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It’s a self fulfilling prophecy. You can see these exact same market dynamics at work in the mobile telco industry. Newer online only upstarts able to save on c

by omcnoe 7mo ago

It’s a self fulfilling prophecy. You can see these exact same market dynamics at work in the mobile telco industry. Newer online only upstarts able to save on costs because they don’t operate a retail store you can visit to get help resetting your email password.

Clent 7mo ago
Isn't that the opposite though? Having a store for the customer to get face-to-face support is sometimes necessary even those who prefer it all to be online. It acts as a stop gap to people otherwise low support customers. The newer upstarts you mention are self selecting for customers who would do everything they can to never make a support call. They are just another form of having a 15 minute wait time because online only is it's own customer service barrier.
- array_key_first 7mo ago
  With sims switching to e-sim there's basically no reason to have in person support for cellular service. There's nothing they can do, outside of what they can already do online or over the phone. Like, if you go to an AT&T store with a broken e-sim they can't wave a magic wand. They'll probably just reset it on their end, like they could do over the phone.
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  - ryandrake 7mo ago
    Some people just prefer going into a physical place and talking to someone in a face to face conversation they can understand. I’ll very rarely want to sit in a phone queue just to talk to “Jason” who has a thick Filipino accent sitting in a crowded support room talking through what sounds like a a 1kbps VOIP connection. And I’m never going to text chat an AI bot for help. Contrast that to my kid who is horrified by in person interactions and thinks that the kiosks at McDonalds were the world’s greatest recent invention. Not to mention people with disabilities that make one form of communication the only option. People are different and good companies try to serve them all.
  - gzread 7mo ago
    The person at the store has direct contact with the broken device, this is a much shorter feedback loop than telling you what to do, having you misinterpret it, having you read back the results, and then misinterpreting them.
- xp84 7mo ago
  No. In the case of cell phone carriers, the only times in the past 10 years I have ever darkened the door of a retail store is times when the carrier was too incompetent to let me get my problem solved another way. For instance, there was a time at AT&T where if you had acquired a brand new unlocked iPhone that needs eSIM, you needed to receive a physical piece of cardboard printed with a unique QR code on it in order to activate it successfully. I’ve been with US Mobile for years now and never once felt the need for a physical store.
- ssl-3 7mo ago
  Centralizing support generally saves money. There's a lot of reasons for this. One of them is that it tends to be a lot cheaper to have one building in Denver to host support people than to have many buildings in every city. Besides that concept, they're selling telephone and data services. It makes sense to -- you know -- make use of them. When we had a telephone issue back in the landline days, we didn't load ourselves up into the car and go to a store to get help from someone in person; we instead used the phone. (That may have been done by using the neighbor's phone, but whatever. We still have neighbors and not all of them are dicks. And these days, we still have cell phone stores for those who can't empty the water from a boot. The days of brick and mortar cell phone sales are not, at this time, numbered.)
  - massysett 7mo ago
    Yeah, but Baby Bell would dispatch a technician to your house if needed.
  - nebula8804 7mo ago
    >it tends to be a lot cheaper to have one building in Denver to host support people than to have many buildings in every city I'd kill for the building in Denver. Instead I always get some extremely compressed voice connection in the Philippines.
dehrmann 7mo ago
One time, I needed this. I lost my phone with a physical SIM card and needed a replacement that day. Now I'm trying to remember the eSIM transfer flow to know if this is still an issue. But also, which MVNO should you go to? Carriers supposedly prioritize their own customers, so it feels a bit like running on spot instances.
- mey 7mo ago
  Personally switched from VZW to Google Fi. It's on TMOs network. As you can imagine, when engaging with Google's support was hilarious when there was something I needed, but overall I don't miss Verizon and pay drastically less.
  - rootusrootus 7mo ago
    For those of us who have crappy coverage with TMO, Verizon themselves offer a much better alternative to their postpaid service, called Visible. It's pretty hilarious how much better of an experience it is, and you are on the same network.
    - laurencerowe 7mo ago
      Coverage is very specific to your situation. I've had basically no coverage on Verizon in offices in the Bay Area where T-mobile worked fine while colleagues could only get Verizon at home.
    - throwaway27448 7mo ago
      I haven't had any issues with tmobile coverage (that wasn't also a problem with verizon) in well over a decade now. Hell it even worked well in the dense hilly jungles of burundi. Verizon customer service was so bad before I switched I swore them off for life.... The single place I noticed verizon gets coverage and tmobile doesn't is three levels underground in a concrete parking garage.
  - laurencerowe 7mo ago
    Is Google Fi particularly cheap? Their normal prices seem to start at $35/month for 30GB of data which is more than Verizon's Visible plans at $25/month. (The current 50% off offer on Google Fi does seem a good deal though.) I ended up switching to Mobile-X since I'm on wifi so much I only use a few gigs of data a month. $2/month + $1.90/GB vs Google Fi's flexible plan of $20/month + $10/GB.
nitwit005 7mo ago
Those stores generally turn a profit eventually. A smaller company is just going to struggle to afford building out the stores and running ads to get people in the door.
- tencentshill 7mo ago
  Those startups eventually need legions of fools with which to easily part their money.
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
teeray 7mo ago
It’s always amazing going to these stores and seeing the support they provide for frequent “how do I computer?” questions. To me, this is like going to the water department because you need a new faucet on the kitchen sink. We make no such distinctions about who fixes what for purveyors of Internet services though.

