Shop Talk

I'm a USCC agent. The business can be very tuff at times because "company" always has final say.

On the positive side reguarding phone pricing, we pay a cost for phones and sell them for much less at a subsidized price to the customer and we get a rebate back for each loss at the end of the month. Thankfully when USCC drops phone pricing, the cost stays the same, but the rebate automatically compinsates for the loss.

The biggest thing I like about working as an agent, we are not locked into vendors or anything else. We can buy phones and accesorys from anyone we want. By doing that we have the ability to beat prices on accesorys over the corp stores.

Another big advantage we have is customer service, I've talked to alot of the...
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The way I see it is this;

If you go to an authorized dealer, you get a better deal on the equipment.

If you go to a corporate store, you know everything is done right.

Regardless of what agents think, corporate dealers are held to a higher standard. We have an indirect owner who tells his associates to go after people with cingular bags.

Sometimes that may be true, another ability agents have is honesty, agents can get by with alittle more by telling the customer exactly what would be good for them and if the case is they would be better of with someone else, well it happens. You'd get canned from a corp store.

Also corp employees are locked into guideline after guideline, and policy after policy. Agents are too but not ass much. I know so many instances were customers had a problem went to a corp store thinking it would be better but they wouldnt help them because everything they do is tied to the rule book. Agents (atleast myself) know loops holes, and if a customer has a problem and needs a resolution, I can usually do more for a customer then corps can because I d...
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computerking said:
I can usually do more for a customer then corps can because I dont have the fear of the rules.

But at what cost?

Loop holes my friend, you have to know the system. Not once has our agent ever got in trouble for working to system to help a customer. Retention is a key to business.

yea, thats true. But as we were recently told in a meeting at my store(corp) all early renewals have to go through customer service with notes on the acct. If we do an early upgrade without notes, we get written up (per our area mgr) Of course, we always dial the phone for them, and keep refreshing the notes until our butts are covered...

I work in a corporate store for cingular, and I agree that we adhere to "the rules" a bit too much(at least in my opinion) However, the way the Cingular system is set up, each store has a monthly budget that we have to stay within, and any early upgrades, special discounts, etc get taken out of our budget.....people don't realize it, but if we give them a better deal than the posted price, the company loses money. For example, say a new customer comes in and sets up service on a 39.99 plan with a cheap samsung phone. Our cost for the phone is $120. we sell the phone for $30. $90 loss so far. It costs approximately $345 to set the new account up. we charge the customer a $36 act fee. $309 loss, total loss $399 so far. then we have to ...
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You took the words right outta my mouth! 😁

the thing i like about being a uscc agent is that when a customer swaps in for the 30 day exchange, uscc rebates the exchanged phone as well, so then the used phone can be marked up when some dumb@ss drops his phone in a pool without insurance, but i do not mark-up if they originally signed with me, the thing that sucks is when they do that price protection crap and screw me on phones.

The only finger I point is in directing the customer back to the agents who screwed them to begin with.

I may be wrong in assuming this... but I dont think your only job duty is to sell! 🙄

Customer Service is also part of your job.

Why would you not want to take care of the customer when they come to you? Sure maybe its a little extra time and maybe frustration on your part, but when they want to buy they will come see you...because of the EXCELLENT service you provided them when they had a problem! 😁

WHAT HAPPENED TO CUSTOMER SERIVCE??? Seriously think about...when you have a problem with a service how frustrating is it to you to be bounced around from person to person. You feel like no one cares, and you just get more pissed off for being passed around. Walk in your customers shoes!

How about when you buy a phone someplace and they send you somewhere else to get help? I do customer service all day long. I would prefer the indirect to handle thier customers.

The customer doesn't know the difference between a reatil/agent location.

They have a problem... you represent the company... they come to you for help.

Thats how it works! Do your job.

i think you guys are arguing the same thing in your debate.... but if the retail store signs them up i cannot "replace" their phone, i cannot send it out for repair and i cannot fix their billing problems, if i do it, it is not a problem. Corporate stores can help the customers of an agent though, thats why us cellular does not require agents to supply loaner phones.

