plans
2 TopicsIntroduce a traditional PAYG tariff
Currently, SMARTY only offers rolling monthly plans, but it would be great if there were a traditional Pay As You Go 'plan' where you pay per minute, text and MB of data that you automatically switch to if you don't renew your plan, or don't select a plan when activating a SIM. There is a PAYG page on the website, but this has misled some customers into thinking SMARTY offers PAYG plans (examples here: How to activate a data-only payg SIM | SMARTY Community, Pay as you go Sim | SMARTY Community); instead, the page is only saying how rolling monthly plans are better than PAYG. That doesn't seem very "Simple, honest mobile" to me. I agree that rolling monthly combines the price benefits of a pay monthly plan with the flexibility of a no-contract PAYG, but PAYG is still cheaper for light users who only make occasional calls and don't want data, and it will only cost them pennies per month compared with a rolling contract costing £6. There is already a somewhat PAYG option, where you pay per minute and text if you have a Data-only plan (10p per minute & text and 40p per MMS text as set in the price guide), but there is no way of not paying for a monthly data plan and only using the PAYG calls and texts with an out of plan add-on. I think adding a PAYG tariff is a great way to capture extra customers and revenue that only want a PAYG plan. I would also push some of my family members over to SMARTY if they were available. There are probably other considerations to make, such as whether to use account balance or out of plan add-on balance, how to handle the 220 day inactivity account closure, if they can buy data and unlimited pass add-ons, how PAYG fits into groups/nickname SIMs, how to handle refer-a-friend rewards, and roaming & international charges. As for pricing, 10p per minute is great compared to networks like GiffGaff (25p/minute) or VOXI (30p/minute), which seem to treat PAYG as second-rate rather than a viable way to use the SIM. However, it doesn't quite match up to networks like iD Mobile (3p/minute) or 1pMobile (1p/minute), so maybe reducing it to around 5p or lower would be nice, preferably 2p to beat out iD Mobile. Some networks also reduce the cost or even make it free to call & text numbers on the same network, not only because it skips termination fees, but also encourages people to move friends over to the same network. It would also be preferable not to have minimum monthly top-up amounts, otherwise it won't be of much value over the monthly plans. And please don't make it hard to find out that this option exists by not including it on the plans webpage, hiding the rates, or making it hard for new customers to start out with this option. Your motto is "Simple, honest mobile", after all.37Views1like3CommentsChange Data Only plans pricing
The Data Only plans' pricing needs updating. They are supposed to be 'just great value data' and be cheaper than Voice plans because they don't include calls and texts, but that is not the case. At the current pricing, it is better to get Voice plans even if you only want data, as you get more data for the same price, and you also get free calls and texts as a bonus even if you don't use them. It's not like there are advantages to paying the extra money, like getting a public IP address instead of being put on CGNAT, being able to use a MiFi which we can already do with a Voice plan, higher priority than Voice plans, or removing fair use policies in the unlimited data plan which the Voice plans don't even have (there are people reportedly using 1.5TB of data with SMARTY, highest I've seen being 2.3TB). It's even worse when you account for those deals you find on sites like Uswitch, and the Data plans are just not worth it at all. Looking at this article covering Data SIM's introduction, it seems even back then its value wasn't as good as Voice plans, so what even is their purpose? There's only this thread trying to theorise why the Data plans are like this. I think the plans should be changed to be priced lower than the Voice plans, do the occasional promotions with these plans as you do with Voice plans, and add benefits that are clearly communicated such as replacing CGNAT with a public IP address. (and please don't deprioritise, add FUP or block MiFi devices with Voice plans to make Data Only plans better)8Views0likes0Comments