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I have used t mobile for like a decade. They’re a better carrier, but I have had terrible experiences in their stores before too. You’re at the mercy of randoms

by dimmke 5y ago

I have used t mobile for like a decade. They’re a better carrier, but I have had terrible experiences in their stores before too. You’re at the mercy of randoms working retail. The best experience is no experience. Just buy your phone directly from Apple and perform the SIM swap yourself. Apple’s stores are worse than the ATT situation in this article. For most of COVID you literally could not walk in and get added to a waiting list, you had to make an appointment. And each store had rude security guards shooing people away. It might actually still be like that. It sounds like he got lucky and had a positive experience with one person but that doesn’t scale at all.

ethbr0 5y ago
> You’re at the mercy of randoms working retail. So true, even for Apple or (insert beloved company here). Between the turnover, low salaries, and the terrible scheduling patterns, you're blessed if you get someone who doesn't assault customers. Consequently, most retail seems to focus on training employees to "not be bad" vs "being more good."
- Talanes 5y ago
  >Consequently, most retail seems to focus on training employees to "not be bad" vs "being more good." More like they just don't give adequate training time at all. I've never had a retail job that gave as much time with the training material as the material itself said you'd spend with it.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    I would think retail/general public facing working environment being basically the least desirable working environment, the most capable people will always self select out for better opportunities, especially since the pay is the lowest.
    - Talanes 5y ago
      No, some of us stick it out way too long because we actually do like it.
  - bsanr2 5y ago
    Best Buy had very good training during the tenure of the previous CEO. It was emphasized as an important part of one's duties as an associate and incentivized with generous accommodations (I'm watching a large OLED I was able to buy for 1/3 retail; I was able to truthfully attest to its quality thereafter and made quite a few sales on that). My understanding is that good and plentiful accommodations are essentially gone now (at corporate, not the vendor's, behest; workers looking to get a television accommodation will apparently have to win a sweepstakes), and that training focuses less on product knowledge and more on high-margin service and branded payment upsells. If you think you hate hearing about thowe as a customer, imagine how tired the salespeople are getting nothing but constantly chided for not ruining customers' credit. Leadership matters, and unfortunately, much of retail's are cynical number crunchers who don't understand the value of investing in labor. Guess what, not even Amazon can get away from the necessity of quality customer service; that need won't be automated away anytime in the near future, and you really don't want to anyway (algorithmic up-sell is terrible at edge cases and exhausts everyone else short-term).
    - dimmke 5y ago
      >training focuses less on product knowledge and more on high-margin service and branded payment upsells. This to me is the death knell of brick and mortar retail. It's like this everywhere. There is absolutely no focus on actually helping a customer make a decision based on what they need/want. It's just a free mark to pitch whatever thing management is incentivizing. If I can't actually trust the intentions of a salesperson what on earth am I doing in there? But let's be honest, even if there was a focus on product knowledge- it's almost always better to do research on the internet. You can get a much better lay of the land from many sources instead of just one person. The products will be cheaper by 10-20% on Amazon usually, and you get to read a ton of reviews. This just happened to me at Micro Center this past week. I was bored, decided to go into the store to look at KVM switches. A salesperson approaches and asks if I need help, it's clear immediately that he doesn't know anything about KVM switches and he's reading off the back of the box trying to figure out the answer when I ask him questions. I decide to buy the one I was already looking at before he approached and he put his sticker on it. Afterwards, out of curiosity, I looked it up on Amazon. Was a full $20 cheaper. The switch ended up not even being able to support high refresh rates so I had to return it anyways. Plus they all want you to sign up for their credit card and give them your email and zip code. It's super gross.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
bserge 5y ago
You know it's bad when T-Mobile (fucking Telekom) is better than the competition.
pkulak 5y ago
I just moved my whole family to Google Fi because there IS no store, and all account management is dead easy on a very well-built website. Took me several days of waiting on hold with AT&T to get the numbers transferred, and now I can never log into my AT&T account again because it wants to 2-factor the sim card in my car (my only remaining line), but it's already proven worth it for my mental well being alone.
cardiffspaceman 5y ago
My local apple store can now be walked directly into. I concede I didn't go there during the launch of the new phone. I did go there a few weeks before to buy an accessory, and it was free of fuss. I can confirm that during the still-COVID-but-almost-open phase, there were tents, appointments, and rude people.
- dimmke 5y ago
  I really feel like Apple's stores are an embarrassment. I understand they have some really unique challenges with way more foot traffic volume (especially during COVID times) but my issues with them started way before COVID. Apple has gotten so much larger as a company than it was when the iPod was it's most successful product, but it's stores are basically still the same. They should have started moving away from the in mall concepts a while ago or figured out a way to better handle the massively increased volume for things like service and order pickup. They do have bigger standalone stores now, but only in very dense city centers. I remember having to wait for 20 minutes like 8 years ago just to pick up a phone case I bought online because only certain people could go get it. I wrote a thoughtful email and got a reply back from the store manager saying "yeah you're right, you've already paid you shouldn't have to do that" They're only just now coming up with a way to handle in store pickups in a streamlined way: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/09/24/apple-store-bronx-dedicated-pickup-zone/ https://www.macrumors.com/2021/09/24/apple-store-bronx-dedic... One time I walked in to buy an iPhone and also had to wait 10 minutes for an "iPhone specialist" - a regular Apple employee couldn't ring me up. It sucks because you can tell they do spend a lot of effort on having good customer service and support, but it all comes together in such a bad way in their in person stores. I can text Apple at any time and get excellent support that way. I just only buy things online/do support on text and phone.

by dimmke 5y ago

ethbr0 5y ago

> You’re at the mercy of randoms working retail. So true, even for Apple or (insert beloved company here). Between the turnover, low salaries, and the terrible scheduling patterns, you're blessed if you get someone who doesn't assault customers. Consequently, most retail seems to focus on training employees to "not be bad" vs "being more good."

