Category: Spark Jump Training

Could there be some confusion about handling returned modems?

After three partner calls today about modem return processes, I thought it might be helpful to restate current procedures.

A Modem Returns Form must be completed for every returned modem. Any modem that has been issued to a customer and returned, or any partners who experience problems when assisting partners set up a new modem, must be put through our modem returns process. Please do not contact Skinny about these, by email or phone. This just wastes your time and theirs, as queries inevitably come back to us at DIAA.

We do our best to try and stop partners having to deal with returned modems at all. Please stress with your customers that they should always contact the Skinny Care Team on 0800 475 4669 to report any faulty modems; the Care Team then completes the Modem Returns Form, saving partners the time and effort.

We know this doesn’t stop your customers just turning up on your door-step saying their modem is faulty, and thank you to all partners who do their best to help. We also know that some Skinny Care agents incorrectly advise customers to go to their nearest Jump partner – we are trying to fix this with the Skinny Jump team with regular reminders. But there will always be some agents who get it wrong, especially if they are new ones, and we must accept that that is life – none of us are perfect.

Helpful tip: If any customers returning faulty modems claim that Skinny told them to go to a partner, please ask your customer the day and time when they received this advice and if possible the name of the Skinny agent that told them to do this. All calls to the Care Team are recorded for training purposes, so if these details are known the Skinny Jump team can find the recording of the call and find out what is causing the wrong information to be given – it is not always the fault of the Care Team; some customers can be very difficult, as I am sure you well know, even when they are benefitting from such a wonderfully subsidised service like Jump.

So what happens next? Modem Return Forms populate a shared GSheet that is used by the Skinny Support Team to advise the next steps. If the modem is truly faulty, they will ask us (DIAA) to send a replacement and recover the faulty unit for repair. By the time this arrives, normally within 2-3 days, the faulty modem has been delinked from the customer’s account, and the customer can proceed to set up the new modem with their same email. If they have residual funds on their old account they can also call the Skinny Care Team and ask for these funds to be transferred (they can not do this if they use a new email to set up their new modem).

Some partners have reported challenges when completing Modem Returns Forms as they don’t have all the details to hand. Don’t be put off – if there are any data fields you don’t know, then simply enter “not known” and the form will let you proceed to the next field. What is most important is that the Broadband number is entered; if you don’t have this then we you suggest you just contact Shelley (0800 463 422) and ask her to send you a return courier bag, as without a Broadband number, the modem is automatically faulty. The Skinny Care team can not initiate the modem reset and de-linking process if they don’t know the Broadband number, so there is no point in carrying on with our wonderfully thought out processes – just short-circuit straight to Shelley.

I know this seems like a lot of words to explain things – if you prefer a better version please work through Tawera’s fabulous new online Jump training modules. I know many of you are and are enjoying the experience.

Not too late to register for the Jump Update webinars

Thank you to the 150 partners who have already registered for the Jump Service Update briefings next week. There are important changes that take effect on 1 June 2022 and we do need a representative from all our 318 Jump delivery partners to attend, so please do register using the link above.

We have five scheduled times, one each day from 23 May and each briefing is just 30 minutes. We are trying to make it easy for everyone to fit this into their schedules. Be careful when registering to choose the Service Update New Information briefings, not the New Partner briefings. New partners or new staff involved in delivering the Jump programme are of course welcome to register for the New Partner Briefings as well.

The Jump top-up challenge: where’s my 30GB?

I had an interesting call from one of our most experienced Jump partners today; she was seeking clarification about the top up process. While she frequently explains the top-up process to customers when they sign up for Jump, she had never actually done a top-up herself, and was quite confused by the information presented on the Skinny Dashboard when she did try and top up the Library demo unit.

She had succeeded in adding $5 credit to her Jump account, but was surprised when she didn’t see 30GB data added to her plan. Instead she saw the information above: 6144 MB (= 6GB) data that was going to expire at 3.30pm and 15360 MB(=15GB) data that was going to expire at the end of the month.

There is an explanation about the ‘free’ 6GB and the 15GB in the fine print above, but I totally understand how this detail can get overlooked – in some telephone surveys we conducted last year, many customers didn’t know about this free data, so we do wonder if this is always being explained when the customer signs up. Even if it is, customers might not fully appreciate this until they go to top up.

But where is the 30GB that I just purchased? Check out the words below the ‘Credit Remaining’ of $5, you will discover that there is no current plan. And just below that ‘Get a plan‘. You must click on this to add your 30GB data plan. When you do this you will discover the 30GB data joins the two freebies and your ‘credit remaining’ drops by $5.

We strongly encourage every partner issuing Jump modems to personally go through this process – we’ll even pay the $5 if necessary. It is well worth $5 (soon to be less than the price of a cup of coffee) for you to have a first-hand experience of the top-up process.

People needing help when topping up make up the largest group of callers to the Skinny Help Desk (Care Team). If we can help Jump customers be more confident in topping up this would enable the Care Team to focus on helping with the much more challenging technical issues.

PS. A box of Chocolate Fish for the partner who brought this to our attention! I am sure she is not the only one that gets confused.

Spark Jump – DS31 Handout & Survey

The DS31 Spark Jump handout has recently been updated to include instructions on how to connect a smartphone to a Spark Jump modem.   If you have time in your session to show each participant how to connect their phones then please do so, otherwise families should be able to follow the steps in their handout when they get home.

Also note a new Spark Jump survey at the end of this handout.  The survey has been designed by our DIAA researcher and is significantly shorter than the Stepping UP generic survey.  It will take a participant 3-4 minutes to complete and we would appreciate your Spark Jump trainers allowing time for this at the end of each session.  We will share the statistics from this survey with your organisation on a quarterly basis.