I have worked for Corp. stores, Premium Retailers, Wal-Mart... the whole bunch. I found that in my time doing this, the training process at the Corp Store and the Premium retailer were almost identical. The main difference in the two boils down to a few things.
First, the cash payment process as mentioned above... I agree it sucks, but I've been told that its because in order for your payment to post to your account immediately, we go through a third party that wire transfers the funds directly to Verizon... and that third party charges us that fee, so we then charge that fee to the customer. Also as mentioned above, there is absolutely no fee when doing a check or card payment, and we do try to encourage people to do that.
Second, the pre-order process is different. When we did a pre-order at corp stores, it was done the moment the customer came in and then the phone was either shipped to the store or to the customer directly when it was out (like it is online)... but with Premium Retailers, we take your information down, wait until we are able to order the device, and then we go in and order it with something generally being in a "comments" field about the customer it is for. Either that or we just waited until our stock came in and started calling the people we had on our waiting list so to speak. Either way, the customer got what they wanted from either store... it was usually just about a day or two quicker from Corporate.
And finally, the pay scale. This part doesnt matter to anyone on here, but it is a huge difference in the type of stores, so that's what I am explaining. At a corp store, one could expect an hourly rate starting at close to $11-15/hr depending on experience, and it goes up at a fairly good rate and in a fairly good time frame. At a Premium Retailer however, one can expect a starting rate of about $8-13/hr depending on experience and what not, with USUALLY not so great a raise rate/time frame. I will say, in my experience, the larger the premium retailer, the better they pay. Commission has always been different with each store I have worked at, and I found that to be the opposite. The bigger the company, the worse the commission payout. The reason being, they will have HUGE stores that are putting out just as much as a good corp store, and they base their commission structure is based on their output, so that they arent paying those reps a boat load each month. So, those that don't have the chance to work at one of those HUGE stores, usually make next to nothing in commission. For example, the company I work for now has stores up north that are putting out close to 400 phones a month, and the average rep is making close to $1800/month in commission alone. I, on the other hand, work in the mid-west, where the stores down here only put out around 100-200 at best in a month, and our average rep will make around $400-$600/month in commission. That doesn't bother me too much though, because I know that the corp stores are usually packed all day, you never get a break, and you are putting up with pissed off customers all the time. At a corp store on the other hand... I can sit here on a computer and play around or do call backs and thank you cards for an hour at a time, and maybe be interrupted once or twice by someone walking in the door. Yes, the money isn't as good... but its a LOT less stressful, and hell of a lot easier of a job.
Just my two cents, sorry I didn't put this in separate paragraphs... I don't see the point online... I'm not getting graded, lol.
To the poster's question "is that normal"... I say yes. You should be fine. She sounds like she atleast wants to make money, otherwise she would have done like a lot of lazy reps do and say "no, we can't do that... you'll have to go to a corporate store"... which should NEVER be said by someone at a premium retailer. If they do that... they won't keep their job for very long.
