With mobile networks now providing better value for money on 18 and 24 month contracts more people are choosing to take sim only deals where you are only tied in to a 30 day rolling contract. With higher risks of redundancy and not as much disposable income people are searching for better value!

Who would benefit from a sim only deal?

• Pay as you go customers – sim only deals can start from as little as £10 per month and include unlimited texts and cross network minutes which is far better value then pay as you go and saves you having to top up!
• Students – moving away from home, not a lot of spare cash SIM only keep costs but also allows them to keep in touch with friends and family back home with things such as unlimited landline minutes!
• Contract ended but you can’t decide what deal to take out or the phone you really want is being released in a month or two, take a sim only to make sure you can still keep in touch and still cancel before you take your new deal.
• The kids – it’s their first contract and you’re not sure if they will stay under the minutes and text allowance? Buy a sim only to test out for a few months!
• Leaving the country in a few months so don’t want to be tied into a year long contract sim only deals only have a 30 day tie in!

Advantages

• Only tied in for 30 days
• Better value for money – you get more minutes and texts for your money
• None of the hassle of running out of credit as with pay as you go
• Lots of deals to choose from on different networks
• Keep your number

Fancy a SIM only deal?…

Since the iPhones launch in June 2007 it’s had a few small upgrades but has basically remained a 2007 phone.  Meanwhile rival phones have got flashier with high specs, OLED screens and slick interfaces like the new LG S-Class interface.  The sheen has worn off, long gone are the days when iPhone owners could whip it out in public and be surrounded by people wanting to “touch it” or “have a play”.

There’s still one area that no other phone matches and that’s the AppStore.  Apple claim that “there’s an app for everything” and I decided to put that to the test by using AppStore apps “for everything” whilst in London for a weekend.  Everything!

I didn’t get off to a great start.  Whilst thetrainline.com have an iPhone application you can’t book tickets with it.  On the plus side it’s excellent for planning journeys and has some great features like the un-confusingly named “Next Train Home”.

Booking a hotel would have been simple if I had the expenses account of an MP but the hotels found by the otherwise excellent HotelPal and HotelBooker were way out of my price range.

There’s loads of apps to entertain you whilst travelling, with hundreds loads of great games and if you’re not into that then there’s ebook readers, music-making software, BBC iPlayer, last.fm; and even Championship Manager.  Yes, the iPhone rivals even the original Nokia N-Gage for on-the-go entertainment.

Moving away from entertainment the iPhone has some great apps for finding your way around.  “nru” by lastminute.com uses the iPhone compass to show which direction to walk in to find almost anything.  It also integrates with the iPhones built in map system, which is great because finding places by compass isn’t very practical (I almost became a “delay on the Northern Line due to a body on the track”).  Another great app is “fonefood” which helps you find restaurants, view menus and book tables.  If you’re not into the haute cuisine offered by fonefood participants then there’s even an app to order Burger King (in Brooklyn).

There’re lots of London Underground apps, my favourite is “Nearest Tube.  Using the camera, it overlays directions to tube stations on the screen over what you’re looking at.  Like robocop!

One of the things I planned to do in London was use the iPhone to find a gig or show.  Whilst it doesn’t let you book tickets “Becks GigFinder” integrates with last.fms extensive gig database so you can find anything from an industrial or hardcore band in a tiny basement to whatever boring music you’re into.

In summary the iPhone doesn’t have an “app for everything”, but it’s close (there’s even an app for finding toilets!).  There’s no app to stop you from getting mugged which might be an issue if you’re wandering around, holding your iPhone out.  So be warned!  Whilst I didn’t get mugged some guy looked at me funny so it was a pretty close call!  Other than that the iPhone is great.

Anyone remember the times in the dark distant past, where if you wanted to meet your friend somewhere, you had to decide in advance when and where to meet? And, if you were late, or got lost, then, well, you didn’t meet them and you had to go home, crying.

Or when the  train to a job interview was delayed and and you didn’t have 20p for the phone so you had to buy a croissant from the shop to get change, only to find that the pay phone was out of order, so you had to go out of the station, and then miss your train? And that’s before realising you’ve just trodden in something nasty and got croissant crumbs all down your shirt?

How about when you arrived in a strange foreign city, and you had to seek out the tourist information in order to get a map and find yourself somewhere to stay and get something interesting to eat? And you couldn’t read any of the signs and ended up asking for train times in half-recalled GCSE French to someone who speaks only Czech?

Okay, maybe some of those are just things that happened to me. And maybe I shouldn’t have taken it so personally that my friend didn’t wait for more than half an hour for me.

But the last scenario didn’t happen that long ago at all – it was last Summer. And if I’d had a more modern phone – such as a Nokia N97, iPhone or Blackberry Curve – I would have been able to pull up maps, translation tools and maybe even book a hotel from the train before I’d arrived.

