vB Easy Archive - SC Kiosks emps, what do you think of the new pricing?

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SC Kiosks emps, what do you think of the new pricing?
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Posted by: Rcadden

I personally think it BLOWS. For those not familiar, as of this past thursday, on T-Mobile the price for the 3-5 phones is $30 more. So no more 3 free phones.

With Cingular, it's even WORSE. On lines 2-5, second phone is $30 more, EXCEPT FOR THE RAZR AND V557, which are $75 more and $45 more, respectively.

I understand that there are lower margins on upgrades and add-a-lines, but this pricing structure is stupid and only pisses people off. Yes, we're still cheaper than corporate stores. However, (and I had this 4 times yesterday) customer walks up and sees RAZR for $68.87. "Sweet, I need to upgrade." Oh, the price for an upgrade is $138.87. So what is this $68.87 price? That's the price for a brand new customer. OR I wanna switch from Sprint to Cingular, and I want two RAZRs. K well the first one is going to be $68.87, second one will be $138.87. Customer says, but it shows $68.87 there. Yeah, sir, but down below, in smaller print, it says the second line will be $138.87. Customer says, that's why I hate cell phone stands, you guys show one price but then try to sell it to me for a different one. I'll just go to the corporate stores. At least there everyone pays the same price.

So this is my suggestion (and all the better if someone higher up is reading this)

Make all activations the same price. Yes, this means the entry-price will be higher. But people don't like the same item having three different prices, depending on who you are. They like to see the same price. So for instance, the RAZR, $99, or 119. FOR EVERYONE. upgrades, add-a-line, new activations, EVERYONE. Average it out so that there are still profit margins, but people can walk up and know they will pay that price.

Posted by: Disgruntled_one

Its complete BS, day after day this job gets worse and worse. One step forward, two steps back. How about the SCK surcharge on pre-cash transactions bringing the total to $7? Or the lack of Sprint models? This alliance with Inphonic? Or the POS that crashes EVERY DAY? Then the stupid questions "why are the #s on Sprint so low?" NO PHONES BRAINIAC!

What a friggin mess....
Maybe its me, but when Radio Shack took over,it was great for a while, then this opex crap comes, the "new and improved" kiosk comes, a new filing system comes, the sales left. Looking like Sams club is in no way a bonus, who has any confidence in them?
The really sad thing is that this is still the best indirect job out there. Hopefully your district is better. Perhaps your upper management is. Hopefully something is. We have a conference call afficionado (sp?) at the helm here who wastes time weekly with BS. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, the morning opener had to blow .5 hour on a "rally call". Nevermind that is the busiest time of the day. Nevermind the tremendous cost of these calls. Someone needs to exercise his ego.

The store I work at was averaging 95 - 120 activations monthly until about July last year. The changes started in July. Same story around the region. Coincidence?

Sorry, I used to love my job. I realize this is the Cingular employees forum but the opportunity to rant presented itself.....

Posted by: CingularZ

I can only say, welcome to the life of sales..

As someone on the "higher" ladder, I can certainly understand your frustration. I can also tell you why the prices are they way they are, but truth is.. you dont want to hear it.

My best advice is dont focus on the price so much. Your customers believe it or not, can afford more than they'll tell you. For cingular , we have a range of phones and promotions that make it affordable and cost effective for all customers

The problem is that everyone wants the Ferrari at a Honda price, if you know what I mean

Speaking of which, as an ex regional mgr for Mercedes Benz, let me just tell you car sales if by far much worse =)

Have a great weak all.

Posted by: ChocoDough

Ya know actually I am planning on buying the Razr v3i come tax time.

But a friend who works for an indirect has the new Samsung Blade. Man that phone kicks more butt that you can imagine.

The inside screen is the best I have ever seen on a cell phone, even the icons on the menu look incredible.

What is it about Sprint that they have the nicest phones? Their service stinks, but yet they have the best phones.

They give you the rebates instantly in the store. Cingular should really press the manufacuers to have some awesome GSM variants of these phones. I really wish Sanyo made GSM phones. But then again, Cingular would put some high price on the phones anyway.

The Blade is like $175 or so after an instant rebate. Even though I work for Cingular, I would sign up for Sprint just to have this phone is Sprint's service wasn't so bad in the area.

