Another laugh at Sprint employees...

[gk1984]

Just had to share a laugh....

Went to a Sprint store with a friend looking for a new phone on a tight budget. I said I have the Optimus and love it. Store sales woman tried selling my friend the employee's used Hero for $200 cash, saying it's only lightly used.

I laughed, said ha! I bought my Optimus for about that price (didn't get the contract deal) and its way better than the Hero. Sales woman looked at me funny and told me the Optimus has a lesser processor than the Hero.

I sorta went off, listing all the reasons the Optimus is better than a year and a half or 2 year old phone, shut her up pretty quick.

But I guess ignorance is bliss, huh?

 

[sonicbluemustang]

Why would she try and sell him a used phone? Do they not have new ones?
Take him to Bestbuy and get em even cheaper.

 

[gk1984]

Ha! no idea why, but they weren't carrying the Hero anymore and I think the sales woman just wanted to get rid of her old phone. But no, my friend gets the new contract discount in a few months and might just hold out.

 

[uberjam545]

He should hold off and get the evo my friend has one and they can use clockworkmod so theyre super ready to hack

 

[Matt.ny.tech]

I'm not easily offended so I dont take this personally, BUT...

I am a Sprint employee, I sell every one of my phones off to customers, every single sale I have made has benefited the customer and not me.

Obviously in this case the woman was out for herself and not your friend. Just dont lump us all together.

 

[Maestro1#AC]

I hope that was at a 3rd party dealer, a corporate sprint store should never try selling someone their old phone.

I was actually in the sprint store yesterday (something i hate doing) and am surprised by the number of low quality reps employed by sprint. I can say this because I worked for sprint for 4 years, actually started as a NEXTEL employee before the merger, and i seen first hand how horrible sprint reps can be.

everytime I go into a sprint store I get prepared for a fight, because they always try pulling some crap. I feel bad for people who might not know as much as I do when dealing with these people.

 

[CarrieK]

Maybe I've just been lucky, or maybe my local Sprint store is run the way it is supposed to be, but I have always had excellent service. I even had an employee tell me it would be cheaper to order a phone from their online store. There are slackers and not so honest employees that unfortunately make everyone who works there look bad. I would take offense being lumped in with people like that too if it were me.

 

[shortyjacobs]

Heh, I've never had a bad experience. At worst, apathetic and not-knowledgable employees, at best some really great people and info...(at very best, discounts I was not even entitled to)...but never anything bad. Not their fault some of them are brand new, just doing it part time, and don't really know all that much...

 

[Maestro1#AC]

Heh, I've never had a bad experience. At worst, apathetic and not-knowledgable employees, at best some really great people and info...(at very best, discounts I was not even entitled to)...but never anything bad. Not their fault some of them are brand new, just doing it part time, and don't really know all that much...

Sprint is horrible at training employees ecspecially their retail employees. and they are very good at confusing the hell out of them. So its not always their fault, but I can't stand the ones that will just feed you any line of bull**** to get rid of you.

 

[sfhub]

I lost my "angel" Sprint employee beginning of last year in some reduction in force. Now I have to deal with regular employees until I can find a new angel.

It is such a pain and reduces my opinion of Sprint immensely even though my logical mind is saying these are just a few bad apples, it is still annoying to put up with the rif raf until I can find a good employee again.

Good employees are focused on solving your issues.

Bad employees are focused on solving their issues and could care less about your issues.

 

[apinkel]

I've had good luck at corporate stores, I've run into some folks at some of the non corporate stores who could have had better training and been more professional.

Overall, I've been pleased. Yes they do try to sell their products (which is to be expected since it's their job) and yes you need to be ready to say no and only buy what you need/want.

 

[sonicbluemustang]

Or perhaps she figured he didnt want to sign a two year contract....?

 

[sfhub]

I've had good luck at corporate stores, I've run into some folks at some of the non corporate stores who could have had better training and been more professional.

Overall, I've been pleased. Yes they do try to sell their products (which is to be expected since it's their job) and yes you need to be ready to say no and only buy what you need/want.

I've had very mixed experiences at corporate stores. The attitudes are usually led by the manager's attitude. If the particular manager has the attitude that every customer is out to rip sprint off and is super anal about performance #s, then that attitude is passed on to the employees.

If the manager has the attitude that they should solve the customers problems even if they may take a small hit to their #s because a happy customer comes back and brings their friends, then that attitude passes on also. My "angel" manager was very helpful and I brought him 10 customers. I've yet to bring Sprint another customer since he was let go.

