So a guy walks into a Future Shop...

[Achilles Heal]

and sees a Nokia Lumia 800 sitting at the Telus display. No info, no price, nothing to highlight the phone at all. It sits off and silent compared to all the other phones around it.

I've already had a Telus 800 for the last two weeks and am loving it. But I'm curious about how a salesperson will present it at a generic box store. Here's how the conversation goes (literally)...

A sales guy wanders over. "Can I help you?"

"Sure! I was wondering how much this phone was."

"$529 to purchase outright. If you go with a 3 year contract it's $25 or something".

"What do you think of it?"

"I don't like it."

"Why?"

"It's from Microsoft and it's a Windows Phone. See - it even has the Windows icon on the bottom. I don't like how it organizes things and makes you do things. I recommend the same phone I have". Whips out an Android. "Look where I have my apps on this screen, and other things on other screens. I'd go with this."

"Have you used it much?"

"No. But it has the same things as other phones - music and stuff."

"But I thought I'd heard some pretty good things about this phone..."

"Yeah, there was some hype. Let me know if I can help you any more". And he wanders away to another customer.

YEESH!!!! :dry

Unless Microsoft/Nokia starts leaning on these box stores, there will never be headway with their product with people following the salespeople's lead. Unless this is a strategy to (hopefully) overcome through attrition...

 

[reelon]

Seems like the att guy last week telling me there were only 5000 apps on the market and they were no good.

Sent from my PI39100 using Board Express

 

[pedenske]

It is kind of sad how little these sales guys actually know about the platform. So much for being "mobile experts" and what not.

 

[Dormage]

If you people have the will and power to go dig up information like this.
I thank you for that, but I'd love to hear reps like this recorded. Is that even legal?

 

[paulm187]

I havn't seen reps bashing the phone but in my experiance they have no knowledge on how to use it. When I went to buy a Nokia 710, I asked what she thought of the phone and she replied that this is the first time she is even having a look at it. Most people wander in and are ushered to the Androids. Microsoft & Nokia have to get their reps in, train these people and provide incentives to push these phones. The millions of dollars spent prancing around at malls and traffic lights can be better spent in stores to push the platform.

 

[Exomondo]

Usual deal, Windows == bad. For a consumer device they need to leverage their successful consumer brand and put it under that brand, XBox, not Windows.

 

[paulm187]

Usual deal, Windows == bad. For a consumer device they need to leverage their successful consumer brand and put it under that brand, XBox, not Windows.

I agree but I guess its too late for that now, everybody knows it as Windows Phone. Its such a shame Microsoft did not really push the Zune brand and let it die, it was a much better music player than the iPod. If only MS had made a success of the Zune brand it would have been a better branding for consumer products. The Xbox branding is good but its too game specific and normal consumers associate it with gamers rather than a wider consumer device.

 

[bilzkh]

Yeah Future Shop reps aren't the best out there, they don't know jack about anything in my opinion. I went one time to buy a Playbook and I asked the rep a simple question about whether it had additional firmware updates since launch, and he said he didn't know, had to confirm. I can only imagine the 'love' Windows Phone was getting.

Rogers on the other hand, I can feel things changing slowly. Sure most of the reps are ignorant about the platform, but they're not actively bashing it either. In fact, I've heard of now multiple Rogers reps actually saying Lumia 710 is a good device, with a couple even pushing it actively. If you also factor in the fact that Rogers has been very timely with the WP updates, even Mango, 8107, etc, they've been treating WP very well compared to some of the U.S carriers at least.

 

[Silverdogz]

I know that at the Redmond AT&T store they know quite alot about the Windows Phone. I don't know if it's proximity to MS or what but the Alderwood Mall in Bothell,WA its AT&T store are knows about it as well. Practically all WA stores know about it

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[Wobjoi]

Looking through these comments so far, I can say I have experienced similar in Aus as well.

1. Lack of product knowledge about the WP (or even it's very existance - no i'm not joking).
2. Don't care for the phone and don't show much enthusiasm in selling it.

 

[VernonEL]

It really depends on the store. A corporate AT&T store that I visit occsionally had a rep that did not know that the Focus (original) was the only device that supported a supplemental storage card. I cut him a little slack, because this was very soon after the initial launch. The problem that I have with this particular store, is that I was just in there Saturday, and as we talked about the Windows Phone platform, the same rep stated that people didn't like Windows Phone because "the storage cards have to be special". 14 months later, he still thought they all took storage cards. Wow. There were obviously not many (if any) reps at that store that knew Windows Phones.

On the flip side of that, there is an Authorized Retailer nearby that has about 60% of it's staff using and actively promoting Windows Phone devices. Needless to say, this store gets my business. Not the corporate store.

 

[cedarlog]

its going to be your fault as a windows phone user if you left him out clueless
i suggest any windows phone user going to have the same situation should contribute by educating these people

 

[VernonEL]

I Wish...

its going to be your fault as a windows phone user if you left him out clueless
i suggest any windows phone user going to have the same situation should contribute by educating these people

One can hope that it is that simple and easy, but it is not always the case.

I did actually inform him the first time of the storage card differences of the Windows Phone devices. I suppose one needs to care before "minute" information like that is retained.