cmanbrazil
Well-Known Member
I'm so pissed right now! I was at a sprint store helping a family member choose a phone because all 4 of our lines are out of contract and I'm preparing to call retentions to change our plan and negotiate discounts/free phones etc in exchange for renewing the lines.
My experience at the store was embarrassingly negative. First of all, the hero and moment on display didn't have the 2.1 update, and the touch pro2 didn't even have the 6.5 update. The guy said he doesn't know how to do an update. The hero was almost completely unresponsive because it probably had a million things running in the background and had no task killer installed. The guy joked that it probably hasn't been reset for weeks. I told him it's probably smart for their demos to be working properly so customers can get an idea of what the phone experience is like. He shrugged. I told him I pre ordered an Evo and that I've followed every single detail about it since the beginning, and he said he had one in the back. I got so excited that I was about to see one in person finally! ...but he wouldn't even let me see it! How frustrating is that?! I was about 20 feet away from an Evo and he wouldn't even let me see it?! If it's an official policy for an advocate for a new phone to not be able to even show it to an excited and enthusiastic customer, then I don't see the point of the advocacy program at all.
It was even "customer appreciation day" at the store! There were 4 employees standing around with lays around their necks, and no customers. It was pathetic. I will never go back to that sprint store, and I got a taste of why sprint is considered a joke to people with at&t and verizon.
Just bought the hero, and not happy that it wasn't upgraded, even worse, that the salesperson didn't even mention that there was an upgrade for it. I go to htc to download the upgrade, it will probably take six hours. I could download hd movies in that time span. I bought it there trying to support sprint, but if I bought it at Best Buy there would have been no mail in rebate.
I have been a nextel/sprint customer for over ten years. I unfortunately have learned to jump through the necessary hoops to get to retentions. They solve my problems where no one else will.
With that said, my last trip into an AT&T store was uneventful, and definitely unprofessional. Staff were talking to boyfriends on the phone, and playing games with one another. Verizon was more professional, but staff did not excite me about the Incredible.
The problem is all of these places get their employee's from the same pool of temporary workers, who are undertrained, and not rewarded properly for good work. The sprint employee's I dealt with, in general, work harder than the others for the sale, and to reduce your monthly rate, they just know little about the product.
I would love to walk into a store where the staff knew more than me about the products they were selling. Usually the people with the knowledge are in the back, fixing the devices OR ON SITES LIKE THIS!!!!!
This is where I love apple. Some of there employee's fit the same bill. However, the product is sold ready to go, with easy upgrades, etc. this compensates for uninformed salespeople. This is why they are control freaks about their products.
Anyway, I hope the evo and the hero work well, because I have invested in them for the next two years.

but yes it is their rule unfortunately.