How did China Mobile drive a user crazy? -- China Mobile's user experience complaints

In the process of China Mobile's gradual transformation from a successful model of user experience to the object of user complaints, we have seen how a former industry giant has lost its way in market competition and changes in user needs. Based on the author's personal experience, this article will analyze in detail the collapse process of China Mobile's user experience in the 5G era, discuss the reasons behind it and the possible direction of improvement in the future.

Again, I was woken up by a phone call from China Mobile.

In the past, every time I received a call from China Mobile, I would answer it carefully, lest I miss any important announcements, but now I just hang up in anger - I'm tired of China Mobile selling products under the guise of free upgrade benefits.

In my eyes, China Mobile has become one of the largest telemarketing companies in China, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is one of the largest telecom fraud companies in China (more on this later).

Once upon a time, China Mobile was one of the companies that attached the most importance to user experience, and it was also a typical example of success by user experience, but I don't know when it gradually moved towards the opposite side of user experience and became the enemy of users.

This article will take you to systematically sort it out.

01 How does China Mobile succeed through user experience?

In 1999, China Mobile was established after the original China Telecom divested its mobile communication assets, and its predecessor was China Telecom Mobile Communications Bureau, which was established in 1997. In the 2G era from 2000 to 2008, China Mobile excelled in the mobile communications market with its excellent user experience, with a market share of more than 70%.

1. Extensive network coverage

China Mobile has built a base station network with extensive coverage to meet the basic needs of users to "make calls anytime, anywhere".

In the early days, through the construction of dense base stations (such as Guangdong and Zhejiang), 100% coverage of key urban areas and more than 90% coverage of rural areas (2005) were achieved, solving the pain point of "signal blind spots" and laying a user foundation.

2. Products that meet the needs of users

China Mobile has launched standardized packages such as "Global Pass", "Shenzhou Travel" and "Dynamic Zone", which are priced according to traffic and call duration to reduce the cost of user selection.

• The "Global Pass" brand provides high-end services such as international roaming and voicemail, focusing on high-end (business) customers.
• The "Shenzhou Xing" prepaid card simplifies the account opening process and attracts price-sensitive users (migrant workers, etc.).
• "Dynamic Zone" has launched low-cost traffic packages for students, with a monthly fee as low as 10 yuan. That's right, I was brought into the pit of China Mobile through the dynamic.

In addition, value-added services such as SMS, MMS, and CRBT enrich the user experience, especially SMS services have become an important social tool.

3. Customer service system

More than 50,000 physical business halls have been established, covering the township level, providing face-to-face business handling and troubleshooting, and improving service accessibility.

The "10086" unified customer service hotline has been established to provide convenient service channels.

4. Reward mechanism

Launched a points exchange system to enhance user stickiness and loyalty.

5. User experience tracking mechanism

In China, China Mobile is the originator of user satisfaction surveys, which can be traced back to 1998 and 1999. Satisfaction indicators are used as a management tool and are promoted in China Mobile Group, and each branch is subject to user experience assessment.

It was precisely because of this success that in 2008, in order to balance the situation of China Mobile's "one dominant company", the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology promoted the reorganization, aiming to achieve balanced competition among the three full-service operators (China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom).

This restructuring has opened up full-service competition in the telecom industry: all three operators have comprehensive service capabilities such as mobile, fixed network, and broadband.

Subsequently, from 2009 to 2013, China ushered in the transition from 2G to 3G.

In the 3G era (2009-2013), despite the adoption of the TD-SCDMA standard, which has obvious technical disadvantages, China Mobile still made up for its technical shortcomings through terminal subsidies, traffic discounts, and customer service response upgrades, and successfully maintained its market share.

In the 4G era (2014-2018), China Mobile regained its technological advantages, built the world's largest 4G network, launched innovative tariff models such as "zero traffic" and "unlimited packages", and cooperated with content providers to launch "free flow packages", bringing the user experience to a new level.

After entering the 5G era in 2019, China Mobile continued to maintain its leading position through large-scale 5G network construction and scenario-based services, but its market share and user growth began to slow down, and the 5G penetration rate was lower than expected.

02 How did China Mobile move towards the opposite side of user experience?

China Mobile has entered the 5G era, and user growth has almost come to a standstill; The market share is declining year by year, compared with the peak of 70%-80%; The penetration rate of 5G is 55%, and the gap between the three telecom operators is narrowing.

(Note: The number of 5G users in 2025 is "network customers" (actual users), which is different from the statistical caliber of "package users" in the previous period)

Behind this may be the balancing effect of intensified market competition and regulatory policies, but "deviating from user needs and harming user experience" may be the fundamental reason.

1. The product is expensive and cost-effective

As the operator with the largest market share, China Mobile's same-price package configuration is usually lower than that of its competitors, and the cost performance is low.