Talanes 5y ago
>Consequently, most retail seems to focus on training employees to "not be bad" vs "being more good." More like they just don't give adequate training time at all. I've never had a retail job that gave as much time with the training material as the material itself said you'd spend with it.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  I would think retail/general public facing working environment being basically the least desirable working environment, the most capable people will always self select out for better opportunities, especially since the pay is the lowest.
  - Talanes 5y ago
    No, some of us stick it out way too long because we actually do like it.
- bsanr2 5y ago
  Best Buy had very good training during the tenure of the previous CEO. It was emphasized as an important part of one's duties as an associate and incentivized with generous accommodations (I'm watching a large OLED I was able to buy for 1/3 retail; I was able to truthfully attest to its quality thereafter and made quite a few sales on that). My understanding is that good and plentiful accommodations are essentially gone now (at corporate, not the vendor's, behest; workers looking to get a television accommodation will apparently have to win a sweepstakes), and that training focuses less on product knowledge and more on high-margin service and branded payment upsells. If you think you hate hearing about thowe as a customer, imagine how tired the salespeople are getting nothing but constantly chided for not ruining customers' credit. Leadership matters, and unfortunately, much of retail's are cynical number crunchers who don't understand the value of investing in labor. Guess what, not even Amazon can get away from the necessity of quality customer service; that need won't be automated away anytime in the near future, and you really don't want to anyway (algorithmic up-sell is terrible at edge cases and exhausts everyone else short-term).
  - dimmke 5y ago
    >training focuses less on product knowledge and more on high-margin service and branded payment upsells. This to me is the death knell of brick and mortar retail. It's like this everywhere. There is absolutely no focus on actually helping a customer make a decision based on what they need/want. It's just a free mark to pitch whatever thing management is incentivizing. If I can't actually trust the intentions of a salesperson what on earth am I doing in there? But let's be honest, even if there was a focus on product knowledge- it's almost always better to do research on the internet. You can get a much better lay of the land from many sources instead of just one person. The products will be cheaper by 10-20% on Amazon usually, and you get to read a ton of reviews. This just happened to me at Micro Center this past week. I was bored, decided to go into the store to look at KVM switches. A salesperson approaches and asks if I need help, it's clear immediately that he doesn't know anything about KVM switches and he's reading off the back of the box trying to figure out the answer when I ask him questions. I decide to buy the one I was already looking at before he approached and he put his sticker on it. Afterwards, out of curiosity, I looked it up on Amazon. Was a full $20 cheaper. The switch ended up not even being able to support high refresh rates so I had to return it anyways. Plus they all want you to sign up for their credit card and give them your email and zip code. It's super gross.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

bserge 5y ago

You know it's bad when T-Mobile (fucking Telekom) is better than the competition.

pkulak 5y ago

I just moved my whole family to Google Fi because there IS no store, and all account management is dead easy on a very well-built website. Took me several days of waiting on hold with AT&T to get the numbers transferred, and now I can never log into my AT&T account again because it wants to 2-factor the sim card in my car (my only remaining line), but it's already proven worth it for my mental well being alone.

cardiffspaceman 5y ago

My local apple store can now be walked directly into. I concede I didn't go there during the launch of the new phone. I did go there a few weeks before to buy an accessory, and it was free of fuss. I can confirm that during the still-COVID-but-almost-open phase, there were tents, appointments, and rude people.

dimmke 5y ago
I really feel like Apple's stores are an embarrassment. I understand they have some really unique challenges with way more foot traffic volume (especially during COVID times) but my issues with them started way before COVID. Apple has gotten so much larger as a company than it was when the iPod was it's most successful product, but it's stores are basically still the same. They should have started moving away from the in mall concepts a while ago or figured out a way to better handle the massively increased volume for things like service and order pickup. They do have bigger standalone stores now, but only in very dense city centers. I remember having to wait for 20 minutes like 8 years ago just to pick up a phone case I bought online because only certain people could go get it. I wrote a thoughtful email and got a reply back from the store manager saying "yeah you're right, you've already paid you shouldn't have to do that" They're only just now coming up with a way to handle in store pickups in a streamlined way: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/09/24/apple-store-bronx-dedicated-pickup-zone/ https://www.macrumors.com/2021/09/24/apple-store-bronx-dedic... One time I walked in to buy an iPhone and also had to wait 10 minutes for an "iPhone specialist" - a regular Apple employee couldn't ring me up. It sucks because you can tell they do spend a lot of effort on having good customer service and support, but it all comes together in such a bad way in their in person stores. I can text Apple at any time and get excellent support that way. I just only buy things online/do support on text and phone.