Waiting Lists – Digital Inclusion Alliance Aotearoa

A reminder about Jump waiting lists (and the price of fish)

I had a call today from a couple of Jump partners asking about our Waiting List process and how this “affects the price of fish”. Well to be fair, they didn’t actually use this expression, but I think what they wanted to understand was why do Jump waiting lists matter. If you want to know more about the origins of ‘the price of fish’, ask ChatGPT.

First of all where do you find your Jump waiting lists? I know some partners like to keep these in their top drawer, and this might be helpful as a local reminder, but the down side is that we (DIAA) have no access to your top drawer and therefore your waiting list has no impact on modem deliveries.

So scroll down your GSheet to the blue line. Waiters should be added below the blue line, as in the example below:

And how does affect the price of fish, I hear you ask. Well, we count the number of dates below the blue line in column E and take this into account when placing new orders. We aim to supply you with enough modems to cover your waitlist as well as enough for the next 4 weeks, based on the number issued over the last weeks.

If customers hang around on your waitlist for too long (over 3 months), we assume this is because they no longer want Jump, and as such they should be removed for the waitlist, or if you do want to keep a record of their interest, the application date must be moved from Column E (we suggest you put this in Comments – column H – along with any other relevant notes). Some partners like to keep the customer’s contact details here as well and you are welcome to do this – please use columns I to N.

Do I include customers who don’t currently have Jump coverage on my waitlist? Another good question. You are welcome to do this, but you must not include any date in column E (use column H), as dates here do affect the price of fish, or in our case, the delivery of modems. If we ever find dates in column E with a note in column H, saying this customer does not have coverage, we transfer the date out of column E.

We do encourage partners to actively manage their own waiting lists in their Partner GSheets, but if when processing the Jump Profile Forms we discover a modem has been issued to a customer who is on the waiting list we will delete them from the waiting list.

CEVA Jump elves taking a break

Like everyone else at this time of year, the elves at CEVA who send you Jump modems are taking a break – the last order is currently being processed, so more modems are on the way for the following partners and these are expected to arrive during the Christmas- New Year holiday break:

Rotorua Library

Waipukurau Library

Mangere Bridge Library

Papatoetoe War Memorial Library

Takaanini Library and Community Hub

For everyone else, processing will re-commence during the week of 13 January and these should arrive during the following week. Depending on how long it takes for the CEVA elves to recover from their Christmas break will determine how many are sent, but I am hoping further supplies will be dispatched in January for:

Dannevirke Library

Grey District Library

Papakura Library

Otahuhu Library

Mt Albert Library

Hamilton Central Library

Morrinsville Library

Naenae Community Library

Hastings War Memorial Library

Mahurangi East Library

Dinsdale Library

Matatiki Hornby Centre

Moera Library

Waitara Library

Whakatane Library

Botany Library

Feilding Library

Helensville Library

Porirua Library

Warkworth War Memorial Library

Kawerau District Library

Southern REAP Gore

Highland Park Library

Shirley Library

Te Manawa (Massey Library)

Waahi Whanui Trust

Te Ahurei a Rangatahi

Waimarie: Hamilton East Community House

Pukekohe Whanau Resource Centre

Friendship House (Huntly) Community Charitable Trust

Ngaruawahia Community House

Bream Bay Trust

Smart Newtown

Tauranga City Library

Otaki Library

Invercargill City Library

Geraldine Library

South Waikato Pacific Islands Community Services

Opotiki Library

Hastings War Memorial Library

Manurewa Library

If you are not on this list, you are unlikely to receive any further supplies until February. Please add applicants to the Waiting List section of your Jump Register and I’ll use this as a guide when prioritising shipments. You are also welcome to contact me at jump@diaa.nz when you run out of modems.

Thank you for all your efforts during the year. You have already set a new record by helping another 15,600 households get access to a truly affordable internet service (and there is still more than a week to go).

A follow up on Jump waiting lists

I have been impressed by the partners who are taking my plea to get their Jump waiting lists in order before Christmas. As of today, we have 65 partners with waiting lists and a total of 309 people waiting (not much different to two weeks ago when we had 60 partners with waiting lists and 310 households waiting).

But it has also highlighted some confusion about who is responsible for removing customers from a waiting list. Our original approach was to get Alistair, who manages the transfer of Profile Form responses to individual Partner Gsheets, to remove waiters when he receives a Profile form from someone who is on a waiting list.

But what we have discovered is that this doesn’t solve the problem of waiters who fail to turn up within 7-10 days after you have notified them that you have modems in stock. Our agreed protocol for this situation is that waiters be removed from the waiting list when this occurs.

