October Update 🍁

Discuss The Industry
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Dear Fairphone community members,

Here’s a quick update on what we’ve been up to behind the scenes at Fairphone the last few weeks.

1) Forum Management :woman_raising_hand:t3:: The Forum now has a dedicated Community Manager in charge! I have taken over from former Social Media Manager Sarah and will be handling forum management alongside my regular duties managing our social communities. We chose the handle name @Fairphone_CM to make it easily identifiable, and I will introduce myself in a comment on this post.:backhand_index_pointing_down:

2) Customer Support :blue_heart:: We launched a new :sparkles:Self-Repair Portal:sparkles:, which has made it possible for many of our customers to resolve their issues faster. Since our last update, we have reduced our backlog by a whopping 40%! This also allows our team to focus on cases that need deeper investigation. While we are still implementing some fixes to optimize the portal further, this tool is key to tackling our backlog and help our customers faster. Once again, we would like to thank you for your patience and continued support in this regard.

3) Software Updates :mobile_phone_with_arrow:: After a lot of back-and-forth with our partners, we finally have some news! We successfully sped up development, so that we can skip Android 14 for Fairphone 4 and go straight to Android 15! As things stand, we should be able to start rolling out Android 15 to all active Fairphone 4 devices from early November onwards. This process will be done in batches, so please do not panic if you do not see an update request immediately. Thank you for bearing with us while we figured things out.

4) Random Rebooting :united_states::canada:: We did see some concerns on the forum about new Fairphones that are being used in North America and Canada randomly rebooting. While they are not regions we actively service, we are still investigating what could be causing this. You’ll be the first to know when we learn something.

That’s all for now. Till next time. :waving_hand:

Stay fair,
The Fairphone team

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Hi everyone,

I’m so excited to take over the Forum Management from Sarah! :hugs:
Thanks for laying the foundation for this @SarahFP , I appreciate your genuine efforts.

A little intro about me:
Like many of you, I’ve been supporting Fairphone from the start and still remember using the Forum Market here to get a new battery for my Fairphone 1 many years ago. :blush:

Like @Ingo the Fairphone 1 was my first smartphone ever! :smiley:
Since then I’ve also used the Fairphone 2 (still my favorite as I love how easily you can take it apart & show people, especially children, the inside of a smartphone! :screwdriver:), and my current phone is Fairphone 3+.

That’s also how I joined the company 5 years ago, as I saw a vacancy that fitted my profile when ordering the Fairphone 3. :wink:
I started out in Customer Support & “Webcare”, and have since then transitioned to a full time Community Manager, so our Community & customers have always been close to my :blue_heart:, as this is also how my Fairphone journey has started.

Fairphone wouldn’t exist without this amazing community (YOU!) and I have a lot of respect for the generous work that the @moderators are doing here every day! :raising_hands:t2:

Warm regards from Amsterdam,
Lotte :sun:

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P.S.: To be able to read as much of your valuable feedback as possible & forward the most important points to CS, it would be amazing if you could keep sharing everything in this thread about the Self-Repair Portal that Sarah started, so that everything is in one place. Thanks in advance! :folded_hands:t2:

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Thank you - as someone who has every intention of using the FP4 until the bitter end, this is welcome news indeed. After all, I still have two fresh replacement batteries in the drawer (don’t ask)…

It’s also quite nice in general to have a dedicated community manager. I’ve been skimming these forums without an account for a while, but had no idea Sarah was really doing social media as her main task. Anyway, I’m not sure whether this is something “corporate” came up with, but just as a stylistic choice, I think it’d be smart to tone down the emoji policy a little bit. You’ll probably interact with unhappy people having issues with their phones pretty regularly here, and if I were in that situation, “We hear your concerns and value your continued support :blush::folded_hands:” is honestly the last thing I’d want to read.

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Hej there and welcome to the forums!

Just a suggestion, if not already implemented.

Please keep in close contact with the @moderators . First, they are doing an incredible job here and it would show them the respect they deserve, but far more important, they always know what is boiling up.

