Where do they hire these people from

[ls3mach]

Man, to most of the employees it is just a job. I cannot imagine they make more than $20,000 a year. The high-end devices are out of a lot of people's price ranges. Tech people who love phones, like myself, cannot afford to work for Sprint. I used to work for Cingular and I couldn't eat of their pay. Less than $10 an hour and the drive was terrible. I was the only techy in my class and they had a policy in place that prevented me from moving up the ranks before 9 months of working there. My coaches, team leaders and managers all said they would write me a recommendation, but the policy was still in place.

[BK111968]

I got chased into a parking lot by a Sprint employee who told me he won a Sprint Touch Pro 1 in some contest and he would sell it me for 300.00 with no questions asked. I declined because the only reason I was in the store was to see the Diamond because Verizon didn't have one.

This was about 2 months before the Touch Pro 2 was released.

[docgiggs]

Retail stores for technology is a mixed bag no matter where you shop or what you shop for. As long as it has a battery or is plugged into the wall, you are going to find people that don't know jack shiat about it.

I used to work in retail for bestbuy, circuit city and compusa a long time ago. I have been a techie geek since building my own comodore 64 at the age of 8. Yes learned to solder and rebuild a broken comodore back then. It has started a love fascination for me with technology since then.

I will say this, it does not require any intelligence to actually "sell" something to people. In fact, sometimes not knowing what you are saying is actually better for making a sale than knowing it. There had been countless times in the past I would get a customer coming in looking to buy a new computer when all they needed was a keyboard, because they thought a keyboard was the computer. That is just the tip of the iceberg. Also, this is fairly recent since I last worked at a compusa about 4 years ago.

Usually, the really, really, REALLY dumb customers do better with the really dumb (techie wise) sales people. It was always amazing when I saw it. Usually the stupider they were, the more likely the less techie salesman would make the sale.

To the contrary however, knowing my crap inside and out always made me the top sales person. Usually not for the store, but for the region or sometimes for the entire company for a period. Because I knew what I was doing and talking about customers would always come back and refer friends to me.

But one last thing to note, just being a tech geek and knowing your stuff doesn't make you a good salesman either. It is all about those little things you learned in speech and experience on the job that teaches you how to sell. Knowing your audience, how to relate the product, what to actually SELL them on based off their interest, how to make them happy, and how to bring them back with friends.

So what I am saying is that there are salesmen out there that know what they are doing and talking about. The trick is when you find them, always keep coming back. That and tell others. You'll be a happier customer for it, and they'll be a happier as well.

[subzero1313]

a HUGE HUGE thing to be wary of is 3rd party stores that look like corp. I used to work for a Tmo dealer and I walked into the mall I worked in and had to call my friend(works for Sprint corp) and ask if they had a Sprint store in the mall, he said no. Everywhere in the store, Sprint, Sprint, Sprint. On the rugs, the store sign outside the store itself, the accessories, everything. Except on their return policy. In tiny tiny letters it said "More Wireless"

[AAngel3]

We bought 2 TP2 in the store, well ordered them there, from the Asst manger. She is a friend of ours. She placed the order for the two phones and we changed our plane to the Simply Everything Family Data plan. But the phones took 2 weeks to get to the store. Sprint corp wanted to know WHY she had ordered TWO phones. She told them it was two different phone lines on one account. It was almost like Sprint thought she was ordering two phone for herself. LOL We've always had really good service when we've gone into the store to see her.

[neopanther]

Hey Dallas. Don't buy accesories from the store. Buy them from Ebay. You can get them much cheaper. I pay only 3 or 4 dollars for headsets. I get leather cases for a mere fraction of what Sprint charges for something similar. Cell phone stores tend to want 30-40 dollars for a replacement charger. You can get them for a dollar or two on ebay. Just lettin' you know!

[rdd0512]

Originally Posted by BK111968

I got chased into a parking lot by a Sprint employee who told me he won a Sprint Touch Pro 1 in some contest and he would sell it me for 300.00 with no questions asked.

ya because he stole it and was trying to make a profit real quick. won it in a contest my a$$

[glidersgalore]

Last nite I had a really dumb moment and had a few minutes to kill so I went into the Sprint store in Sunset Hills here is STL(so locals know witch one and can have some fun) anyway I was just looking around and a salesman( young skinny dude with short black hair) had a couple who was looking to get a new techie phone. I heard them ask about a WM phone a friend had and the salesman just started slamming WM, BB, and even Android. He said the only way to go was Palm Pre, they have the best OS, best hardware and never a crash or problem. He said that that the others are bug ridden OS's that crash, impossible to use, never any upgrades, when Palm sends out updates over the air all the time. Then he said even the hardware these other phones are made on is junky, he goes on to say like on WM take all the problems you have on your home PC and x5, thats how bad WM is. He said is biggest problem was if you hit a button it would take close to a minute for the phone to respond.
It took all I could to do not to say anything. but I left when the couple left and told them to look here for real info.

[PhantomApolyon]

Originally Posted by rdd0512

ya because he stole it and was trying to make a profit real quick. won it in a contest my a$$

If it was a dealer store theres a good chance they really did win something, I won a BlackBerry Tour last month and a Mifi the month before and sold both of them on ebay.

[NinjaDuck]

One thing to keep in mind:

For all of you that can answer these questions correctly, would you work in a cell phone store?

I am thankful for whatever help these people can provide and do not have unrealistic expectations about what they should know.

enough said...