The lack of knowledge about Lumia is just not acceptable

[uktivo]

I called my local Phones4u this morning and spoke with a sales person there. I firstly asked if they stock the Lumia 920, to which the guy hadn't got a clue and had to ask someone..

I then asked if the phone was sim free and unlocked.. he said yes.. I again asked him if this was correct and he asked his manager, the answer was yes..

Madness.. this is clearly a big fail on P4U side. It's clear the staff haven't been trained or informed about this unlock issue..

After that, I called into the Tesco mobile phone shop in my local Tesco.. I saw the 820 on display.. So I asked the sales person if they stocked the Lumia 920.. she hadn't a clue what I was on about.. She pointed me towards a Blackberry one...

Nokia.. if you want this thing to sell, you really have to release it to the general public so that they can walk into any store, pick one up and buy it off contract.. Let the customer make the decision. If you persist along the lines of forcing the customer down this route. You will fail......

P.s..
This wasn't me trying to trip these people up.. I actually wanted to buy a handset and was even willing to take on a new contract to do it.. but P4U failed me because I wanted it as a business contract and they can't offer business contracts according to the sales guy i spoke with.
It's just way to hard to get your hands on one of these phones.. It's nothing to do with short stocks, it's just been made difficult by this ludicrous method of market penetration, Nokia has chosen.
On one hand I can understand why they have done this, to allow maximum concentration from the re-sellers, but in my opinion, they would have been better just selling as many handsets as possible on and off contract.
I think they have misjudged the current market conditions. I feel right now is a perfect time for Nokia and WP8. People are looking for something different.. but people are not willing to take on new contracts to achieve it.. I may be wrong.... lets hope i am..

 

[Muessig]

Did you try an EE store? I dont know about business contracts but EE, T-Mobile and Orange are all selling this phone on contracts.

 

[power5]

Nothing new here. Nokia can ship out as many pamphlets and info books to the carriers as they want but if the carriers do not take it on themselves to educate their staff its for not.

 

[uktivo]

Ive now purchased a sim free unlocked one from Clove..

 

[crystal_planet]

This. The carriers generally have no bloody clue about windows phones in general, but will promote the **** out of an Android device if it's just a color change. Utterly rediculous.

**Sent from my Windows Phone using Board Express**

 

[uktivo]

Agree..

I currently have several Android devices, 2 x iphone5, 6 x iphone4s

I've used all OS.. I do like Android os but I wanted to try the WP8. They have made it just to darn hard to do..

Oh well.. I've now got one on route from Clove, lets hope they are indeed unlocked and sim free as they have advised...

 

[socialcarpet]

I understand and I can relate, but we all need to remember this is a phone that has about 3% marketshare right now. Give it time.

 

[GSOgymrat]

I had trouble ordering the Lumia 920 online so I went to a local AT&T store for assistance. The salesperson had heard of the phone because several people but wanted to know what was special about it. I explained about Windows Phone 8, Pureview, etc. He had never heard of wireless charging and acted like he didn't believe it was real.

 

[ncxcstud]

I ended up buying a 920 yesterday at an at&t store. I first went to what I thought was the store with it in stock. It wasn't, the corporate store was down the street.

Anyways, the guy helping me was a total jerk. Why do you want WP? Its horrible android is so much better, there are 22 people who work here and 21 of us have android devices. We know what we're talking about. The Lumia phones are horrible. Blah blah blah.

I just left and went to the corporate store. It was like night and day. Each employee was using a 920. They were all excited about it and we all had a great conversation about WP and cell phones on general.

So, basically I'm not going to the retailers anymore. Only corporate stores from now on.

 

[firewall2302]

I got my first AT&T phones from corporate stores but when I went to college and they were now Cingular I ended up going to a retailer a few times.

I had similar experiences with them that led to me swearing off retailers entirely as well.

Now, with the Lumia preorder issues I've sworn off the website as well. The corporate store employees are generally great and seem to actually understand customer service. When I was talking to them on Saturday they seemed genuinely interested in WP8 and we were comparing our favorite features.