“A quick check of AT&T stores in Manhattan right after the launch shows that AT&T, Nokia, and Microsoft still have a long way to go in educating AT&T’s salesforce on how to sell the device,” Marguerite Reardon and Roger Cheng report for CNET.
“Some sales associates had little knowledge of the product and were reluctant to recommend the device,” Reardon and Cheng report. “When I walked into several AT&T retail stores on Monday posing as a first-time smartphone shopper, the banners and posters promoting the new Lumia 900 were prominently displayed. But when I asked for advice on buying a new smartphone, sales associates in five different stores in Manhattan actually recommended the Apple iPhone and not the carrier’s latest ‘hero’ device.”
Reardon and Cheng report, “Even when I prompted them to tell me more about the Lumia 900, none was willing to recommend it to me for purchase. ‘Windows Phone is alright,’ said an associate in a store on the Upper West Side. ‘But it’s no iPhone.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Damn truthful AT&T Mobility sales associates!
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Microsoft’s Nokia Lumia 900 flaw drops data connections, hurts U.S. turnaround bid – April 11, 2012
AT&T spending more on Microsoft’s Nokia Lumia 900 launch than it did on iPhone – April 9, 2012
If an iPhone wannabe lands on Easter, does it make a splash? – April 9, 2012
Mossberg reviews Microsoft’s Nokia Lumia 900, can’t recommend it over superior iPhone 4S – April 5, 2012
How long until it’s time to write the obituary for Windows Phone? – April 4, 2012
Microsoft’s Nokia Lumia 900 Windows Phone racks up bad reviews – April 4, 2012
Beleaguered Nokia desperately uses non-existent ‘iPhone death grip’ in new ad for anemic-selling Windows Phone – April 2, 2012
Nokia paying AT&T up to $25 million for exclusive employee use of Lumia 900 Windows Phone – March 23, 2012
Brutal truth about Lumia: Windows Phone strategy doomed for beleaguered Nokia – March 21, 2012
And why should they say something stupid, like buy a Windows POS over an iPhone?
Management has communicated to these sales folks the spiffs they will get for selling the Nosoft phones. Until then, they will make honest recommendations.
So Microsoft can’t even spiff AT&T sales people to recommend their phones?
Maybe MS needs to have “Micro” Concerts in ATT stores, that might help, depending on what act they book! I hear it did wonders for the excess crowds at the MS stores.
“‘Windows Phone is alright,’ said an associate in a store on the Upper West Side. ‘But it’s no iPhone.’
so the writers wants sales staff to instead LIE to us and say “Windows Phone is as good as an iPhone”?
I guess Honest Sales staff will be end of the American economy… imagine if used cars salesmen or fast food restaurants told you the TRUTH… lol. 🙂
(more seriously here’s an interesting article by a guy who used to train phones sales people why they don’t like selling Windows Phone. In short they hate dealing with ‘returns’.
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2012/03/disappointed-buyer-returned-lumia-salespeople-avoid-growing-nokia-retail-problem.html )
The linked article is extremely damning of the Lumia – the upshot is that it is DOA in Europe, Australia, and the advanced countries of Asia. Also that Nokia is doomed, and it is all due to their ex-Microsoft CEO Elop.
Just one letter away from Flop.
1
First line of WP7 defense is in the AT&T stores and even THEY don’t recommend it?! MS/Nokia is doomed. It’s no iPhone indeed, just more POS’s from Redmond and Finland.
Heheh… I remember when you couldn’t get a salesguy in a big box store to tell you a damn thing about Macs, and would lie and steer less savvy consumers toward cheaper PCs.
Now it’s come full circle… except they’re actually pumping the better product of the two.
Nokia made a deal with the devil (M$) and the devil won! Nokia’s one shot is gone. Bye, bye Nokia. That eliminates one; maybe M$ learns how to build better and attract some customers, enough to buy some more time for itself, and maybe partner with another sucker it can helpfully eliminate. Way to go Stevie B!!! I like your strategy a lot. By the time M$ catches up with iPhone 4S, Apple will be selling its 10th gen iPhone. 🙂
As an AT&T sales rep I can tell you the EXACT reason why sales reps don’t recommend Lumias or any other non-iPhone smartphones with the consistency and voracity that we recommend iPhones. It is simply because we are under constant pressure from management to sell x amount of features such as data plans and insurance and x amount of accessories such as cases and screen protectors each and every month. Regardless of how much we might love a phone or an OS, if we don’t have as many features AND accessories that we can possibly sell for that particular device, then it literally jeopardizes our jobs to recommend that device over an iPhone. It’s so bad that a sales rep would stand to make more commission, have a better opportunity to meet or exceed sales quotas and ultimately have a better chance to keep his or her job (and possibly move up) by recommending an iPhone 3GS over a Lumia, even though the 3GS is almost three years old! Despite the fact that it helps us sales reps keep our jobs and make more money to push the iPhone, at this point all currently available iPhones (including the 2+ year old 3GS) are considerably more COMPLETE products when you consider ease of use, app availability/quality, hardware quality/design, insurance options, compatibility with tablets (iPad) and desktop (Mac), and virtually every other aspect. I’ve owned phones with and used all three major smartphone OS’s (Android, iOS, and Windows Phone) and this is what I have found to still be true to this day. Having said that, I project, as some others do, that Microsoft will ultimately provide a viable alternative to the Apple ecosystem of products for SOME users (phone, tablet, and desktop). That day, however, may not arrive for another couple of years and is CERTAINLY not here yet!
Thank you for the insider’s view.
In the old days, Circuit City sales people would take a customer who came in to buy a Mac and steer them to the Windows machines. Why? They made a bigger commission selling a Dell or other PC clone then than giving the customer what they wanted.
Bottom line Microsoft, if you want sales people to recommend your product . . . pay them!!!
Dont get me wrong, I pile the iphone and love my mac, but if some of you would take the time to try wp7 a lot of you would be pleasantly surprised. Let’s face it, the iphone UI is stale, and the little dim screen is simply a pain to use for netflix, hulu, kindle, zinio, and the likes, and dont even get me started on how wonderful it is to have real turn by turn navigation from my gmaps, the nokia comes with nokia maps and it works fantastic. Quit being so closed minded is all in really saying….
Lol change pile to like! I was trying to type on my friends iphone and I’m not used to the small screen anymore.
Oh and ill tell you why att reps don’t push anything but the iphone, they are simply not aware they are working. Most of them are not update on the phones they have, and forget about them knowing about phones they are supposed to get! Try asking about a competitor exclusive phone like the galaxy nexus, and watch the drool come…. a real sales man knows about what he has and what the others have, its the only way… KNOW YOUR PRODUCTS AND THE PRODUCTS OF YOUR COMPITITION!
“COMPITITION” – try spell check.
It’s that little red line that appears under a non-word.
its the little tiny, dark, dim screen at fault.