I do my job don't worry, what I won't do is YOUR job. I represent my company, yes. SO DO YOU! I'm sorry but, my nametag says "Sales Consultant" same as yours. I'm not your personal customer service punk.

thats kinda personal, i dont know why you guys are fighting so much since you look like you are saying the same thing and you represent different companies.

Hmmfp that 's a great point. I work for a privately owned & operated Cellular service provider. We pride ourselves on our customer service awards. It is bad but it happens. I was told by the store manager of the local V'store in my town that "I just sell it, I don't care if it works for them or not." He loved to come by my kiosk in the mall and try to tease us that we weren't getting any sales but they were. Like I was supposed to break down and cry or something. 🙄 I had to remind him about customer service.
I just have to agree it is very frustrating to correct the problems caused by other workers, no matter who they are. It can be hard not to hold a grudge. But I can use that moment to win over a customer if I fix the issue and te...
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again.........go sit down in a meeting and talk candidly about the issues!!!!!!!!

tell them the things you hear about the corp store, and ask how you can relieve their burden....I am literally right across the street from the corp store, and they know that if they are busy they can send people to me to transfer the phonebook for free!!!!!!!!!! they can count on me to do this for them, and in return they gladly help my customers in the things that I can't do!!!!!

Talk to them..........COMMUNTICATE!!!!!!!!!!!!


how hard is it????????????????

that is all!!! 😉

I agree with USCELLGIRL. I am a indirect authorized agent. I don't believe that you will get any where by cutting down corporate or other agents. It's bad business practice. I take pride in my store and my employees and they are set to a higher standard just like the corporate stores are. There may be a very few things that we cannot do that corporate can for the customer. However, we go out of our way to make sure that they have the best customer service ever and if we know that we are not able to help them that only corporate can. We will go out of our way to give them directions to the nearest corporate store. Customers remember this and are very appreciative for our help.

I'm assuming that you were responding to the post that i wrote....i give great customer service and i believe that its one of the best ways to get your customers to come back to you but that is not what this thread is about. we are talking about things that corp stores can do that agents cannot do etc. and the difference between phone prices, i was not bashing any agents whatsoever except the one that works for our company, and i feel that after working for this company for going 4 yrs now i have the right to "bash" them its not like the company that i work for is disclosed in any way, i would never do that. i was simply sharing my experience with "our" agents and how untrained they are which causes lots of issues where i work

Not my job to train them, I am currently training 3 of my own reps. I just think it is B.S. that they aren't held to the same rules as we are, but they represent my company giving honest reps like me a bad name. Customers come to me all the time asking for deals and trying to talk me down like we are in friggin Tijuana, and alot of it is indirect reps doing anything to make a sale. It's that whole "Used Car Salesman" stigma that people in our industry have to endure.

If you say it is not your job to train them then you accepting the job to put up with that BULLSI#$.

your right, not your job to train them, but it is your job, or should be to make buying with your company a good experiance....go sit down with the manager and disciss your concerns.

if you don't then you gotta accept things the way they are!!!

good luck!!!

cingcing will have to realize that not everyone is perfect and/or takes pride in their work, and ensures that it gets done right the first time like he/she does! (obvious false since he/she cares nothing for his/her customers)

Im sure cingcing has never made an error and that no one has ever had to clean up his mess!

No cingcing HAS made errors, cingcing knows that no one is perfect. What is wrong with taking pride in one's job. I am damn good.

One thing cingcing does not do is consistently send my customers away for someone else to help with. I have many many customers that will only deal with me.

Step up to the plate and take responsibility for your own actions.

I don't accept it, I have had commission pulled form them several times for churning our customers. I don't see how sending their customers back to them is putting up with them. If they send 50 of their customers my way and I manage to get 35 go back to them, they are gonna find another way to handle their business. If they churn 10 of my customers and I manage to get commission pulled from 7 of them. It is no longer profitable to steal form my company. Right now there is no accountability, no parody.

well good luck with that!! 🙄 🙄 🙄

being the tough guy with all the tools doesn't make things right... 😉

so...... 🙄 🙄 🙄
good luck with that....

i think that is a cingular specific problem. and i think you are right in those instances.

