My Experience at T-Mobile

[spop9]

I went to my local T-Mobile store today to purchase a 925 for my wife and I and I wanted to share my experience and get some feedback from you guys. Overall it was a good experience. They did have a Nokia Lumia display with the 521 and 925. The store associate was friendly and talkative so I decided to ask her what she thought of the phone.

The two 925s that she sold me were the only two sales she knew of. She said that windows phones don?t sell very well because she thinks windows scares people away and that people assume it will be hard to use. She also told me she doesn?t try to sell them because she is afraid it may disappoint the customer and result in a return. I explained how easy it was to use and if you just show someone they will pick it very quickly.

I asked if anyone had trained her on windows phone and if they had a Nokia. She said no, we have Sony reps and Samsung reps but we don?t have a Nokia rep. I said that was unfortunate and we should try to get her one. She was willing to learn more about the phone and thought the 925 was a great device.

So my question to you guys is what can we do to make sure our local stores have Nokia reps or receive training on the devices? Have you heard similar stories from your local stores?

 

[RL76]

at the Tmobile store here in san diego (la mesa), the nokia reps do stop by and hold training. just not that much...

 

[Indistinguishable]

I've heard several stories like this. Mostly from Verizon reps because those are the only ones I talk to.

Good job spending time showing her some of the features of the phone. That's generally what I do as well when i'm in there. I patiently explain what I like about the phone and tell them how much I've enjoyed my device. There's really not much else we can do... Microsoft should be dispatching trainers, imo.

 

[nokialove]

That is disappointing. I actually had a great experience on Wednesday. The sales associate that worked with me is actually a big fan of WP and uses an 810. He knew all about the OS, but I think it was based on his experience, not because of training from T-Mobile. Of course, one of the other sales associates was ragging on him for liking WP. Right in front of me. As I was trying to buy the phone. lol. But still, the sales associate who sold the phone to me with was great.

I hope the 925 sells very well, so T-Mobile takes Windows Phone seriously. I'm a big fan of what Magenta is doing lately, but WP is important to me.

 

[SeeVuPlay]

when i bought mine the sales guy was a bit sarcastic...he said "Did you have to fight that line to get this phone" as he pointed at the empty doorway. Overall though, it was an okay experience, though he did mention the Sony Android one but I showed no interest.


I hope they sell well too, but in the end I love the phone...the service can be better though.

 

[RonV42]

I got mine at a T-Mobile store by my workplace because the store local to my home was sold out? They only received two phones. Anyway only one of the 4 associates working knew anything about the phone. She was the only one that knew how to install the sim card. She said she used to use a Lumia phone but has to support her mom and dad's iPhone so she got one so she could walk them though using it.

 

[WorkingInGeorgia]

I have already recorded here my experience buying my 925 at TMo. I went into a Verizon store yesterday to get a charging plate, Tmo had NO accessories....NONE. I had never been in a Verizon store as I am a long term, loyal Tmo customer. Y'all, it was like a real store with displays and lots of helpful folks with lots of customers....and it was HUGE. I have never been a TMo store that looks remotely like that.

The young man that helped me, immediately I might add, was very familiar with WP8. His personal phone was a 928 and he knew about it. Nothing like TMo.

The biggest deal for me has been connectivity. Yesterday, every call on the 925 was dropped....every...single....one. The phone doesn't seem to move from WIFI to tower coverage without dropping the call. At my office desk, where I have used a HTC droid for two years without any problem, every call dropped. Could not get signal. Called TMo, yeah no help.

 

[bryantest]

Location: Downtown Los Angeles. Near Sheraton Hotel

Sales Associate at T-Mobile Kiosk don't know a thing about HERE Maps..whether the 925 has a MicroSD slot....and it took a bit of while before he actually turned his attention to me..not like the kiosk was surrounded by various customers ya know?

:angry:

 

[JohnnyFEZ]

The T-Mobile store in Temecula, CA had the new 925 in the farthest back corner sharing a single kiosk with the Blackberry phones. It wasn't a functional phone, either. You had to ask to see a working phone and they would bring it out from the back. Meanwhile, a quarter of the store right in front was set aside to demo three working iPhones and they had a huge section further down for Android phones, including an entire kiosk showing off the new Sony phone. I'm sure they arrange the store to highlight their biggest sellers, but they could've at least had a functional phone.

