Great 3 Customer Service - but I had to go to Italy

amby666

Just back from a trip to Italy and thought it was interesting how I got on.

I took my 3 pay monthly in an N95 and looked forward to getting some use while away on the 3 network in Italy.
The 3 network coverage was pretty good and from Rome to Como, was on 3 almost all of the time.
The first 2 days were great and I was able to browse the web, get email. On the 3rd day they stopped working. Phone calls and text worked, but no internet services. Ahh, 3 Like Home..

Phoned 3 support, (no, they wouldn't investigate as I had an N95, but my wife had a SE Z610i on 3, so we removed the battery etc, etc..).
Eventually tech support got the call. Would be escalated.

I was also ringing them 'cos I was getting fed up of multiple texts from people on O2 Ireland. One text was received 16 times! Now if I remember correctly when this happened to people before, it was the receiving networks fault for not returning a delivered message. But when this happened to me on the 3 Italy network, the response was that as the data transverses multiple networks on the way to 3 Italy, the problem could be anywhere and so they couldn't do anything. It would sort itself out when I got home!

So with 3 Like Home being as useful as 3 at home, I went into a 3 shop to see if I could buy a sim. And there the similarities ended.

I got a guy with pretty good English, knew what he was talking about and wanted to help.
Firstly he compared the settings on my N95 to those on his (N95 is a 3 Italy phone, but they also sell sim free). I told him it wasn't a 3 phone, but he did it anyway. He didn't burst into flames and I haven't gone to hell yet.
Settings looking Ok, and he used Fring and Opera Mini on my phone to test.
He couldn't figure what was wrong, so he went to three.ie hoping to find some useful technical info or settings. Best he could get was external phone for 3 support, so from his shop phone dialed the international number for me to speak to them again.

It wasn't a long call as I refused to take the battery out again, so they put on to the tech guy, who remembered me from yesterday.. And he admitted that there was a problem with using the Italian network as he couldn't see the any packet switching on it, and they kinda needed it. Would be escalated, but probably not be fixed before I returned home.

So my new friend in the shop sold me a 3 sim, €5 with €5 credit included.
He then used €3 of that credit to give me a data plan - 7 days data (including modem use), with a 50MB per day download limit. I wasn't staying long enough to get the 30 day plan for €9. I traveled around for the next week with email (ProfiMail), Widsets, GPS and web browsing. This is the way it used to be at home before they started to fix the network. I wish Home was like away.

3 Italy seem like a grown up company. They appear to realise they have a good network and encourage people to use it - buying sims, browsing, using the apps you want. They want the service exploited, want it to work and want to help.
In addition to the high street shops, they also have 3 Service Centers in the high streets too. You know, you have problems with your service, the network, you just drop in and they try to sort it out. In front of you. They can see the problem, not tell you there isn't one.

I know 3 Ireland is still a newish company, but they seem intent on locking down everything to restrict usage and choice and this will ultimately drive customers away. Not those on simple call plans, but those who would use it to it's utmost and could be their greatest advocates. The old 'you couldn't give them that, they might use it' attitude. They could do a lot worse than to learn from their Italian cousins.


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Bluefrog

Had heard good reports about Three Italy. You should pass this on to the good folks at Three Ireland.