Rogers says the number of completed Pro On-the-Go visits has tripled since May amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Pro On-the-Go service provides phone delivery and setup support, along with personalized one-to-one guidance at customers’ homes. Rogers offers this service through an exclusive Canadian partnership with mobile retail store Enjoy.
The Toronto-based carrier outlines that it has had to come up with different ways to adapt the service to COVID-19 restrictions while continuing to conduct necessary visits to customers’ homes.
Bart Nickerson, the senior vice-president of Rogers Wireless, told MobileSyrup in an interview that contactless visits can be conducted while the Pro sits in their car on the customer’s driveway and is talking to them on the phone to set-up their new device or answer any questions. If the customer wants to buy something else, the Pro can bring it to their door.
“We’ve had stories of one of our Pros outside looking through a customer’s window and talking to the customer on the phone and motioning through the window on how to get things set up,” Nickerson said.
The service launched last year in October, and Nickerson notes that once COVID-19 hit, Rogers accelerated its expansion plans to launch in more areas such as Ottawa.
Further, Rogers and Enjoy say that the pandemic brought natural demand for the service as malls and stores closed and people were confined to their homes, but still needed products and services.
“One of the biggest jobs has been to keep up with the demand, and that’s where Enjoy has been great,” Nickerson outlined.
Ron Johnson, the founder of Enjoy, told MobileSyrup that Enjoy has “rapidly brought on more people and continues to hire people to try to meet the demand.”
Johnson went on to say as people have been working and studying from home amid the pandemic, there’s a need for high-speed networks and other connected devices to help them do so, but there are also questions about technology that people may not have answers to.
He notes that people might not know what type of tablet is best-suited for them, or they may not know how to ensure they get coverage in every room in their house.
“It’s a lot easier to have a Pro on the premises answering the questions and guiding you, whether that’s through a window or through the phone,” he said.
Further, since the pandemic has increased the need for video calls among family and friends due to travel restrictions, the Pros have been teaching people how to make video calls through apps like FaceTime and Zoom.
In terms of future expansions, Johnson and Nickerson stated that the companies are currently looking at cities they want to launch the service in next, and that customers should stay tuned.
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