When I bought the 925, the sales associate asked me straight up why I wasn't getting an iPhone. He seemed genuinely confused why anyone would choose to buy a Windows Phone and he tried to talk me into changing my mind. I explained the features the 925 had that iPhone didn't - Wi-Fi calling, wireless charging, HERE maps, Data Sense, the best available low-light camera, $100 cheaper, etc. - and he hadn't heard of any of these. He utterly dismissed the 925's camera, telling me that the iPhone had an 8 megapixel camera, which was "pretty much the same" as the 925's 8.9 megapixel camera and that the Android phones had even more megapixels. I tried to tell him about the optical stabilization in the 925 that made it superior - "little springs that reduce shaking in low-light situations" - but he was skeptical and wasn't willing to accept that anything other than megapixels contributed to the camera's worth.

Overall, the only thing that the T-Mobile staff seemed to know about the 925 is that it wasn't an iPhone. Their lack of knowledge and training was astounding.

 

[bryantest]

I have forwarded the link to this thread to Nokia USA via Twitter. Hopefully it does something about this.

 

[tollonodre]

I went in to my local (mall) store this AM to try out the 925 (I'm coming from a BB) and have to say the phones were prominently displayed up front. But as soon as I told the rep I was there to try out the 925, he cheerily told me "Oh, you know we're running a great deal on the Sony xperia!" Didn't even try to talk up the 925...

 

[tissotti]

Sounds quite sad and mirrors other comments I have read about Lumia 925 launch from T-Mobile. AT&T was especially bad at start (they have improved their game a bit), but T-Mobile seems especially horrible. Too bad. T-Mobile used to be the carrier for Nokia on its Symbian days.

Nokia really needs to start offering their phones right away on Verizon. Hopefully that will change with the GDR3 flagship later this year.

 

[theefman]

Almost 3 years after launch and still we get this from US sales reps. With the low numbers of Lumias and WP sold Nokia may as well not bother with this biased market

 

[karmamule]

The t-mo store I went to had two people before me buying 925s, then me, then at least one after me. (This was the evening of launch day). Both store employees liked it, one had a new 925 as his personal phone. He actually talked up the lumia to an elderly woman thinking of changing from a blackberry to an iphone

 

[forked]

I visited two stores near me (Spokane, WA). One store had it displayed and the Nokia rep had apparently called the guy I talked to who had received a free sample. He admitted to not knowing much about it but seemed genuinely excited to get into the platform.

The other store, didn't even have the phone on display although they had a slot for it next to a functioning 521. I had asked about the phone a couple of times before the announcement and got the 'Sony Xperia is coming though'.

I ended up getting the phone but I'm disappointed that they have a flagship phone like the 925 and it's being treated as a second class citizen (yeah, I know Windows Phone isn't as popular but Nokia should have made sure T-Mobile treated it like the flagship it is). Not to mention not carrying the charging plate. It seems like they are doing as little as possible.

 

[kwajr]

They have the plate on tmobile.com

 

[kwajr]

I went in to my local (mall) store this AM to try out the 925 (I'm coming from a BB) and have to say the phones were prominently displayed up front. But as soon as I told the rep I was there to try out the 925, he cheerily told me "Oh, you know we're running a great deal on the Sony xperia!" Didn't even try to talk up the 925...

and yet androids have the highest returns of any OS,can you imagine trying to teach someone the ins/and out of android.

 

[kittengirl]

They have the plate on mobile.com

mobile.com takes me to ATT. What site are you referring to?

 

[tollonodre]

and yet androids have the highest returns of any OS,can you imagine trying to teach someone the ins/and out of android.

I'm hearing the same thing about BB10 - the whole 'all gestures/no buttons' design means the salespeople are steering anyone but hardcore BB users away from it. They don't want to get the return trips from users who can't figure it out.

 

[wellsmanfu]

I guess I'm lucky. I went to a local 3rd party store here in west Phoenix and while the reps weren't very knowledgeable about the 925, they both at least liked it. I got there just after they opened launch day, the store was dead and they were still setting up their display for the 925. One guy had their 925 seed device and the other was using a Samsung android of some kind.

The guy with the 925 was still getting used to it, but did like the phone and was looking forward to learning more about it. What's nice is both guys had no real bias against WP, just a lack of understanding. What was refreshing is that they tell their customers getting WP for the first time to give it a good, thorough try and take the 2 week trail period to get used to it because it is very different from iPhone and Android.

So while they didn't know much about WP (which I made sure to fix while I was there) they at least appreciate the OS as a good, viable option to offer customers and not something to ignore or avoid. But they still don't like BlackBerry much at all.