by omcnoe 7mo ago

Clent 7mo ago

Isn't that the opposite though? Having a store for the customer to get face-to-face support is sometimes necessary even those who prefer it all to be online. It acts as a stop gap to people otherwise low support customers. The newer upstarts you mention are self selecting for customers who would do everything they can to never make a support call. They are just another form of having a 15 minute wait time because online only is it's own customer service barrier.

array_key_first 7mo ago
With sims switching to e-sim there's basically no reason to have in person support for cellular service. There's nothing they can do, outside of what they can already do online or over the phone. Like, if you go to an AT&T store with a broken e-sim they can't wave a magic wand. They'll probably just reset it on their end, like they could do over the phone.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- ryandrake 7mo ago
  Some people just prefer going into a physical place and talking to someone in a face to face conversation they can understand. I’ll very rarely want to sit in a phone queue just to talk to “Jason” who has a thick Filipino accent sitting in a crowded support room talking through what sounds like a a 1kbps VOIP connection. And I’m never going to text chat an AI bot for help. Contrast that to my kid who is horrified by in person interactions and thinks that the kiosks at McDonalds were the world’s greatest recent invention. Not to mention people with disabilities that make one form of communication the only option. People are different and good companies try to serve them all.
- gzread 7mo ago
  The person at the store has direct contact with the broken device, this is a much shorter feedback loop than telling you what to do, having you misinterpret it, having you read back the results, and then misinterpreting them.
xp84 7mo ago
No. In the case of cell phone carriers, the only times in the past 10 years I have ever darkened the door of a retail store is times when the carrier was too incompetent to let me get my problem solved another way. For instance, there was a time at AT&T where if you had acquired a brand new unlocked iPhone that needs eSIM, you needed to receive a physical piece of cardboard printed with a unique QR code on it in order to activate it successfully. I’ve been with US Mobile for years now and never once felt the need for a physical store.
ssl-3 7mo ago
Centralizing support generally saves money. There's a lot of reasons for this. One of them is that it tends to be a lot cheaper to have one building in Denver to host support people than to have many buildings in every city. Besides that concept, they're selling telephone and data services. It makes sense to -- you know -- make use of them. When we had a telephone issue back in the landline days, we didn't load ourselves up into the car and go to a store to get help from someone in person; we instead used the phone. (That may have been done by using the neighbor's phone, but whatever. We still have neighbors and not all of them are dicks. And these days, we still have cell phone stores for those who can't empty the water from a boot. The days of brick and mortar cell phone sales are not, at this time, numbered.)
- massysett 7mo ago
  Yeah, but Baby Bell would dispatch a technician to your house if needed.
- nebula8804 7mo ago
  >it tends to be a lot cheaper to have one building in Denver to host support people than to have many buildings in every city I'd kill for the building in Denver. Instead I always get some extremely compressed voice connection in the Philippines.

dehrmann 7mo ago

One time, I needed this. I lost my phone with a physical SIM card and needed a replacement that day. Now I'm trying to remember the eSIM transfer flow to know if this is still an issue. But also, which MVNO should you go to? Carriers supposedly prioritize their own customers, so it feels a bit like running on spot instances.

mey 7mo ago
Personally switched from VZW to Google Fi. It's on TMOs network. As you can imagine, when engaging with Google's support was hilarious when there was something I needed, but overall I don't miss Verizon and pay drastically less.
- rootusrootus 7mo ago
  For those of us who have crappy coverage with TMO, Verizon themselves offer a much better alternative to their postpaid service, called Visible. It's pretty hilarious how much better of an experience it is, and you are on the same network.
  - laurencerowe 7mo ago
    Coverage is very specific to your situation. I've had basically no coverage on Verizon in offices in the Bay Area where T-mobile worked fine while colleagues could only get Verizon at home.
  - throwaway27448 7mo ago
    I haven't had any issues with tmobile coverage (that wasn't also a problem with verizon) in well over a decade now. Hell it even worked well in the dense hilly jungles of burundi. Verizon customer service was so bad before I switched I swore them off for life.... The single place I noticed verizon gets coverage and tmobile doesn't is three levels underground in a concrete parking garage.
- laurencerowe 7mo ago
  Is Google Fi particularly cheap? Their normal prices seem to start at $35/month for 30GB of data which is more than Verizon's Visible plans at $25/month. (The current 50% off offer on Google Fi does seem a good deal though.) I ended up switching to Mobile-X since I'm on wifi so much I only use a few gigs of data a month. $2/month + $1.90/GB vs Google Fi's flexible plan of $20/month + $10/GB.

nitwit005 7mo ago

Those stores generally turn a profit eventually. A smaller company is just going to struggle to afford building out the stores and running ads to get people in the door.

tencentshill 7mo ago
Those startups eventually need legions of fools with which to easily part their money.

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]

teeray 7mo ago

It’s always amazing going to these stores and seeing the support they provide for frequent “how do I computer?” questions. To me, this is like going to the water department because you need a new faucet on the kitchen sink. We make no such distinctions about who fixes what for purveyors of Internet services though.