers up to date about the recall process. They’ve got my email address and an online portal that knows I’ve got a MiFi 2372 — why not use those to talk to me about what’s going on?
• Be transparent — put up a public recall page on Bell.ca that can provide consistent information to call center staff, retail staff and consumers about what the recall process is. Show consumers that you’re customer service-focused and take the risk that a recall may make you look bad (it won’t)