mtown said:
I understand your anger at RS, a few of the employees are dipsticks. But they did activate over 400k phones last quarter for us, they also sell sprint too and for a new employee that sucks to learn 2 carriers. 🙂
RS needs to spend alot more time training. 👿

Amen to that mtown!!!

how is it that most of the people at radio shack can make a bomb like mcgyver with all their lilttle toys there but cannot activate a phone when a computer does the work for you??? it just baffles me everytime i walk by and think of all the accounts i have had to fix as well. then i see one of them picking their nose in the back of the store and wiping it on a box they just stocked and i realize why. 😁

Let's call a spade a spade. EVERY single day on average, we have to deal with a customer who has had a HORRIBLE experience at Verizon corporate and is being vocal about it.

What particular issues you may ask? Everything. Service. Knowledge. Mistakes. Attitudes, etc etc.

Our personal favorite was when the local Verizon corporate center sent a customer to RADIOSHACK because the phone they bought at VERIZON was not working correctly!

(Hey we can take the 1.5 million phones+ a year we sell for you guys and strike it up with a competitor...so um, 'nuff said. 😈

personally i HATE radiosuck, was tring to buy a router their, the rep told be that the wire router was compatible with the wireless reciver, my friend, who was in the store with me corrected him (how embarrasing).

Then i found out i could but all the equipment at best buy for less and the reps knew what the were doing.. 👿

As a RadioShack manager, we know there are always a few bad apples in the bunch...but having said that there are thousands and thousands of us that have to deal with a large array of carriers and constantly changing (thanks to Ft. Worth) strategies and do it well.

For at least one of every rs "screw-up" you guys encounter, we have to pick up the pieces from bad encounters at Verizon stores!

For some reason, we seem to be easier to "yell at" in the eyes of the customer and there is nothing more frustrating as you can relate than resolving a problem you didn't create whie getting screamed at.

I guess it works both ways. 😕

And its not just indirect vs. direct either... I am a company owned retail kiosk, and I constantly get these people that want the 'real' store... most of the 'real' stores in this area are indirect retail! Once they realize that my kiosk is company owned, that we have twice the training and authority of most indirects, and that I offer great CS, that usually changes, but its a pain to have to overcome.

I mean I'm not saying as a CS rep that I do not encounter problems from actual VZW SSC's....believe me I do...but to be completely honest with you the majority of the calls I get the call center that have a problem with accnts so on and so forth come from indirect and RS, Circuit City etc etc

Circuit City isn't that bad - they activate so few phones, it's hard to find one they screwed up 😳

Personally, I'd like to see the chargeback report for the Radio Smacks in my area. From the horror stories I hear, I bet 50% of their activations get charged back in the first 180 days, and we never hear about it because the customer doesn't think to go to a corporate store or call *611.

The level of education that RS employees provide to new customers is appalling. Half the time, the customers don't know they'll be prorated, don't get asked if they want handset insurance or TXT packages, and get NO collateral. No T&C brochure, no User Guide, no nothing. I went to a mall RS near my home once in plain clothes, and lurked nearby while a...
(continues)

First of all when we activate phones in my store customers are surprised that we show them how to set up voice mail and calling cust service and proration. They tell me all the time "Oh the VZW store never told me about this or never did this for me. And no jackass not 50% are charged back I do about 80 VZW activations a month and I get 1-3 mismatches. Not bad for associates that use about 10 different systems to activate everything from Satelite Radio to GPS systems as well as know 7000+ products.

And by the way since I have been manager at my store which is about 6 months my account exec has been by 2 times. Wow GREAT SUPPORT.

All my employees go over the activation fee/ prorate/ billing cycle/ termination fee etc... That can ...
(continues)

As is the way of business...just ask Kingfrog...he ran into "snotty" people at a couple SSC and now he's hellbent on telling the workld how horrible VZW is...hehehe...All I have to say to you is if your reps do all of that then I congratulate you for running a good RS store...maybe you should become like an regional manager so you can get everybody workin that way hehehe

Instead of wasting your life as a "manager" for R$ (opted-in on the lawsuit yet?!?), come to work for a REAL company with a FUTURE. Benefits are better, pay is SOooooooooooooo much better... why would you want to work for that loser, Len Roberts, a second longer than you have to? He keeps dumping comany stock the way he has been, he'll be in federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison in about 6 months.

Oops, that should be "company stock". My brain was working faster than my fingers 😉

Seriously, VZW is way better than RS could ever hope to be. You've been a manager about 6 months right? Everything you've done has been gold? Give it about 3 more months. If you don't have a HUGE - and I mean at LEAST 10-12% - sales gain over last years Golden Shower, you'll be gone by the end of January. I personally know 2 people that's happened to. It ain't pretty, folks, but it's true.

hey ☹️ we're not going bankrupt... c'mon, be nice. i can't beleive you just wished all that ill will upon Sprint... RS sucks so much donkey balls, and you hate us that much to want to leave us there to die at the hands of those idiots?! i'm sad. 😢 good thing Sprint's good qualities outweigh RS's BAD qualities, and we're nowhere NEAR going bankrupt...

You're right. I was wrong about the bankruptcy thing. I forgot that Sprint rolled the PCS stock back into the FON stock a while back. PCS was hovering around $1.60 per share for a while. Things were looking pretty grim.

That being said, Sprint did have a serious problem with their business model. They were handing a $200 phone to every idiot with a social security number. Then they'd rack up a $125 bill & ditch the whole thing when they couldn't pay it off, costing Sprint $325, plus I-don't-know-how-much in recovery fees, overhead, etc. I remember when Radio Smack first started selling Sprint, back in '96, I believe. The 'no deposit' thing was what drove sales to the point where we couldn't keep phones in stock very long. Eventually the ...
(continues)

My only complaint about RS and actually all indirects at this time is that they always want to call in and have us run the credit applications for them if another rep is on their 1 PC they have in the store. We aren't here for that, we are here if you genuinely have a problem with activating a line. Grrrrr........