After reading several of your posts, it seems like you only want to handle sales and YOUR customers. You would benefit from taking care of any customer who needs help especially if they purchased from someone other than you. You take care of the problem and they will return to you when they are looking for new phones. Not only that, but they will tell their friends and family to "go to that store, the reps was very friendly and fixed my problem."

The main reason I responded was because of the first thing you said: "Not my job..."

As a sales person, your job is to make money and to find ways to make more money. Sometimes taking the extra effort to talk to other store reps or fixing others' problems will make you more money. Another agen...
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🤭 My bad. You should really THINK outside the box when it comes to sales and not so one dimensional. 🤭

As a salesman my job is to sell phones. Same as yours. I have no problem helping my customers as that is also a part of my job. My hourly sucks, it's all about commission. Sending customer service issues to me costs me money, I won't allow that. Churning my customers also costs me money, I will do everything I can to get that stopped.

Cingcing,

You really should think about it this way.
I am very much like you as a hourly/commission sales person. That one customer service issue that you take care of today (NO MATTER HOW THEY GOT TO YOUR STORE) could be some one that when their upgrade date comes or if they need to add a line they will come to you first!!!

You know what your right, I never thought of it that way. Go ahead and send in all of your customer service issues and I'll take care of them for you. Nevermind the customers coming in here looking to actually buy something. There is a chance that if I make a good enough impression, and spend a half an hour fixing this persons $300 bill may add a line with me in a year and a half.

I can't help but laugh at this. I agree with cingcing. I sell Sprint, but since the merger we also sell Nextel in our store. My boss was the first person to tackle a new activation for Nextel. Using the activation system for Nextel, FDT, it took him 3 HOURS to activate a customer's phone. With Sprint it takes me 10 minutes, tops.

I thought maybe he did it wrong or didn't know what he was doing, until I tried it myself. Even following the walkthrough we have here, it took me 2.5 hours. Just for one measly line, and I only made $12 off that one sale.

Now, if somebody comes in and wants Nextel, I try to get them to buy Sprint, just because it is better in many ways. If they still want Nextel, I send them to a Nextel store where they will...
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I hear you on the issue of FDT, Cpt. That by far is the worst program for activating a phone I have ever used. eROES, Watson, and even FAST is better. Fast is annoying, but not quite as annoying as FDT. Someone over there needs to redo that. 🤣

I hate making personal attacks on the internet, and I will not respond to whatever gibberish you come back with, but I'm surprised you make any money with that kind of attitude. A lot of a sales person's job in this industry is customer service. If you know how to handle customers in your store, you can manage a customer service issue while handling a sale. The new customer will look at how well you handle certain issues and know to refer others to your store. The customer you helped will also refer others to your store. You know what referrals do? They DOUBLE your business. Good luck in your endeavors, you're going to need it.

Thank you so much for stooping to my level so you can make a personal attack on me. I have sold at over 190% of my quota ytd.

I feel your pain. We do the same thing all day every day. There are a lot of things that we can't handle and we do have to send them to the corporate store (which is 120 miles away). We spend a lot of time on the phone handling just those issues. However, if that customer is satisfied with your service and the time it took (although there may be no extra $$) then that person just now became your customer. 99.9% of the time that person will come back to you to get a new phone or buy that accessory.

If I remember right, a good saleperson will make four attempts to close a sale. They just may not be the same day.

I do not mean to make you upset. I know how it is. Corporate stores send a lot of people that have issues (that they may not w...
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amen........customers WILL pay more for service!!!!!! I see it everyday!!!!!

and I work damn hard to make it worth while for the customers!!!

fokisd said:
In fact, just today, I had a customer who's in Florida (our store is in Ohio) call me for a problem they're having. They went to a corp store first and they treated him like crap. So he called all the way up here for us (we originally sold him the phone)

Does your company exist in florida? Probably not, that's why corp sent them back to you. A perfect example of what I was talking about.

As for the service argument following that statement, your right. Customers will go to the path of least resistance. If someone tells them no, they get all pissed.

