Jump Support – Page 2 – Digital Inclusion Alliance Aotearoa

Contacting the Skinny Care Team

We love the new tools that the Skinny team has put in place for getting Jump help – interactive voice response (IVR), online chats, email, facebook messaging, – and during March 2024, 60% of all the Care Team contacts by Jump customers used these tools.

But there are times when you really really need to talk to a human. And this is proving challenging for some Jump users. One elderly customer recently gave up trying to navigate the IVR when they were asked to enter their broadband number and verification code, so they called in to see their local Jump partner.

The partner tried to navigate the Jump IVR for this customer to find a way to get around the looped response if you don’t know these details – and failed! Unless a broadband number and verification code is entered, callers are returned to the IVR menu.

I did discover that if you don’t press ‘3’ for Jump, then you do get a press ‘9’ option to talk to a Care Agent, but what this means is that you then join the regular Skinny broadband queue. This is also so counter-intuitive that it would be impossible to explain to customers.

So the advice from the Jump Squad is to explain to customers that even if they don’t know their broadband number and verification code, they must attempt to enter some numbers. When these are entered, the system will detect them as invalid numbers and present the customer with a press ‘9’ option to talk to an agent.

I am aware that some IVR systems default to a live operator if customers reach a dead end and simply wait for 10 seconds. At this stage, the Jump IVR has not been set up this way, but changes could be made in the future.

Stolen Modems – unknown broadband number?

We get regular reports about Jump modems being lost or stolen. This presents a slight dilemma for customers when calling the Skinny Care Team to request a replacement. The IVR for Jump (press ‘3’ when calling 0800 475 4669) asks callers to enter their broadband number and verification code. But this is pretty difficult to do if the modem has been lost or stolen, or in some cases the transparent sticker with these details has been removed.

The good news is that Skinny Jump Care Agents can retrieve these details if they are sure the person calling is who they say they are. Normally, they would request the broadband number and verification code, printed on sticker on the side of the modem. Or they may ask the customer to retrieve these details from their Jump app.

In the absence of these details, the Skinny Jump agents may request the following details to verify the caller:

(1) registered email address;

(2) service address; or

(3) last top-up.

Once the Care Agent is satisfied they are talking to the right person, they will retrieve the modem details and complete a Modem Returns form, including a request for a replacement modem to be sent if this is what the customer wants.

Of course, all this assumes that the customer has been able to reach a Skinny Care agent. If they choose the IVR path (press ‘3’), they will get caught in a never-ending loop, unless they attempt to enter a broadband number and verification code; if these numbers are invalid they will then be given the option to press ‘9’ to talk to a Care Agent. More on this in my next post.

Jump customers being referred by Skinny Care Team to Partners for replacement modems

This shouldn’t be happening, but I get regular regular reports from partners that it is. Our agreed procedures for handing faulty and returned modems are clearly set out on our website.

The Skinny Care agents rely on a knowledge base to provide advice to customers when they call, so the Jump team went on an exploratory mission to find out where the agents were getting this wrong information.

And success! They discovered a rogue flowchart that was directing Skinny Care agents to some obsolete information that instructed them to advise customers with faulty modems to return them to a nearby Jump partner. Needless to say, this has been corrected. Thanks, River.

Thank you also to the partners who alerted us to this issue. We always welcome feedback on processes that are not working as they should. We can then try and fix them.

Accolades for Skinny

Skinny has been proclaimed number one amongst the major telcos when it comes to customer service. The results of a independent survey of telcos’ service performance was released this morning by the Commerce Commission.

This is doubly good news for Skinny Jump customers – not only are they getting the most affordable internet service in New Zealand, they are now also getting the best internet service.

The Residential Broadband Rankings for the period from January to June 2023 put Skinny ahead of all other major internet providers when it comes to how likely customers are to recommend their provider to friends and family. Skinny also topped the tables in customer satisfaction with how quickly providers resolve customer service issues.

So well done to the Skinny team; we are fortunate to have you as the Jump internet provider.

New Jump IVR a hit!

At 8.30am on Wednesday 17 May, the Skinny Jump IVR (Interactive Voice Response) went live. What this means is that Jump customers can now interact with a computer-operated phone system through voice or keypad input to get the help they need rather than going into a wait queue to speak to a Skinny Care agent.

Within an hour of the launch, Jump callers were quickly finding the IVR was solving their problems, allowing them to:

(a) hear the dollar balance on their Jump account

(b) hear their data balance (number of Megabytes)

(d) renew their Skinny Jump plan

(e) hear how many plan renewals they have remaining for the month

(f) cancel a plan renewal

In the first week, the number of calls to live agents dropped by 40% and we are sure this also resulted in much happier customers, being able to avoid the wait queues. Furthermore the IVR never sleeps – awake 24/7.

To use the Jump IVR process, customers have to:

call 0800 4SKINNY (0800 475 4669)
select Option 3 for Jump
enter their broadband number (0204….)
enter their verification code

Step 4 is something new. Until now, this has only been required when setting up a new modem, so customers will need to have both the broadband number and the verification number ready to use the IVR.

Customers will still have the option to “press 9 to speak to a Care agent”. We encourage all partners to explain (or even demonstrate) the IVR option during the initial set-up process.