They are the visible firefighters of the company, but much too often they lack the water of insight or backup of the company to cool things down.

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To clarify: its about the FP6 and its not just a concern its a fact/bug that since the recent update 148.0 the FP6 when used in US or Canada (which also is hitting FPs EU customer when travelling) is constantly rebooting. This bug is and was already happening before that FPOS update on devices which have e/OS installed.

Did FP check how many were just closed without really doing anything and might have caused that user had to open new tickets? And how is backlog defined? Whats the turn around time FP aims to accomplish?

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How long does it take you guys to respond to a ticket, on average?

And how long does it take to close a ticket, on average?

40% doesn’t really say anything if we don’t know how/if things have improved otherwise.

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Welcome Lotte to your new rôle.

As you’ve said, keeping us informed and especially letting us know when problems have been recognized and are being analyzed is really important, because really appreciated.

I’m sure we all wish you a Fair wind!

:wind_face:

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Got you & edited the update post. For some people sth more visual helps, but I’ll keep it in mind for future updates. I’ll do my best to support the moderators & make the community’s feedback heard internally. Hope we can keep it constructive!

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Hi Bjoern, absolutely and this is also my intention, to support the moderators in supporting all of you! They have all my respect already! I am in close contact with them & I’m trying to get the info they need internally. :folded_hands:t2:

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Thanks for sharing these valuable insights @yvmuell about the random reboots & I get your questions about CS! I’ve forwarded both to the relevant teams internally and hope to be able to get back to you with more concrete info asap.

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Forwarded your questions to CS, will get back asap

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Thanks a lot & noted! :writing_hand:t2:

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Welcome to the new role!

I’m a fairly new Fairphone user and would love to keep my FP6 the longest I can. I am worried with the reboot issue in US/Canada even though I’m not there but might need to travel and wouldn’t like to end up disconnected because of this bug. However, I find thar the phones dying while charging is a super urgent one and not being taken of:

Putting FP6 in a fast charger, regardless of the eco mode, can fry the SoC. I really hope it is a software issue and not a hardware one. But it really needs to be addressed. I hope you can share it internally as many of us are waiting for some statement. I don’t want to send it on warranty often just because it dies like that.

Thanks!!

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Could you please provide an official Fairphone in Fediverse?

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Hey @Fairphone_CM , thanks for introducing yourself! I’m not sure if I understand the choice to “anonymise” the profile (instead of calling it LotteFP) since I think it’s good for people to be reminded that there is a human face behind it. But you probably have your reasons.

Thanks for the transparant updates and the increased attention to community management!

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Given that there are so many changes for this role, to me it makes a lot sense, its just reassigned to the current one and one does not need to remember who it currently is

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Thanks for the update!

I would like to add that I’ve been experiencing the random rebooting in the EU, no traveling.

I might be slow in responses, but I’m available if more info is necessary.

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At the same time, I like to know there is a change in the Fairphone community manager. But I perhaps am the only one here who feels like nobody keeps this role for a long period and find it scary and who would be relieved to know the community manager stays for so e years and not some months.

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Hello, I guess you refer to @yvmuell comment

Given that there are so many changes for this role, to me it makes a lot sense, its just reassigned to the current one and one does not need to remember who it currently is

I think it is important to know who is in charge (the ship captain so to speak), and this expectation has not been (entirely) fulfilled in the past months (you have been on the forum much longer than me so you have a better perspective), even when there were personal accounts for FP Staff.

I fully expect to be informed when and if any further changes in the FP forum management happen. I also value very much the concept of personalised connection. I might not be in favour of a general FP account but at my work I also have created a functional role dedicated email account precisely for that purpose - to facilitate sharing the relevant information and future transition of duties.

I think the bottom line is to have the connection and accountability and I have high hopes with Lotte now taking over this role.

Edited to say it might be easier for new forum members to easily identify FP Community Manager without the need for checking all the personal updates.

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