LG Uplus revamps Roaming Pass to activate automatically upon arrival abroad

LG Uplus said Wednesday it has revamped its Roaming Pass service to reduce the cumbersome setup and sign-up steps customers have long encountered when using international roaming.

The core of the overhaul is minimizing the steps customers previously had to complete manually or repeat each time they traveled. The service now activates automatically upon arrival abroad, and the process for sharing data among family members has been streamlined.

An analysis of customer feedback by LG Uplus found that the top pain points were the hassle of entering a local arrival time, the complexity of sharing data among family members, having to sign up for roaming repeatedly when visiting multiple countries, and the separate connection steps required when using multiple smart devices such as tablets.

LG Uplus redesigned Roaming Pass with a focus on reducing friction at every stage of the customer experience, from sign-up through actual use.

The feedback was gathered through Simple. Lab, a co-creation platform where customers can submit complaints and improvement ideas about telecom services.

With the update, customers no longer need to manually enter their arrival time when signing up for roaming. Previously, customers were required to input their local arrival time at the time of sign-up.

The revamped Roaming Pass activates automatically the moment a customer's device connects to a local network upon landing at an overseas airport, allowing data use immediately after arrival without any additional time settings.

Family customers can also share data more easily. Under the previous system, each family member had to sign up for roaming individually before initiating a separate data-sharing process. Now, when a family on a bundled plan applies for roaming data sharing, the primary account holder can complete both the roaming sign-up and data-sharing setup in a single step.

Customers who use multiple devices abroad will also face less setup burden. LG Uplus now automatically pulls in tablets already linked through its domestic data-sharing service during the roaming sign-up process. Customers traveling to multiple countries need only complete the setup once, after which roaming applies automatically in each country without a separate sign-up.

"Customers wanted to spend less time dealing with roaming sign-ups and data settings, and focus entirely on their travel," said Jang Jun-young, executive vice president and head of the marketing group at LG Uplus. "We will continue working with our customers to build telecom services that are simpler and more convenient."

Meanwhile, Roaming Pass is a period-based roaming plan that lets international travelers use data in 83 countries worldwide for up to 30 days. Prices start at 29,000 won ($19) and go up to 79,000 won. Data allowances come in four tiers — up to 4GB, 13GB, 25GB and 49GB — and plans of 25GB or more allow data sharing with family or friends.