Actually, the problem had nothing to do with which store he went to- he was having physical problems with the phone and they did not send him back to talk to us. He was having problems with the phone keeping a charge, so he took it in for someone there to look at it, however no one had time for him and as he put it, they were "nasty" to him. Since no one there wanted to help him, he called our store back in ohio to ask us for some help. Service is Service no matter where you go- if it's bad, you'll lose a customer and that customer's audience. If it's good, you've got a relationship built and you'll also get referrals. He could have gone to an agent and gotten the same bad service, but he got it at a corp. store. My point is that no matte...
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If I sold a phone here and the customer had equipment problems could you handle it there?

Yes..I'd be more than happy to help a customer of yours... A Verizon Customer

...and I definitely wouldn't have been nasty with the customer. My point was to those who were blaming Agents and those who were blaming Corp. stores- that it shouldn't matter where you go to get great service and that just because you're at one of those stores doesn't meant that one is beter than the other. That's fine if a store chooses to not help a customer or if they can't, but they don't have to be nasty to them. Good customers are great, bad customers are oppurtunities

Look man, great customer service is neither here nor there. It is standard, it is the rule. No one is gonna argue that. If you don't give great customer service you'll never get anywhere.

That said, I am not responsible for an indirect's inventory. If A customer want's to return/exchange a phone they purchased through indirect, "Sorry you have to go back to where you bought this to exchange it."

isn't that the norm. I'm indirect and I still get corp bought phones from people who try to return their phones to me. It's a common mistake and usually takes about a minute to explain to the customer. I suppose the point everyone here is trying to make is to not sh*t on the customer just cause they didn't know where to go (whether or not they're morans really isn't the point. I think most people in general are morons, but I don't run around treating them like poo all day long). I work in a mall and half the questions I answer are about where other things are around the mall. Is it my job to tell them or even know? Not really. I do it anyways because there is that second or two where the customer at least looks over and remembers whe...
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OK, When I say they have to go back to where they bought the phone the customers can interpret that as being "Nasty". Is that sh%@@$ng on the customer? Even though I say that because I am UNABLE to help them. I CAN'T return the damn phone, no matter what the customer says. And even if I could, I wouldn't be able to match the price anyway. I can't tell them to return the phone there and cancel service and come back to me. So what would you recommend? Also, what should I do when a customer wants to process an insurance claim and they bought the indirects insurance? It won't even show up on their account that they have insurance. Is that unprofessional? Nasty? Crapping on them? NO.

How about when a cust comes in and they 4 features on th...
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Note: I never said YOU were sh*tt*ng on them, just a figure of speech in the overall view. No, you're not giving bad service if you tell the customer that there isn't anything that you can do for them (which I thought I made a point of in my first post). Don't take things so personally, this is a forum not a courtroom. Just making a point is all, I know the annoying feeling you get when a customer comes up and there isn't anything you can do for them...and they still won't leave.

I never said anything about him returning the phone... what I was saying is that no one wanted to help him with his problem. no one wanted to listen to him and no one wanted to talk with him. All he wanted was some sugestions as to why his brand new phone was dying right after charging it. All I did was offer some reasoning as to why and offered to look at it for him when he got back to Ohio and he was greatful for that. All someone from that Corp store had to do was the same thing and he would have been happy with that. I know that items purchased from indirect can't be returned to a direct store and vice versa, but our customers don't have to be returned. Let me RE-EMPHASIZE my reasoning for bringing up the story to begin with- posts w...
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you guys are straying too far from the point, if there ever was one. the problem is not an agent/corporate problem, it is a people problem, there was another agent in my area that were just worthless to the extreme, they would tell our customers to come to us just to ask about how to setup voice mail like their brochures were not good enough, and the retail store out here is just as worthless, renewing contracts and trying to send people down to me to get a phone they did not have in stock even though they processed the renewal, it is nothing but a lack of courtesy and knowledge in individual people, because if you want to argue that corporate stores do what they are doing better i can give you a million examples to the contrary, and visa ve...
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There is no point.
Only Zuul!

oh ps when a corp employee dosent know the answer to a question they have all the numbers to the people in that feid.....who know the answer ..not us agents that have only customer cares number so you do have a advantage. you cheat but god bless all the tech support people that i have talked to over the phone when a phone wont turn on and they say lets trouble shoot and they tell you to do what you have already done but takes 1 hour to spit it out, just to tell you that customer needs a warrenty phone??????????????thats the greats moments of being a auth rep. 😈

What are you even trying to say? Your statements are a bit incoherent and obviously inaccurate. We do have better resources in corporate stores, the reason is simple, the corporations pay a lot of money to ensure that the services and products they offer can be supported should an issue arise. If the statemets you indirect reps are making about having more product knowledge or honesty are true statements, then why do you have to resort to finding "loop holes" or "bending the rules?" You have just invalidated all of your arguments and made yourselves look silly.

