Unpossible eh? It’s not as if this sort of thing is the exception.
A tale of woe in dealing with the carrier network providers and their stores.
This note goes out to all service providers, not just Three. What makes you think the Sale of Goods Act doesn’t apply to you? Under what circumstance is a three month old phone refusing to make calls fit for purpose? And if your customer is willing to accept a repair, what makes you think that depriving him of service for five days is a good move? How hard is it to provide a loan handset? What other piece of consumer electronics would I not get a replacement for if it failed after three months?
So, no joy at all. I leave the Three shop a very unhappy camper. At this point, I’m seething, and prepared to cancel my contract and go with someone else. I walk past CPW and into the Vodafone store. Astonishingly, they don’t seem to want my business. Some free advice for Vodafone retail employee trainers: smugness is not an attractive quality in in-store staff.
This isn’t just limited to Three or Vodafone. In fact, it seems to be a job requirement to be an insufferable prick. Which is why it’s so refreshing to find people who are nice, enthused and generally helpful (Colin and Christina from O2 in Ards, Shona and ‘Trainee’ from O2 on Main street, Bangor).
My experiences with Three and Orange have been less than stellar when asking about their 3G USB dongles. They just have no clue. I have come in just waiting to be sold something. Tell me why your product is better than the competition – don’t just pick up a datasheet and start reading because, you know what, I already read it. And the Wikipedia pages on your coverage which I’ve already checked out for my area. Know your product for God’s sake.
That’s why my visit to O2 in Bangor was pretty good. The two people there were enthused about their phones, had recent phones on them and took the time to demo cool features. They also didn’t lie to me when I asked questions about them or try to gloss over things. We did speed tests on the applications, especially the browser which helped me help my partner make educated decisions about future handsets.