an original perspective on three

noumenal

Hi guys,

I wanted to post my experience and general thinking on 3 mobiles. Its a bit different from a lot of the stuff on here - anyway, i leave you to make up your own mind.

First of all, I have a 3 phone. Its an old L&G handset and I got it off the net on a money back deal. The cost works out at £15 a month for 500 x-network minutes and 100 text messages. Now we all know and agree that those prices are vastly superior to anything else out there. But do you lose on 3 in terms of coverage and service?? I THINK NO - on two fronts. Firstly, my own experience. I live in Southampton and have used my phone a lot in London. I have had no dropped calls, and only trivial signal problems (certainly no worse than any other network). Also I have had to contact 3 customer services a few times. Not for problems they are responsible for but because e.g. I dropped my phone in water and needed to get it repaired, and to change my billing address. Each time I have spoken to operators in India. They have been extremely good - politely and efficiently dealing with me. So on my experience there is no question that your mobile should be on 3. (I also know several other satisfied customers with three.)

But what about the general belief about the various problems 3 has and all the horror stories listed above. I think a few points should be born in mind when assessing them. Firstly, any company makes mistakes and seriously pisses off some of its customers. If you gather them together it makes that company look terrible. I now work in British gas customer relations. I think it is fair to say that 3 and BG are in important respects very different companies. It seems to me that some of the worry about 3 stems from its being a relatively new player in the mobile market, offering super cheap deals, and thus it seems that it must cut costs somewhere e.g. customer service. But you could easily get a thread this long of different people listing there awful experience with BG. That some people have very bad experiences with a company is something that generally applies to big buisnesses. And mobile phone companies are just the same. I used to work in a call centre selling mobile phones and have spoken to lots of people about their mobiles. And in my experience there are just as many people who think that orange, o2 etc... have awful coverage and customer service as three.

So, to conclude in my opinion for whatever reason the image of 3 has been negatively distorted by the gathering together of bad stories. In fact I suspect that there is very little difference between 3, orange, o2 etc... Similar levels of service, similar rates of people who have terrible experiences of one sort or another. It is just that three's are gathered together and create a skewed perspective.

I dont want to trivialise the bad experiences listed above. I feel sorry for those people - and they definitely deserve better treatment. But i think you are as likely to suffer such an experience (which is still very UNlikely) no matter what network you choose.

Daniel

:j:

Steve_xx

Yes, agreed, you are right in your view.

Where 3 is concerned it's a bit like listening to Jeremy Clarksons' view on cars. Wouldn't we all be foolish to be put off of a particular car model based on his wholly biased twitterings?

3 is fine, it has its problems. like all of the other networks do from time to time. I well remember the early days of Orange and how people reacted adversely when their network didn't appear to be quite what it was purported to be. Nowadays of course, everyone accepts Orange as one of the mainstream operators. The same will be true of 3 in the not too distant future. Interestingly, Orange was created by Hutchison, and guess who own 3?

Amba_Gambla

In the last few years I've had contracts with 3, vodafone, orange and o2, and I've only stayed with each company for one year, except for 3 who I have now signed up for my 2nd year with.

Besides orange, 3 customer service is no worse than any of the others, and it's free. On o2 I was paying 50p/min for crap CS- on 3, it's free and it's ok customer service.

I'm a definate 3 convert......

nanjo

totally agreed. In fact I think their CS is very good, I remebered sent my moto c975 for repair( under warranty), they arranged courier to pickup and dropped off after repaired within 5 working days.
I have 4 contracts with them at the moment. :-)

gk172

I was on 3 for one of my contracts and agree i really couldnt fault them reception wise or c.s my only gripe with them is why wont they unlock a handset even for £20-30? which i would gladley pay but they tell me they cant unlock it and now i have a 6680 locked to 3 which i cant use or pass onto anyone as no one i know uses 3 And i know of a few others who like me wont buy a phone on 3 for that very reason.

scoobysnaks

I have just spent a year on 3 and I would not go back to them for free calls or any other gimmicks. I previously had 500mins 100 texts free through cashback

The reception and cut offs during a call are terrible. I understand they piggy back through other service providers which may explain the cut offs.

I am now on o2 - wow - first class service

Free uk customer services number - no indians
free voicemail access
Free int traveller service = cheaper calls when abroad - 28pence min
free mobile internet through my laptop to date

Bye bye 3 am a happy o2 customer.

SenorGroucho

Both my wife and I have contracts with three and wouldn't recommend them. Although we've had no problems with the network their out sourced customer services has been appalling. We were both put on the wrong tariff and charged extra which after endless phone calls over months was never sorted out properly and we are both still owed money.

MisterT2

Hi,

I have had a few problems with 3 customer service trying to sort out credits at the end of the contract. I have had no real reception problems in Berkshire, and just signed for another 3 contracts. I also have had dealings with Cellnet and Vodaphone. I don't care what accent a person has on the other end of the line so long as they can do their job. Unfortunately its a sign of the times .......

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