Posted by: Rcadden

Cingularz, I know why the prices are different. I understand the reasoning behind it completely. I am aware of the margins and all that back-end stuff. What I'm saying is that I feel the drastically different prices are hurtful and confusing to customers. I am suggesting that instead they find a price that can be the same across all the activations. I realize it wouldn't be competitive at the entry-level primary activation, but I think it would produce more numbers, and therefore more opportunities for ESPs and accessories. The more phones out the door, the more you have a chnace to sell add-ons.

As for Sprint phones, yeah, the selection blows, but seriously, how many of you actually do sprint? I was in the Abilene store (top five in the nation) for all of last year, and we did between 250-300 phones per month, only MAYBE 10-15 were sprint. We still have 8200s out there. I mean, seriously. We did mostly Cingular out there. I have since moved to the Grapevine store (a BIG difference in numbers, btw). And we still have 8 Vi660s. It's ridiculous cause they want us to get rid of them, but then there's the 200 that's free, it's even cheaper to upgrade to, and it hasn't been out for 2+ years. If you wanna clear out old phones, you gotta make them the cheapest thing on the table.

Disgruntled One, I'm interested what district you're in. Our DM is recently promoted, and he's....interesting. He has a tendency to freak out. The partnership with Inphonic isn't bad. I used it to order a A900 for the night manager the other day, took all of five minutes, and I made $10. Not too shabby.

I just think that different prices for different people is incredibly confusing to customers. You're right, though, people will pay it. I mean, I'm a salesperson. It's part of my job to be able to put a positive spin on anything that comes out of my mouth, so that the customer agrees. Truth be told, we are ALOT cheaper than corporate, on EVERY phone, at every activation. However, I still think that one price would be less confusing for customers.

You know what I'm really wondering, though? What happened to Double Commission days? Or Hot Fridays? It seems like all the sales programs lately are for the Store Managers. That doesn't motivate me all that much, honestly. And these sales contests focused on one phone? I mean, the v330 contest, I sold ALL 6 of ours in three days when the contest was announced. Well, now we don't have any, and I have no chance at the contest. There's some stores that have 15 sold! I'm interested to know where the F*** they have been storing 15 of those in the huge boxes?

Posted by: Gman-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChocoDough

Ya know actually I am planning on buying the Razr v3i come tax time.

But a friend who works for an indirect has the new Samsung Blade. Man that phone kicks more butt that you can imagine.

The inside screen is the best I have ever seen on a cell phone, even the icons on the menu look incredible.

What is it about Sprint that they have the nicest phones? Their service stinks, but yet they have the best phones.

They give you the rebates instantly in the store. Cingular should really press the manufacuers to have some awesome GSM variants of these phones. I really wish Sanyo made GSM phones. But then again, Cingular would put some high price on the phones anyway.

The Blade is like $175 or so after an instant rebate. Even though I work for Cingular, I would sign up for Sprint just to have this phone is Sprint's service wasn't so bad in the area.

ChocoDough, I don't know how you can say that Cingular never has any cool phones. As you know we were the first to launch the Motorola V3 RAZR. And now people are copying that design. When the RAZR launched how expensive was it? Everybody had to have a RAZR: even in Europe and Asia where they have some of the most Gadgety phones available. The grass is not always greener on the other side. We have some bad phones, some good phones and some phones coming that everybody will want to copy. CDMA phones are not as robust as GSM phones and thats a proven fact.

The Blade just got released, lets give it six months and then we can compae it to the RAZR: which is now in it's 4th version.

And please Sprint does not have the nicest phones!!!

Posted by: Rcadden

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gman-2006

tripy, what Honda is cingular selling as a Ferrari????

Maybe in the market where you are: Verizon is dominant, but not in my maket. Every provider has issue's, I just think that since we work for Cingular we find all the negatives about our jobs and complain.

Most prices are set by individual agents and SC kiosks are no exception. They can make those prices whatever they like and charge whatever they want, how is that Cingular's fault???

There are things that Cingular does that make no sense but to blame Cingular for everything I don't think that's fair.