Corporate employees are held to a much higher standard. At corporate locations (for the most part) you will not be harassed as a customer as you ofte are with indirect agents. Also...
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I have no idea what you just said, man, but you reached out and you touched my heart....I understand that there really isn't a complete necessity for perfect grammar and punctuation on a cell phone industry message board. But please read over your future posts before clicking the submit button. You have done nothing to enrich anyone's life by brutally pounding out what you have just written here. (Though to call it writing would be a sympathetic compliment.)

OK, I guess it is a totally different thing where I'm at. Honestly, I work for an agent store. There have been many times that I have had a customer come in angry at the local corporate store. Why? Because the customer service isn't there like it is where I am. I can think of about 3 in the last week were this was the case. If I think long enough, I'm sure I can pass up 10 occurrences of this. When a customer comes to my store, they are treated with the respect that they deserve. When I get done with a customer that has previously been furious with the corporate office, and they are asking for cards to refer people to my store and not the corporate store, I know I've done my job. Yeah, if you have someone that comes in with a problem that re...
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lol Do your job. period.

I don't know about yours but my nametag says "Sales consultant" not "Customer service". Or "That indirect agents personal customer service punk"

I'm sorry but no matter what you say, it is NOT profitable for me to help customers that you just "sold" service to. Call me greedy or ****y or whatever. I don't care. I have quotas to hit same as you. You go ahead and try to steal customers over time, I'll just go ahead and activate the one's in my store. We'll see who does better.

🙄 🙄

so short sighted....can't look past this months numbers!!

🙄

🙄 🙄

so far sighted can't see the trees, only the forrest.

🙄

It has absolutely nothing to do with what store the customer goes to, they could go to a corporate store, an agent or wal-mart and the big difference is the associate/manager not the merchant.

You've somewhat missed the point. If a customer comes into my store during the initial remorse period to return/exchange a phone which they purchased from an authorized reseller, I cannot do anything for them. There is no "thinking of everything to be done for the customer." They have to go back to the point of sale. That is what I was referring to when I made my post. After the remorse period, they are my customer, and that's fine. However, I wont let a customer berate me for something an agent did. When I hear a horror story from a customer about something a reseller did, sometimes I call their store just to inquire as to what happened. I have never had an agent call my store telling me how I have screwed up. I applaud those people who wor...
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shoe said:
However, he insisted that the carrier be held responsible for the "thousands of dollars of losses" he was incurring over the course of a day due to the calls he was missing. If he makes that much money in a few days, why was he bad pay on his bill? For some reason customers of large corporations or organizations think they can adopt the blame someone else philosophy, because they can make up any story about what someone else told them once who works for a call center or an office a thousand miles away, with me having no chance to verify their incredibly silly story.

No, it's not the customers of large enterprises that cause the above, it's the customers of small-failing corporations that ca...
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silentscream said:
OK, I guess it is a totally different thing where I'm at. Honestly, I work for an agent store. There have been many times that I have had a customer come in angry at the local corporate store. Why? Because the customer service isn't there like it is where I am. I can think of about 3 in the last week were this was the case. If I think long enough, I'm sure I can pass up 10 occurrences of this. When a customer comes to my store, they are treated with the respect that they deserve. When I get done with a customer that has previously been furious with the corporate office, and they are asking for cards to refer people to my store and not the corporate store, I know I've done my job. Yeah, if you have someo

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our corp store is the only one for 200+ miles in any direction 🙄

try as you might you can't find a time when you can just get in and out!!!

usually there is a line every morning waiting for the doors to open!!!!

and i personally know all the people over there...and they are all great, but the are running all day long and try to be as fast as possible at all they do, but it is just sheer numbers.............too many customers!!!!!

that's why poeple hate it....it is black friday, everyday of the year in there...

