Discussion
CoolHands said:
Who goes in them? 
Every time I go past one in a local shopping precinct it is deserted except for 3 bored out their minds staff
I literally have no idea, especially when you can just order a phone from MobilePhonesDirect and get a much cheaper and better deal and it just gets sent to your house the next day. Every time I go past one in a local shopping precinct it is deserted except for 3 bored out their minds staffIn Cobham Sainsbury's there is an EE store with two employees, they just sit there on their phones, I have never seen a single customer. At my local Tesco they have a Tesco Mobile store, again never seen a single person in there.
I actually hate going in any mobile phone stores as you get pounced on immediately, and in EE they don't even have real phones on display.
I would imagine the only customers the stores get are older people who have no idea how their phones work and want assistance?
I used my local O2 a couple of months back to sort out a SIM swap into my new phone and a slight contract ammendment. Took 10 minutes in store from walking in, doing what was needed, and leaving with everything sorted, new SIM activated and working in the new phone.
Doing it online involved waiting for a SIM to get posted to me and then going through the various security checks to activate it online or via their overseas call centre. Sorting the contract ammendment was done with a couple of simple box clicks on their system instore which for some reason wasn't able to be done via my own online account without also speaking to their overseas call centre - the same call centre that rather than trying to click those same boxes are asked to waste time by trying to flog additional services and a more expensive contract that i didn't need.
Much quicker / simpler going via the store.
Doing it online involved waiting for a SIM to get posted to me and then going through the various security checks to activate it online or via their overseas call centre. Sorting the contract ammendment was done with a couple of simple box clicks on their system instore which for some reason wasn't able to be done via my own online account without also speaking to their overseas call centre - the same call centre that rather than trying to click those same boxes are asked to waste time by trying to flog additional services and a more expensive contract that i didn't need.
Much quicker / simpler going via the store.
Edited by AlexRS2782 on Friday 19th August 19:12
) that have to work in there. If it was my daughter I’d be pretty sad. Young & excited about starting work, then this reality hits you. Depressing. Can’t see how they make more money than they lose. Probably tied into long rents.You'd think the stores were rammed - I needed to cancel a £5pm data sim (for an iPad) and it took a 20 minute unanswered call to their customer services, followed by a 10 minute unanswered call to the local shop, then another half an our on their online chat - just to cancel a contract (that was after I'd spent 10 minutes in my online account trying to work out how to cancel)
I was an O2 customer for years, for three phone contracts and two data sims, but I wouldn't use them now. EE's customer services is way better in my experience.
Won't be long before the high street stores are a thing of the past in all but major cities
I was an O2 customer for years, for three phone contracts and two data sims, but I wouldn't use them now. EE's customer services is way better in my experience.
Won't be long before the high street stores are a thing of the past in all but major cities
Mobile operator stores just seem such a thing of the past now. I remember when Carphone Warehouse was the place to go but that was from a distant era where it was actually quite nice to go and look at a new phone before you bought it. I suppose Apple and their stores have disrupted the model quite a bit, but I'd still never visit one purely to buy a phone. Then again I'm on an iPhone 6s and can still see no strong reason to upgrade!
Went to swap my daughters EE phone and account into her name instead of mine, she's now technically an adult so she can pay her own bill. Walked into the EE shop with her, same shop where we got her phone and contract. Four assistants in the shop, all make a beeline for my daughter and I, explained what we wanted response "sorry we don't do account changes you have to phone 150" Exited the shop seething, 50 mins on hold because they're experiencing a high volume of calls, 40 mins of finally speaking to a human being to swap the details over! High volume of calls because they have high street and retail park shops full of staff that can't actually help customers would be my guess!!!
Pedro25 said:
50 mins on hold because they're experiencing a high volume of calls, 40 mins of finally speaking to a human being to swap the details over! High volume of calls because they have high street and retail park shops full of staff that can't actually help customers would be my guess!!!
This is why I much prefer not having a contract and using a PAYG Sim. I can administer the whole thing myself online, and if for whatever reason I wanted to change provider I can request the PAC code using a text and port it across to the new provider online.Plus the don't put the prices up by CPI + 3.9% every year
Win Win.
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