Michael Pousti, CEO and chariman of SMS.ac, has proposed a Mobile Consumer Bill of Rights during his opening speech at this year’s CTIA conference. I had a read through the proposed ‘Bill of Rights’, and felt I had to comment, based on my own several years as a content provider in the mobile content industry.
The Mobile Consumers Bill of Rights:
1. Clear Descriptions and Pricing
Mobile consumers have the right to clear and easy-to-understand descriptions of the products and services for which they are paying.
Mobile consumers have the right to know exact costs for all products and services prior to purchase, clearly expressed in each customer’s local currency, without the confusion of moving, scrolling or otherwise difficult-to-read text.
Our GTIP service has always had a clear, fixed, one-time cost. There’s no hidden charges, no subscription fees, nothing except the one, single fixed cost and any charges added on by the operator.
2. Privacy, Opt-in and Opt-out
Mobile consumers have the right to communicate, participate and transact in a safe environment, where their personal information is protected.
All pay-for products and services must include an opt-in process for the consumer that is clear and concise.
All pay-for products, including premium SMS (text) messages received on a consumer’s phone must contain clear and easy-to-follow instructions on how to opt-out of the product and/or service, along with confirmation that their opt-out process was successful, delivered on a non-premium message.
Our GTIP service is not a subscription service, so there’s no opt-in and no need for opt-out. For other subscription-based services we run, we have supported opt-out since 2002 (when we first launched such services), and we introduced a free ‘block’ function in 2003 (allows consumers to stop a mobile number from ever being subscribed to one of our subscription services - a permanent opt-out), and never automatically opt someone in to services.
3. Prompt Possession and Satisfaction
Mobile consumers have the right to receive the goods and services they paid for in a timely fashion and in a manner that meets their expectations.
Our GTIP service is based around delivering a single piece of relevant content as quickly as possible, and the customer is only charged when they receive their content, not beforehand.
4. Customer Service and Technical Support
Mobile consumers have the right to courteous customer service and technical support that are easily accessible 24-hours per day and seven days each week.
Mobile consumers must receive replies to all inquiries within 24 hours and have their issues resolved quickly and respectfully.
Customer service assistance should be available through Toll-free phone service, and/or real-time online chat with service personnel, as well as via email response.
Whilst we don’t provide a free telephone support contact, we provide a free email support service, something we have always provided. In three and a half years of continuous daily operation (and more than 80,000 customer purchases), we have received one complaint, which turned out to be related to the SMS delivery service, and not our content service provision. (That’s a 0.00119% complaint rate by the way.)
5. Money-back Refund
Mobile consumers have the right to request a money-back refund, in the event they are unhappy with the product or service provided. Money-back refund policies should be available to all mobile consumers within the initial 30 days of purchase, when customer confusion is most likely to occur.
We’ve never given a refund - but then we’ve never been asked for one.
6. Customer Confidence
Mobile consumers have the right to say, “NO.” NO surprises. Customers only receive goods and services that they requested without hidden costs and invisible opt-ins.
NO spy ware or other forms of intrusive data collection unless clearly specified by the content provider and opted-in to by the customer.
NO spam. Mobile phone users have the right to a spam-free environment, where only authorised messages are sent to their phones.
For our GTIP service we only provide one answer per question asked. We don’t reuse, resell or otherwise subscribe customers to any extra services, nor do we use their mobile number for anything other than the one requested answer.
And on top of all of this, we have always provided a free alert for every £10 a customer spends on our GTIP service, even though we are only required to send an alert every £20, and only for subscription services. Even though GTIP is not a subscription service, we think it is good customer service, so we do it anyway.
