Bias: The Killer of Innovation, The Dasher of Dreams, The Destroyer of Hope...-MyNokiaBlog

[WanderingTraveler]

Bias: The killer of innovation, the dasher of dreams, the destroyer of hope and something that MUST be put down! : My Nokia Blog

My apologies if this has been posted before, but this is quite the long article and good read.
Notice how the full title didn't fit into the Forum Title character limit.

But, still, quite an emotional read.

 

[gedzum]

That first sales rep is disgusting. I just cannot fathom the mis-information that dude is spreading. Look at the effect it had at a regular consumer. The rep goes on about how it is too simple, disregarding the fact that perhpas this customer wanted simplicity. Utter scum.

 

[Coreldan]

There are a few interesting pieces of techs that somewhy are really prone to bias.. Smart phones and gaming consoles come to mind. That said, the bias with consoles seem to be mostly the younger people, while the older ones fight just the same over smart phones.

 

[Chregu]

So, these 3500 words are based on the encounter with two persons? This doesn't say anything and it could have been easily the other way around with other people in the same stores or even with the same people in a different mood.

This is really a little too emotional for my taste, mostly because Nokia is obviously aware of the problem.

 

[LMZR]

This article is pretty damn good, i like hearing about the bias towards over platforms over there.

The carriers are far better down here towards Windows Phone as it seems, than they are over in America.

 

[NTUser]

That's disgusting. I've had this problem before (with different OSes however).

It is, like posters above me have said, dependent on the person. Carrier sales reps are are awful, that's why I went (and am going again this weekend! ) to the MS store to have a look at WP without some guy breathing down my neck and telling me "but Android has [feature X]!!1!" Unfortunately not everyone has this option, I hope anyone looking for a smartphone does more research than talking to sales reps and the carrier store.

I've seen a bunch of android phone+Verizon ads on TV, and only a few generic MS ones. Not that I like ads, but VZW certainly isn't advertising their Windows Phones (a shame, a true shame).

 

[pbankey]

Yes, bias sucks. Yes, it can create misconceptions. Yes, it can destroy a product's potential.

However, Microsoft and device makers have a role to play in this war too. They can't be expected to sit there and point a finger, "well, we tried to make it good but the sales reps just seem to hate us." Waging a war on bias will be a war lost. And, when was a war against an idea ever successful?

Instead, they need to take measures to ensure that they are ahead of the bias. Right now Microsoft is making it extremely easy for people to hate on them (especially with the word "Windows" as part of the OS name). The fact that an obviously unprofessional salesman can steer away the average consumer from a device they had great initial impressions about tells me that the general public still has no idea what Windows Phone is or does, and that's Microsoft's problem to deal with. Part of the reason that more popular handsets sell better and easier is because people are already sold on it before they talk to a salesman.

Windows Phone has a lot of battles to win before it can be seen with the likes of Android and iPhone. That's the price of coming in late and having to win in a saturated Android/iPhone market; the challenges they will have to conquer are much different than the ones Apple and Droid manufacturers faced.

Just a side-note: the grammar and childish voicing within the article doesn't help with the core argument. "SOOOOOO biased!!!!"

 

[xandros9]

This makes me want to go into retail. I've went into a Walmart and I didn't immediately see the 521 I was looking, i asked the guy in ELECTRONICS and got some mumble about not knowing what the hell it was. Now its quite possible that'd happen if I'd asked for an obscure galaxy.

Someday I just want to roll out the four major flagships and talk about each one to a customer.

 

[cckgz4]

Stories like these make me want to work in phone stores for this sole reason, but I can't deal with the MILLIONS of complaints

 

[ajst222]

Good read. I can certainly relate to this as I have a BlackBerry and most of the carriers seem completely uninterested in selling BB10 to the customer. A good sales associate should listen to the customers' needs and show them phones that best meet those needs...not shove phones down their throat because of their personal preferences or opinions

 

[MSFTisMIA]

This is one of the reasons why when I walk into the stores in very leery of the reps. On the positive side, there is an assistant manager at the t-mo store by my job. He is a tech junkie and very good at his job, because he tailors his conversation to the needs of the client. When I bought my 810, he merely asked me if I had questions about the phone - when I told him I did my research, he smiled and rang up my purchase. Overall, the reps are good at his store...very chill and non biased.

There was another t-mo rep I ran into at the Union Square store that was chill. When I bought a case for my 810, he asked me why I picked WP. When I explained my reasons, he nodded. We ended up talking about both WP and the Nexus line as we both owned the G. Nexus.

At AT&T, I had a rep ALMOST sold me a Lumia 900 in Spring 2012 at a store in Wall St area. She was a cutie, but more importantly, she demoed the phone well, and it was her personal phone so it was so easy to talk to her about WP and heard what she liked about the phone. The only thing she hated about the 900 was that they gave her a black one when she really wanted a white model. So there are good and bad reps out there. Some just see it as job and are trying to push sales for incentives and other reasons. What needs to happen is MSFT must work on improving the OS and getting those updates out more timely. Yes we know coding and testing takes a while, but honestly, WP has better built in "I don't need an app to do this" type features than iOS....that's an angle MSFT should be pushing...