Carriers/ATT still bias?

[ikissfutebol]

My wife and I switched from Verizon this weekend. She moved to ATT. When asked what phones she currently had she said a Windows Phone. When asked what she wanted to look at, she said the iPhone and a Lumia. As soon as we said Lumia, we got a huge eye roll, groan, and negative response from the ATT rep. In talking with him over the course of the transaction of my wife going back to iOS, he said he has seen the new flagship and "all it has is a better battery". Obviously this isn't exactly true, but he said how their Windows Phone rep "always comes depressed". As soon as I mention continuum, he had no knowledge of it, but said it sounded "really cool".

I will compare this to when we got our Lumia 928s on launch day and I had called ahead for the Verizon rep to set them aside. She was more than happy and never gave us an issue. When spoken with Cricket reps this last month (my Lumia 735 arrives Wednesday and then I'm headed to Cricket), none of them have criticized my asking specifically about Lumias/Windows Phones.

The last time I went to an ATT store prior to this weekend was right when the Lumia 920 launched. I showed the rep many features he was unaware of and found it pathetic. For being the "premier" partner, are we still living in a world where reps are actively bad mouthing Windows Phones? I can understand not showing a clueless customer to Windows Phone, but are reps really going to tell a current Windows Phone user that they should switch? Clearly Microsoft needs to address this as it's a bigger (and related problem) to the app gap. Hopefully the app gap disappearing with the changes upcoming in Windows 10 will lead to reps finally coming around. Customers that aren't concerned with cost are going to be the same ones that will be bring in app revenue. If these customers are never showed Windows Phone, how will developers be attracted to writing apps for people that don't invest in apps?

 

[worldspy99]

I think it just depends on the rep and store. But it is sad to know that ATT reps are still "clueless" specifically when a customer asks for a Lumia!

 

[Rhoyz]

They probably get less commission on Windows phone.

 

[Nicholas Maguire]

I agree that it's a bigger problem than the app gap. My brother recently bought a Lumia 830 at AT&T and told me a similar story. I can see the app gap problem disappearing, considering all the big apps and games that have been coming in recently (I'm enjoying it ^^). I really hope these reps' opinions change when the Windows 10 flagships come in, and I hope Continuum is advertised like CRAZY.