While Alistair and I will continue to help where we can, primary responsibility for waiting listing management must be with partners. Many partners use their Jump GSheets to record contact information for customers on their waiting lists and this is an excellent idea. But just as it is your responsibility to add people to the waitlist, we think you should also be primarily responsible for taking them off.

And while we are on the subject of waiting lists, I was especially impressed with the following response from Jess Thrower at Ranui Library; I suspect Jess didn’t need to rely on ChatGPT like me!

Here at Rānui,
Our waitlists aren’t clear,
But we are working on them
With full Christmas cheer.

A lot on our waitlist
Never answer their phone,
So we’ll keep trying
And get dial-tone.

We give extra time,
As much as we can,
If they don’t answer,
We make a new plan.

We reach out by email,
and we hope that they see.
When all of that fails,
We let the waitlist be.

We love to give modems,
And run out so quick!
When they ask for one,
We’re there in a tick!

Let’s clear those Jump waiting lists

🎶 You better get ready,
To bring homes online,
310 households
Are waiting in line!
Let’s clear those lists for Christmas time! 🎶

🎶 With 60* great partners,
And modems in store,
We’ve got what we need,
To connect even more!
Let’s clear those lists for Christmas time! 🎶

🎶 These households are waiting,
For a gift that’s so dear,
An internet connection,
To start the new year! 🎶

🎶 So rally together,
Let’s give it our best,
With Skinny Jump’s mission,
Let’s meet every quest!
Let’s clear those lists for Christmas time! 🎶

*60 partners have customers on their waiting lists (at least that we know about because they have been recorded in your Jump register).

Not really a Friday Quiz, but a little bit of encouragement (of course with help from Chat GPT) to clear your Jump waiting lists. Remember our waiting list protocol – partners should alert customers on their waiting lists when they have modems in stock and if they don’t respond within 7-10 days, then zap, they are to be removed from the waiting list.

We have also discovered some partners do keep a waiting list but this is not shared with us. This means that when we ship you new modem supplies we can not take into account your waiters, so you quickly run out of modems again.

We also know that some partners are unable to add waiters to their Google sheets because they don’t have editing rights. Thanks to Rida Malik from Hamilton Libraries, we now have a solution! It’s all about how we share your Jump GSheet with you. To date, you have needed a Gmail account to get editing rights, but Rida has shown us how we can share this with your regular email. This is a real breakthrough for partners who have IT departments that are nervous about linking Gmail accounts to their corporate networks.

So any partners who still have ‘secret’ waiting lists in your top drawer, let me know the email you would like to use and I’ll connect you up so that you can add these waiters to your Gsheet (email me at jump@diaa.nz).

PS – if any partners would like to demonstrate their Chat GPT skills and respond with a rhyme about how they handle their Jump waiting lists, then who knows, Santa might come early!

We’ve run out of modems!

This is probably the most frequent message we get from Jump delivery partners – and while I have your attention, please send these messages (in fact any messages relating to modem supply or returns) to jump@diaa.nz.

Do not send messages about modems to others on our DIAA team or to the Skinny Jump team. This just adds to email overload and delay in responding to your request.

Our goal is that partners should never have to send us any messages like this. The modem supply process depends on Profile Forms being completed for every modem issued – the only exception is when replacements are issued for faulty modems. Provided the replacement modem details (IMEI and BB number) are included in the Modem Returns form, there is no need for partners to complete a new Profile Form. We update your GSheets using the information you provide in the Modem Returns form.

If you don’t complete a Profile Form, we have no record of the modem being issued. Skinny knows when modems have been activated, but for privacy reasons, they cannot share this information with us, so we totally rely on the profile forms. So, we think you still have the modem and this suppresses (or at best delays) further supplies being sent.

Our stock replenishment process tries to estimate your likely demand for the next four- five weeks, as this is the current lag in modem supply. At any point in time we have as many as 1000 modems in the supply pipeline. When re-ordering, we also take into account the number of people on your waitlist, as recorded below the blue line in your Jump GSheet.

We know some partners keep a separate record of people waiting for a Jump modem, but unfortunately, if we don’t have this information, we can’t take that into account when re-ordering, so this creates an ongoing problem for you in always running out of modems.

But having said all that, we still prefer that you contact us and let us know when your stocks are running low. Please check your Gsheets first as we record modems on order for you there, including the date that we placed the order. You can expect new supplies to arrive 4-5 weeks after the recorded date.

