Open access will enable phase out of Corporate Stores
Actually this is the beginning of the end for the Corporate stores. Why else would Verizon be giving indirects NE2, better signage, small business, bill paying abilities, FRU etc. Verizon Corp sees what we here in indirect land have known for sometime: the retail end of this business is the least profitable part. The average number of employees in a corproate store is 24. Employees are any businesses biggest expense. Add on top of that another layer of bureaucracy (i.e. Human resources, trainers, lawyers) and all the headaches that come with dealing with the public all so you can give away 3/4 of what's on your shelves for free. Ask yourself does that business model make any financial sense at all? Now with open access VZW is saying they jus...
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wnrussell said:...
Actually this is the beginning of the end for the Corporate stores. Why else would Verizon be giving indirects NE2, better signage, small business, bill paying abilities, FRU etc. Verizon Corp sees what we here in indirect land have known for sometime: the retail end of this business is the least profitable part. The average number of employees in a corproate store is 24. Employees are any businesses biggest expense. Add on top of that another layer of bureaucracy (i.e. Human resources, trainers, lawyers) and all the headaches that come with dealing with the public all so you can give away 3/4 of what's on your shelves for free. Ask yourself does that business model make any financial sense at all? Now wit
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Retail stores will not go away. Indirects will be cut before corporate stores.
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True, its too hard to enforce quality controls on the indirects and too many policy problems with indirects not being VZW so it creates and inconsistant buying experience.
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Customer: Why do you need my full social security number?
Me: Because that's the way my system works.
Customer: But I've already given you the account password.
Me: Right, but I need that AND your full social security number.
Customer: But I've never had to do that before.
Me: This is how my system is set up. I don't know what else to tell you. If you'd like me to process this transaction, I need that information.
Customer: *sigh* Alright...
Verizon creates a lot of these inconsistencies. I agree that there are some indirects that don't follow the policy that they should, but that goes for corporate stores as well. If Verizon would trust indirects just a little bit, then most of the "inconsistent ...
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Me: Because that's the way my system works.
Customer: But I've already given you the account password.
Me: Right, but I need that AND your full social security number.
Customer: But I've never had to do that before.
Me: This is how my system is set up. I don't know what else to tell you. If you'd like me to process this transaction, I need that information.
Customer: *sigh* Alright...
Verizon creates a lot of these inconsistencies. I agree that there are some indirects that don't follow the policy that they should, but that goes for corporate stores as well. If Verizon would trust indirects just a little bit, then most of the "inconsistent ...
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Its not just things like that. If a customer goes to an indirect he cant get a phone at corporate pricing. If he changes his mind and wants a different phone, calls into customer service to ask what his options are, we cant tell him because we dont have a way to know what the return policy of the indirect he got the phone from is. And a few others I dont want to mention as they are policies that it is better off customers dont know about that dont work when the phone wasnt from VZW directly.
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or in some cases the indirects can undercut the corporate pricing. the return policies are bogus for alot of indirects, I'll agree: one 3rd party dealer up here won't take your phone back if it has ...150 minutes on it, I think? and within 14 days, blah blah blah. They also sell phones even older than the crap I'm supposed to sell every so often; I had a customer walk in with a "new" audiovox 8910 that he just got for $50. what a steal. the rep told him that if he didn't like it, he could return it to "any store in [name that bigger town], no problem."
our return policy is still 15 days, and when VZ went to the 30 day WFG, I don't have alot of problems with the inconsistency, b/c most folks don't realize that I'm not corporate. th...
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our return policy is still 15 days, and when VZ went to the 30 day WFG, I don't have alot of problems with the inconsistency, b/c most folks don't realize that I'm not corporate. th...
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Actually the customer can get the same prices as corp if not better at indirects (at least here, I know every one of the indirects keep their prices the same and will price match too). From my experience (I have worked for a few indirects) the indirect stores try very hard to keep their polices in line with Verizon and Corp. In my city most customers prefer to come to the indirects for the service they receive, not saying that corp is bad but they don't seem to always take the time to fully serve the customer or have add ons that the customer didn't know about (again this is just in my city, not corp as a whole). About not knowing the indirects return policy, you could call the locations and ask them what the policy is or conference the cust...
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slight disagreement; where I am, some indirects (like bastien or wireless express, etc) have either multiple carriers, or don't give a flip what Corp. does; that gives the rest of us premium retailers the red-headed step child mentality from corp.
the price-matching thing is inconsistent where I am too; retailers like Best Buy can go alot lower than indirects or corporate, but those I mentioned above sometimes can't do nearly as good; I sold a phone to a family last christmas that had 3 prices quoted to him from 3 different retailers, one of those being my co-worker in a mall. I was the only one that had the correct price, sadly, so they bought from me; the other prices ranged from 25% too high to 125% too high. It is just that incons...
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the price-matching thing is inconsistent where I am too; retailers like Best Buy can go alot lower than indirects or corporate, but those I mentioned above sometimes can't do nearly as good; I sold a phone to a family last christmas that had 3 prices quoted to him from 3 different retailers, one of those being my co-worker in a mall. I was the only one that had the correct price, sadly, so they bought from me; the other prices ranged from 25% too high to 125% too high. It is just that incons...
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I agree it is area specific, not all directs are poor in the customer service area and not all indirects are shady. I have noticed that pretty much all retailers that sell more then one carrier always seem to give out incorrect information. Best Buy is the worst though (from my experience) there prices are difficult to match, we really have to look and see what the contract will be (NEVER let news walk out the door) and go from there. What makes it so frustrating is that BB will almost never have service after the sale they always send customers to a store. Usually we can talk people into a slightly higher price to get service, but not always.
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