vB Easy Archive - Agents, need help.

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Agents, need help.
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Posted by: anubis9278

I have read thread after thread about indirects being terminated. Where are you getting your info from. Please don't tell me my little uncle's cousin's babies momma with the peg leg next door neighbors son in law that went to prison next of kin that works at Circle K new born baby.

Cingular is terming non-exclusives with high churn rates at the moment. Master dealers that have breached contract. Agents that have also breached contract. ie. If your store is on the up and up you have nothing to worry about. I am a RAE, I physically go to locations and present them with legal docs for term. But I have never termed any exclusive, ever. So who started the indirects are going bye bye. Exclusive Indirects are about to get pay stations....PAY STATIONS!!!!! Q2 2006, if everything goes to plan. Cingular is fronting the bill. Why would you spend 1.2 billion in pay stations for stores you are going to close. So, can somebody fill me in or educate me on why indirects are closing, or think that Cingular is targeting all of them.

Posted by: JDScott302

Quote:

Originally Posted by anubis9278

I have read thread after thread about indirects being terminated. Where are you getting your info from. Please don't tell me my little uncle's cousin's babies momma with the peg leg next door neighbors son in law that went to prison next of kin that works at Circle K new born baby.

I dont even know where to begin. We were dropped on the grounds that they said we were not an authorized location. Low and behold we were. We had everything for paperwork to prove it but it never mattered. They are using whatever excuse they can find. Extremely low churn rate, great new act amounts. I think your market may be doing things differently than the rest of ours. We had many others dropped in our market for no reason.

Posted by: SuxBeingU

I was one of the 1st to bring this to light here. I got my info from 3 different sources. two different Cingular master agents and the 3rd won't be discussed. One of the master has already sent out letters telling all the unapproved dealer they can no longer sell Cingular effective December 1st. The other Master is waiting until the last minute so their delaer business doesn't collapse until Dec 1st.

I also sent a letter to Stans people who responded to the letter but did not deny what was happening or explain the logic behind it. shocker there huh

We have also seen the fall of the company on the Sourth East, don't remeber teh name. The Mobile Solutions, we agree this was a good move. JdScotts companys adn another gentleman in Colorado who posted yesterday. They can't deny its happening too bad they can't be more honest so companies could be prepared

Posted by: ieregional

can you confirm if any west coast premier agents are getting paystations???

Posted by: theclarks1

I can tell you that in our area there are several locations within 100 miles that were non-exclusive and they were also terminated. I know one of them personally and I know that they are on the up and up so you say. Very low churn rates. Everything organized sent in on time nothing that we didnt do for customers. So I have to say that your information is incorrect. There are lots of indirects that are reputable. IN this area they are only keeping corporate stores and the agent in the Sams club loctations. Which the ones here I cant speak for anyone else couldnt tell analog from digital or the features that go with it.

Posted by: anubis9278

Quote:

Originally Posted by ieregional

can you confirm if any west coast premier agents are getting paystations???

all premier dealers nationwide, look for info around late Q2 2006.

and, theclarks1 non-exclusives were on the chopping block for being non-exclusive not for being on the up and up. If you look really hard Cingular is starting to mirror Verizon in many practices. Verizon got rid of all their non-exclusives. Reduces churn forces many dealer to go exclusive. If you go exclusive we can save your location, if not there is nothing we can do

Posted by: SuxBeingU

Verizon has not gotten rid of non exclusives in Cali. I have been non-exclusive for 9 years now. When I asked about it because of the Cingular situation I was by my master agent they just renegoitiated their contract and I was good for at least another 5 years

Posted by: NYS

how is it possible that agents get pay stations, what stop the agents from taking the money and running. Do you guys even know how a paystation works?

Posted by: onthephone1

Those paystations are controlled pretty heavily by Cingular....from the agents I've seen that have them. They never touch the money or anything inside. If an agent was stupid enough to mess around with those...their paystations would be yanked...and I'm sure their contract to sell Cingular would be cancelled as well.

If Cingular takes this nationwide to all premier agents...good move...does promote a lot of traffic in the locations that have them. Sometimes there can be headaches...but overall...the benefit of having additional traffic in your store is a good thing. Nothing worse than a dead store.

Posted by: anubis9278

Quote:

Originally Posted by NYS

how is it possible that agents get pay stations, what stop the agents from taking the money and running. Do you guys even know how a paystation works?

A better question would be, do you? Do you think Cingular collects the money from the paystation? Answer no. Do you think managers have keys to the pay station? Answer no. Do you think Cingular employees repair the pay station? Answer no. Lastly, what happens when the pay station comes up short. Answer police investigation.

Posted by: ieregional

Well, from what i've seen of the paystation they resemnle an atm. So if there is no interaction between customer's$$$$ and Rep then it shuld be a non issue. Great traffic builder yes. I would welcome paystations in all of my location.

RE: the Agent elimination process, because this seems to be a 2 topic thread: Funny how Cingular wants all dealers to be exclusive yet e just brought on Radioshack and Best buy seems to be going strong with it's $89 razr.

Not complaining, just an observation

Posted by: NYS

anubis do your research and get back to me... some of your answers are incorrect.

Posted by: anubis9278

Quote:

Originally Posted by NYS

anubis do your research and get back to me... some of your answers are incorrect.

interested in knowing which part. The details I released was what was explained to me, and what we handed to our dealers on October 24 in the Atlanta round table meeting. How does your market handle the pay stations?

The self served pay stations?

Posted by: NYS

I am not at liberty to release... think of it as a hint...