Just 25 years ago mobile phones were so big you had to carry it in a car – though enough people bought one to name a shop after them – and now the main thing dictating their size is the screen.

Modern smartphones are more than just communication tools – they’re replacements for your diary, alarm clock, camera and even TV. Why bother owning a map these days when your smartphone has one and will work out a route for you? Even recent technology like standalone MP3 players are becoming obsolete now.

All the major technologies of the past few decades – PCs, the internet, GPS – are all converging onto handsets. We’ve potentially got more information in our pockets than all the world’s libraries, and as much computing power as 1000 original IBM PCs.

Mobile technology, combined with the internet, will continue to be at the forefront of social change. Is this a good thing? Do we want to be “always on”? Isn’t there an adventure in not knowing; in working things out for yourself?  I’ll leave that for you to decide. It’ll leave with me with less daft anecdotes, certainly.

We all at some point have spoken to customer service over the telephone and we generally ring a company to resolve an issue or to ask a question, but do we always get great customer service?

It does come down to personal preference, where some people might call and get satisfactory service, while other people receiving the same service maybe looking for more. A business needs to grow and must have a following of customers to succeed over time, people who want the best and rightly deserve this, are paying there hard earned money, so if there is a problem people are right to be disgruntled and upset if a problem occurs.

In my experience as a manager of customer services, an apology should be second nature for a customer service advisor, whether directly our fault or not. As a company we want to listen to the customer to take on board the situation and strive to work with them.

Though when something cannot be resolved or the customer does not get the resolution they want, we will remain professional and try to give information on how else this could be resolved.

If we think of bad customer service we may have received, we remember how we were spoken to, would the advisor have escalated the situation by the way they treated us?

Adding to the frustration by not caring if we are told some bad news, it is a tough job giving someone information that they do not want to hear or advising nothing else can be done. But saying that, when and if there is a problem, if an advisor is helpful and does all they can this can benefit the situation hence we can come away thinking we have been dealt with respectfully and with full confidence that problem has been resolved.

Reflecting on good service, we remember being listened to and problems are not problems anymore, they are quickly resolved and we feel a certain peace that everything has been done that can be. When we have had a smooth transition whether it be buying a mobile or switching our gas or electric, if we receive good service we are then more inclined to order again from that company.

We have a system in place where when a customer receives contact or has called into our customer service number, they are automatically sent an email asking how we did. It has questions asking about the core service they received and how things could be improved; we take all this feedback and try our best to act on it. And I am pleased to say we have surprised a few customers by calling them back asking for any other feedback.

All in all getting customer service is one of the most important things for a company and we strive to offer the best now and in the future.

How have your customer service experiences been?

Ok so who fancies scoring a thirty yard screamer with Wayne Rooney past a helpless Peter Cech? Bash up Ryu or Ken on Street Fighter IV? What about that 80’s classic Ghostbusters? “Who you gonna call?” the One Stop Phone Shop of course.

What could be better than getting a new phone for yourself and then an Xbox 360 Elite or Playstation 3 slim as an early Christmas gift for your kids or the big kid in you.

So let’s look firstly at the new Sony Playstation 3 slim. What does it offer to give you a great gaming experience? The Sony Playstation 3 Slim is a lot smaller than its original big brother. It consumes 34% less power than the last Playstation 3. The slim line version also has a far superior processor which aids the console in being a lot quieter and remaining cooler for longer periods of time than the original, which helps for the marathon gaming sessions you will have. It has new V 3.0 operating system to make it even more interactive and exciting Special Sync feature allows you to pair your Playstation 3 Slim with your Sony Bravia television for stunning High Definition gaming quality. The Playstation 3 slim comes with everything you need to get started. The Playstation 3 slim is available on our website and has 3 different packages to choose from. Free online gaming with a Wi-Fi or wireless internet connection, bonus.

Let’s look at the competition. The Xbox elite is the Pinnacle of the 360 family and boasts the following. The XBox 360 Elite comes with a huge 120GB hard drive. Like all Xbox systems, it comes with three powerful core processors and DVD playback. The HDMI cable allows you to experience full surround sound and HD gaming and media-playing. Comes in a stylish black colour and again is available as a standard alone console, console with the Street Fighter IV or a console with 12 months Xbox live Gold Membership. Gaming online does cost with the Elite but get your 12 months membership through us and you are sorted, for a year at least. Something that may well set apart the Elite from the PS3 Slim which will be released in 2010 is Project Natal. Check out this link to see what you think as this will take gaming to a new level.

Further games are being added constantly to the console packages we offer on both of the formats above,  Fifa 10 has arrived which is a must have for any footy fan.  This has been joined by the highly anticipated new Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 2 game which does pushes online gaming to its limit and new boundaries which will blow your mind, this will also be one heck of a Christmas gift.

So what is it to be or can’t you decide? Whichever console you choose I can guarantee you will not be disappointed.