I bet they love helping you out with your customers when they are that slammed all day long.

our corp store isnt the only one in the area...and they're not slammed all day long...i used to have a friend that worked there that would talk about how dead it could get...they were usually only slammed on weekends.

can-cell said:
our corp store is the only one for 200+ miles in any direction 🙄

try as you might you can't find a time when you can just get in and out!!!

usually there is a line every morning waiting for the doors to open!!!!

and i personally know all the people over there...and they are all great, but the are running all day long and try to be as fast as possible at all they do, but it is just sheer numbers.............too many customers!!!!!

that's why poeple hate it....it is black friday, everyday of the year in there...

Sorry Sleepy1.

I bet they love helping you with your customers when they are slammed all day long.

The pointing of fingers gets nothing accomplished, but the raising of awareness to some of the agents that read these posts might help them understand that even though they may feel they have no other obligation to customers they have activated, it makes them and the company they represent look bad by pushing customers out of their locations in order to be helped and completey serviced by corporate reps. Hold yourselves accountable. Admit you may ot know everything (since you are usually trained for only about 15 minutes before you start your first shift) and assist the customer where you may have messed up.

Well said.

axess_denied said:
The pointing of fingers gets nothing accomplished, but the raising of awareness to some of the agents that read these posts might help them understand that even though they may feel they have no other obligation to customers they have activated, it makes them and the company they represent look bad by pushing customers out of their locations in order to be helped and completey serviced by corporate reps. Hold yourselves accountable. Admit you may ot know everything (since you are usually trained for only about 15 minutes before you start your first shift) and assist the customer where you may have messed up.

I agree. Pointing fingers does nothing. But I also know that I am well aware o...
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Blah, blah, blah.... I wasn't trying to insinuate that I am any better than anyone. I was simply in disagreement with a previous post that said agents knew a lot more than corporate reps. (which most of the time is incorrect.) Good tirade though, not wholly effective since it was way off base with my post, but good attempt.

WOW training for only 15 minutes I have almost 7 yrs exp. in the industry and still did almost 4 full days of training plus continuous training to this day. Training including networks and how they operate, insurance, sales, customer service, etc. etc. etc. Also training on new phones when they come out. Agents only get 15 min of training. My guess is is that most agents are more knowledgeable and but trained than corp. employees at least when it comes to the agent I work for. We are held to very high standards. Our company as also won "agent of the year" 3 years running. Oh yea check out the cover of Forbes magazine for January see that guy smiling back at you well that's the owner of one of these "under trained" agents. So for all the non ...
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Or they confused a photographer for Forbes. LOL, j/k. Nice work, I'll look for the pic.

I have been reading this for a few days now, struggling with my own warranty and 15 day issues, and I have a question:

1) Is every agents return policy the same? I know we have to abide by our vendors return policy which is the unit must be under 100 minutes of use and within 15 days of activation to receive full credit of the defunct phone.

I wish we could just simply get the credit back no matter how much the customer used the phone, long as it was within the 15 days policy the Corp Store operates under.

I am personally not happy with the current policy I have to operate under (being an employee of an agent). I'm not saying every agent is awesome, because we bought stores from very sh!tty owners and have been trying to fix their ...
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surprisingly enough I'm not surprised by all the arrogance floating through this post 🙄

Corp. employees are bashing agents b/c we can't solve every problem and then saying we are lacking training which is certainly not the case, which is simply what I was pointing out with facts regarding the agent I work for.Please explain where you see arrogance??? 😕

In fact, a lot of agents DO lack training (especially in the case of the agents that represent my company in my market.) You may work for one good indirect dealer, however, you may be working for the cream of the crop. At what point did you indirect reps. get the feeling that without you the corporations wouldn't exist? Get a clue, if it weren't for the corporations, agents would not exist. Agents don't provide service, they don't own anything (except for the inventory they buy from the corporations and misc. vendors), and most of the tactics they use (in our area, just so none of you start crying) could be considered harassing rather than assisting.