Posted by: anubis9278

Quote:

Originally Posted by NYS

I am not at liberty to release... think of it as a hint...

lol, another CIA leak. cool then.

Back to the issue at hand. Many Verizon non-exclusives have been termed here in Atlanta. I think that only a few remain. But Best Buy and so forth aren't considered non-exclusive in the sense I am talking about. I call those type stores national VAR. They pretty much do whatever they want.

But, I am gathering that many of these stores that are closing have master agents. And are located in the midwest to west coast region?

Posted by: Deviousmind

Sam Goody just became exclusive with Cingular. We are now selling Cingular in The Tristate Area (Philly,Delaware,NJ). It would be great to get paystation so i don't have to send a customer down to Cingular Store.

Posted by: anubis9278

pay stations, I tell you what. Wednesday I'll post some info on the agent pay station program. They are similar but very different from what COR's have, and are suppose to be fully compatible with posdotcom. Best thing is low maintance required. Agents just need to change the paper every now and then.

Posted by: theclarks1

Quote:

Originally Posted by anubis9278

Truthfully I dont think that the churn for all dealers should apply to the ones that got cut that shouldnt have. If you are good in the sales that you do, qualify that customer for his or her needs. Truthfully I sold lots of AT&T and cingular becuase of the coverage in our area, and brought others that qualify for that kind of coverage so that they are more satisfied and thats what brings customers back. Legally if you read the contract we cant solicit any Cingular or AT&T customer to go to other carriers even after the termination. So to say that I just dont know. The only way that I give the customer from cingular another option is (was) if they werent happy and they inquired about it. That is the customers decision. I really dont think that the clause about not being able to solicit is right either. I mean word of mouth is worse and I would think that if they arent happy and arent willing to work with you until you say ok im leaving then you deserve churn.

Posted by: mashi

i guess if Cingular want exclusive only. It will be another Verizon. I saw a lot of customer hate Verizon. Since all Verizon store sales are rude. They don't really have to sell anything. come in and buy.. if you don't want verizon. just go away. I saw most of the Verizon store act like that. I don't understand about Exclusive and Churn. it is not related. I have 1% of customer did upgrade. I saw some customer. they have problem with cingular service(since they got a crappy phone from some bad agent. the cheapest phone you can think of). a lot of them keep complain Cingular phone bill always overcharge (a lot of agent just want to make the sales. they never explain the CSS to customer. some of them don't even know what it is).
If Cingular being exclusive only. I think a lot of agent will just give it up. if you are doing multiple carrier. you can get more business. Otherwise who will pay for rent and salaries? believe it or not.. since Cingular dropped the commission for indirect. even the customer want 3220 with 1 yr contract. they still have to pay for it. TMO sales is 2 times more than Cingular now. Before that. Cingular sales always 3 times more than TMO. that's what happen to my location.
I saw a lot of store got term. they are either code swap, not authorized or churn is too high

Posted by: theclarks1

Quote:

Originally Posted by mashi

i guess if Cingular want exclusive only. It will be another Verizon. I saw a lot of customer hate Verizon. Since all Verizon store sales are rude. They don't really have to sell anything. come in and buy.. if you don't want verizon. just go away. I saw most of the Verizon store act like that. I don't understand about Exclusive and Churn. it is not related. I have 1% of customer did upgrade. I saw some customer. they have problem with cingular service(since they got a crappy phone from some bad agent. the cheapest phone you can think of). a lot of them keep complain Cingular phone bill always overcharge (a lot of agent just want to make the sales. they never explain the CSS to customer. some of them don't even know what it is).
If Cingular being exclusive only. I think a lot of agent will just give it up. if you are doing multiple carrier. you can get more business. Otherwise who will pay for rent and salaries? believe it or not.. since Cingular dropped the commission for indirect. even the customer want 3220 with 1 yr contract. they still have to pay for it. TMO sales is 2 times more than Cingular now. Before that. Cingular sales always 3 times more than TMO. that's what happen to my location.
I saw a lot of store got term. they are either code swap, not authorized or churn is too high

Thats why we quit, well the termination went into effect because we are a multiple carrier agent and they said either exclusive or be terminated. Well we arent going to take 10-15 a month over the 90 phones that we do with the other carriers. You all have to understand that Cingular is overpriced for the market now. There are others that are killing them on minutes here in WV with the same if not better coverage. Its not just Alltel either. Plus the other carriers here offer unlimited minutes, and they dont even have the customer base that cingular does. So that tells me that cingular could offer something better but choose not to due to greed and not making it the best for all customers.

Posted by: cingsocal

I've had meetings all week with Cingular So Cal corporate heads and the topic of pay stations was brougt up. There will be no pay stations at agent stores anytime soon because their opinion is that most agents do not want to deal with the headache of maintaining the machines (at least an additional half hour spent each night counting money and dealing Brinks pick-ups).

By the way, I'm a sub agent and Cingular has approved all of my locations for exclusive, but now that I've positioned myself to sell only Cingular, they've dropped commissions to the lowest point in 12 years. Rumors in the So Cal sub agent community have said that commissions will eventually go back up once the exclusive program is implemented (Dec 1). However I absolutely know for sure that this is NOT the case.

I've used the same Master Dealer forever and I'm only aware of a few Master Dealers in So Cal (PCS Station, CarPhone, etc). I'm not jumping ship from my Master Dealer, but it is important that I found if my Master Dealer is paying me top dollar. So if anyone has a list of Master Dealers in So Cal, or if you know of other Master Dealers besides PCS Station and CarPhone, please let me know. Contact info for these companies would be great.

I need to comparison shop.