I went to the official websites of the three telecom operators, compared their tariff packages (partial), and then made the following picture:

It should be noted here that when the 5G package first appeared, the starting price of the 5G package of the three telecom operators was 128/129 yuan. China Mobile is a chicken thief, and now it has quietly lowered the tariff to 79 yuan, and the threshold has become lower, but the configuration of 15GB+50 minutes of calls, really don't need dogs.

2. Forced marketing vs. opaque marketing

I went to university in Beijing in 2007, and the "Dynamic Zone" issued by the school entered the pit.

At that time, the Beijing Dynamic Zone Campus Card adopted the "0 yuan monthly rent" model, but it needed to be bound to a mandatory value-added service package (such as 5 yuan caller ID, 10 yuan SMS package), and the actual average monthly consumption was about 15-25 yuan.

More than ten years have passed, and I don't know why the actual monthly consumption of this number has already exceeded 100 yuan.

When I was chatting with a friend one day, I realized that I was wronged - my friend's tariff plan was much cheaper than mine, but he had more call time and data than me.

At that moment, I began to recall how China Mobile had gradually raised my monthly consumption – yes, telemarketing.

If you are a user of China Mobile, you will be familiar with this scenario:

China Mobile customer service: Hey, is it Mr. xxx?

You: It's me

China Mobile Customer Service: Hello, sir! Here is China Mobile customer service, this call to you, is concerned about your monthly traffic usage is larger, hereby give you a traffic upgrade package, X months to use no additional charge, X months can also be canceled, please rest assured to use, you see I will open for you?

You: Okay

Then, you're in the trap, because this is a new type of "scam" - give you a little free benefit first, and then open a paid upgrade plan by default when it expires, and usually you forget to turn it off at this time.

It is in this way that China Mobile continues to raise the user's tariff and continuously increase the user's ARPU value (Average Revenue Per User) until it exceeds the user's psychological threshold and there is a backlash.

It is precisely because of this dead behavior of China Mobile that I, as a 15-year old user, will finally transfer to China Telecom in 2022, and at the same time, because China Mobile has been using this number for many years and has a lot of data, I still retain the 8 yuan number protection package.

Then China Mobile went completely crazy and called me several times a month almost every month, which was already disrupting my life.

According to the data, China Mobile's online marketing service center has a customer service capacity of 100,000 seats, covering production outlets in 31 provinces and cities across the country, including Luoyang and Huai'an smart parks. With a total of more than 37,000 telephone customer service, it is the largest call center in the world.

Oh my God, isn't this the world's biggest telemarketing boss?

3. Inaction and inefficient handling of complaints

China Mobile's customer service, now ringing for half a day can not find a human being, China Mobile has been engaged in AI customer service for a long time.

China Mobile's customer service now needs to go through multiple links, the processing cycle is long, and the customer service often has to prevaricate (such as "need to go to the offline business hall to handle").

Do you think that 100,000 seats and 37,000 telephone customer service can allow you to enjoy first-class service? On the contrary, these people are not there to solve your problems, they are to create them for you.

I still remember the experience of riding an online car-hailing car and the online car-hailing driver called to complain about China Mobile.

The reason for the story is that the online car-hailing driver felt that his phone bill had inexplicably increased a lot last month, and wanted to find China Mobile's customer service to deal with it, but he communicated all the way and failed to solve the problem in the end.

This is another real-life case of "the free trial package automatically switches to the charging mode without confirmation after expiration, resulting in unexpected deductions by users".

03 Does China Mobile have a future?

China Mobile's changes reflect the common problem of monopolies: from the pursuit of user value to the pursuit of short-term performance.

At the beginning, China Mobile, which paid attention to network coverage and user needs, has now become a "big telemarketer" that relies on marketing traps and user inertia to make money.

Once upon a time, China Mobile won the market through user experience; Nowadays, it is losing market by ignoring the user experience.

The 139 number, which I used to be proud of, is now only 8 yuan guaranteed, and the cost of marketing calls received every month may be far more than 8 yuan.

If someone asks me: how did China Mobile drive a user crazy? The answer is simple: through a continuous, systematic betrayal of user trust.

It replaces sincere service with well-designed marketing traps, user demand research with an army of 100,000 telemarketing agents, and efficient solutions with a prevarication customer service system.

That's why what was once a communications giant is now a harassing phone number that needs to be blocked in the eyes of me and many other users. This didn't happen overnight, but rather a slow, systematic process of user experience collapse.

Perhaps, China Mobile's managers should seriously consider a problem: the most valuable asset of an enterprise is not the number of users, but the trust of users. When users change from "loyal fans" to "angry deserters", perhaps market share can be maintained by inertia for a while, but what about the future?

After all, no user likes to feel "driven crazy".

This article was written by Everyone is a Product Manager [Peron User Research], WeChat public account: [Peron User Research], original / authorized Published in Everyone is a Product Manager, without permission, it is forbidden to reprint.

Image from Unsplash, based on the CC0 license.