As to third party sales, they can be bad (or worse) also. However I found 3rd party repair to be much better than corporate repair. They are actually interested in fixing stuff and they seem to have more spare parts. Corporate usually just wants to make sure you aren't ripping them off then get you to pay the $35 to get your refurb or shift you onto the $100 bad damage insurance if you have TEP. Simple stuff under TEP they'll replace or fix but the range of stuff 3rd party will fix seems to be greater.

 

[simon.ponder]

Online or onphone

I have found that since one can get a greater deal online or over the phone, I haven't been in a store in probably three and a half years, and I have been with sprint for 7 now.

Besides the recent changes in policy concerning their premier levels, I have had pretty good service, as long as I stay out the store.

Now that Best Buy has the buy back program and they are willing to foot the amount of Mail in Rebates, I might be rethinking my ways. That is to say, as long as I would be getting a better over all deal. I haven't looked into what Best Buy can offer an existing customer, looking to upgrade their package.

 

[saoyandide]

Coming from T Mobile and being with them for almost 5 years I have to say so far Sprint Reps have been an upgrade in quality and helpfulness. Tmobile was always a run around and having to explain my issue to 3 or 4 different people. I hope that this is going to be the rule and not the exception for me.

 

[KSmithInNY]

I'm not easily offended so I dont take this personally, BUT...

I am a Sprint employee, I sell every one of my phones off to customers, every single sale I have made has benefited the customer and not me.

Obviously in this case the woman was out for herself and not your friend. Just dont lump us all together.

To add the what Matt just said, not only is he a Sprint employee, he's a damn fine one. Matt went way above and beyond for me one time when my launch day EVO broke, the 1st replacement came with a broken charger port, and the 2nd replacement came with a smashed digitizer. Matt used the battery and back plate from my first EVO, the digitizer from the 1st replacement EVO, the board from the 2nd replacement EVO, mixed them all in a bag and gave me a perfectly working EVO. I'm sure what he did is probably against some policy written somewhere at Sprint but Matt knew how important phones are to me so he did what was best for that customer

Let's also not forget that a Sprint rep (also Matt) tore his Optimus apart and took very detailed pictures and wrote up an easy to follow guide for people who may need to take their phone apart for water or dust related purposes.

Blanket statements may be offensive and or inaccurate. If i had to guess, the rep in the OP was misinformed and likely had no malicious intention at all. Keep in mind they serve multiple job functions, sales, customer service, A/R, tech support, for multiple phones, from multiple manufacturers, that run multiple OS's or in some cases even single phones on different OS versions. With that in mind, let's try to cut them slack and if you have a chance to educate someone, use that opportunity to educate them in a non-offensive way which will allow them to better serve the next customer. Remember, you weren't born knowing everything about Android. Someone took the time to educate you

 

[gk1984]

Wow, I didn't expect this to get this much attention. First of all, I want to clarify this wasn't a shot at all sprint employees. Just 1 more head shaking story about 1 employee. I've had great experiences personally but do read those bad experiences and kind of laugh over some. Sorry if anyone was offended. I was just amazed at an employee thinking the Hero is better than the Optimus.

 

[CarrieK]

Wow, I didn't expect this to get this much attention. First of all, I want to clarify this wasn't a shot at all sprint employees. Just 1 more head shaking story about 1 employee. I've had great experiences personally but do read those bad experiences and kind of laugh over some. Sorry if anyone was offended. I was just amazed at an employee thinking the Hero is better than the Optimus.

I think what may have rubbed people the wrong way was the fact that the thread was titled "another laugh at Sprint employees," like they are all stupid people who just put in their time to draw a paycheck. Perhaps if this had been presented as an isolated incident involving one not so scrupulous employee I might have seen the humor in it.

I am a government employee who, contrary to popular belief, works very hard and hate it when people lump me with the few of us who are slackers and make us all look bad. JMHO FWIW.

 

[gk1984]

I think what may have rubbed people the wrong way was the fact that the thread was titled "another laugh at Sprint employees," like they are all stupid people who just put in their time to draw a paycheck. Perhaps if this had been presented as an isolated incident involving one not so scrupulous employee I might have seen the humor in it.

I am a government employee who, contrary to popular belief, works very hard and hate it when people lump me with the few of us who are slackers and make us all look bad. JMHO FWIW.

Thanks for the tip, I didn't really think about it that way.

 

[rdean]

I hope that was at a 3rd party dealer, a corporate sprint store should never try selling someone their old phone.

I was actually in the sprint store yesterday (something i hate doing) and am surprised by the number of low quality reps employed by sprint. I can say this because I worked for sprint for 4 years, actually started as a NEXTEL employee before the merger, and i seen first hand how horrible sprint reps can be.

everytime I go into a sprint store I get prepared for a fight, because they always try pulling some crap. I feel bad for people who might not know as much as I do when dealing with these people.

Yes sir! I would rather look at used cars instead of going into a Sprint store...