Managing your Jump Waiting Lists

Thank you to Jump partners who are using the Waiting List process as described in my blog post from August 2022. For the most part this seems to be working very well, although we are aware that some partners have their own processes for doing this.

The benefit of using my suggested process is that we can take into account people on your Waitlist when sending you new supplies. Our objective is to try and keep you stocked with Jump modems so that you never run out. But we can’t do this if we don’t know how big your waitlist is.

We currently have modem orders in the pipeline for over 150 partners and this means that there can be a delay of up to 2 months before new supplies arrive. We are continuing to give priority to Ciena partners and partners with waiting lists recorded in their GDoc registers.

There are currently around 500 people on the Jump waitlists – and these are just the ones we know about. As modems are issued and we receive completed Profile Forms, we add the customer to your GDoc and remove them from your waitlist. This works most of the time, but we would appreciate your assistance in keeping your waitlists ‘real’.

For example, some people have been on a waitlist for over 6 months and we suspect that they might have found other options. If you know of anyone in this situation, please delete their names from your Wait List.

The Auckland Library team has come up with a good process for managing their waitlists: when they receive a new supply of modems, they notify customers on the waitlist that they have 2 weeks to arrange a time to collect a modem. Anyone who does not respond within 2 weeks is removed from the waitlist and the modem becomes available to issue to other customers.

One final point about the waitlists – please make sure you include the date in column E when customers are added to the waitlist, using the following date format: 9-jun-2023. Google Docs can get confused with dates in the following format 9/6/2023 – is this 9 June (NZ format) or 6 September (US format)?

Managing your Jump waitlists

Some partners have asked for advice about managing their waitlists. We understand many are having difficulty contacting customers who have been added to the waitlist and the question then is how much effort do you put into following up with people who are difficult to contact.

The Auckland Library team discussed this at a recent Jump Community of Practice and agreed to set aside modems for up to 7 days; some felt it didn’t even need to be as long as this, as we are continuing to face up to six week delays in the supply chain.

We support the idea of a definite timeframe being communicated to customers and agree it should be no longer than 7 days. We find many people are reluctant to answer calls from unknown numbers but can be responsive to text messages when they know it is about Jump.

I know some partners try time and time again to contact these customers, but my advice is that one call is all that is necessary – leave a message if possible (voice or text). The ‘reserved’ modem should then be released for distribution after 7 days. This practice should be explained to customers at the time they are added to the waitlist. They should also be encouraged to take responsibility for checking in with you from time to time as well.

Partners are welcome to leave unresponsive names in the Waitlist section of their Jump registers but they eventually ‘expire’ (currently after 6 weeks) when it comes to influencing modem re-order quantities.

You are also welcome to add your own notes in column H of the register and contact details in columns I to N.

More on Jump Waiting Lists

Many partners are now actively using the waiting list process to signal unmet demand for Jump modems, and we are continuously monitoring these lists to adjust delivery quantities for partners as well as priorities. We currently have 102 modem orders for partners in the pipeline, with total requests for over 1200 modems. This might seem like a lot, but the good news is that waiting times are trending down, and with Christmas coming, we expect this trend to continue at least until February. We have adjusted the re-supply trigger quantity down from 8 weeks to 5. This means that whenever you receive a new supply of modems, you should have enough to last 5 weeks (based on the number issued during the previous five weeks). We do factor in customers on waiting lists, so a couple of reminders about this process.

(1) When you add someone to the waitlist towards the bottom of your Jump Register please include their first and last name and the date they have applied for Jump. The most important field is the date – it must be in the following format: “22-Nov-2022”. Other date formats may not be recognised and this directly affects re-supply quantities.

(2) Do not add people living at locations that fail the Jump coverage test to your waitlists. You should complete an online application for them, so that we get ongoing data about demand that can not currently be met. We do double check coverage for every online application and send an email to applicants at locations where there is no Jump service.

(3) We have noticed some situations where applicants get the green light for Jump coverage when they initially apply, but by the time new modem supplies arrive the situation has changed. This is regrettable, but it is not something we can control. In these situations, please transfer the applicant from your waiting list to an online application.

(4) Some partners are confused about the address verification process and have reported that by the time they discover their customer’s address is not in coverage, they have already set up a Skinny account. The address coverage check MUST come first, and certainly before you start to set up a Skinny Jump account.

(5) And before you add anyone to your waitlist, we do strongly encourage you to use the 6 C’s checklist with your customer to make sure Jump is the right product for them. Failing to do this is likely to lead to further frustration when modem supplies become available and the customer only then discovering that the data cap is not going to work for their household, for example.