Cingular is at the fault of all of this because their commission structure is so that a new primary activation pays more than an add-a-line or an upgrade. So yes, agents set the prices, but Cingular Corp. is the dictator of how much margin is in those prices. If Cingular (and other companies, too) would pay the same commission on all activations, or perhaps even more for an existing customer, we wouldn't have these issues. It's stupid to me that the entire industry measures stuff in "churn" but then actually fuel "churn" by offering new customers a better deal than existing. Verizon, unfortunately, has the best retention deal going with their New Every 2 program. Existing customers get an additional $100 off the NEW ACTIVATION price of any phone. That's how come they have the smallest churn. I churn people every day at my kiosk. I'm sorry, if I have a customer walk in, with Cingular, and his contract is up, I can either get paid next to nothing to get him into a new phone, which will also cost him *at least* $30 more, or I can get paid 4 times as much for either switching him to Tmobile, or giving him a new Cingular number and telling him to call and cancel the existing. I don't push in-carrier churn, but if the customer asks me yes or no questions about it, and then asks me to do it, i'm not going to tell him no. But if I could get the customer a new phone for the same price either way, and if I got paid similar regardless, then I would easily simply upgrade him. The carrier's are behind their own churn ratings, and no one seems to notice/care about it.

Posted by: Gman-2006

Quote:

Cingular is at the fault of all of this because their commission structure is so that a new primary activation pays more than an add-a-line or an upgrade

Why are the carriers to blame for this?

Why are we not blaming Motorola/Samsung/Nokia etc. for there high prices?

They must also shoulder some of the blame as well as Individual Agents, who want to keep more and more of there money in there pockets instead of re-investing and getting more for there dollar. I do agree that the carriers must shoulder some part of this, but the bottom line is that it is more expensive to bring on a new customer then to keep your own.

The CORS all charge the same and the Agents have the advantage of being able to undercut them and taking the Act/Upgrade.

Why should a carrier pay you the same that it does on a new activation?

Talk to your managers and find out if they know how much money these owners are making per act/upgrade, I deal with this regularly and see it.

I am not saying that the carriers shouldn't be blamed just that the blame must be distributed evenly among all the participants. (ie. Phone manufacturers, Agents, Carriers etc.....)

Posted by: Rcadden

I don't see how phone manufacturers fit into the equation at all. I would MUCH rather walk into a Nokia store to buy my phone, unlocked and unbranded. I do this as much as possible anyways, even if it costs more for the phone. I think the world would be a much better place if you went to a Manufacturer store, picked out your phone, and then they gave you a SIM card to go with it. Or vice versa, pick a carrier, these are your phones. I don't think that the carriers have any business selling phones. Period.

I am aware of our margins on these prices and activations. I know WHY they don't pay the same on upgrades that they do new activations. The whole point of this thread was to present my dissappointment in RadioShack's decision to have such a difference in new activations prices and upgrades, and present my opinion that it would be better to have a single price for every phone, regardless of the activation. The new primary price wouldn't be near as competitive, but I believe it would be less confusing for the customer.

Posted by: Serinus

I agree, Rcadden. We try to do that at our store, and it works well. The customer is less confused and has an overall better experience because they only have to sort out one price per phone instead of two or three prices times 3-4 different phones they're interested in.

In general, customers seem to have a much better buying experience when buying 3 $100 phones rather than the first phone being $25 and the other two being $120.

However, due to competition in the area, we just haven't been able to keep this pricing scheme with all of our phones. Most of them are that way, but when an existing customer points at the price for a razr, I always have to tell them, "Well, just for you, this phone is an extra $40." As a sales rep, of course you make it sound as good as possible, but it is still going to make the process much more confusing when you have 3x10 phone prices as opposed to one price for each of the 10 phones.

The commissions don't need to be even for new and up, but it would sure help if there wasn't such a huge gap.

Eventually, they'll realize that this just encourages churn and fix it. It's just going to be a long wait until they do.

Posted by: Disgruntled_one

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rcadden

As for Sprint phones, yeah, the selection blows, but seriously, how many of you actually do sprint? I was in the Abilene store (top five in the nation) for all of last year, and we did between 250-300 phones per month, only MAYBE 10-15 were sprint. We still have 8200s out there. I mean, seriously. We did mostly Cingular out there. I have since moved to the Grapevine store (a BIG difference in numbers, btw). And we still have 8 Vi660s. It's ridiculous cause they want us to get rid of them, but then there's the 200 that's free, it's even cheaper to upgrade to, and it hasn't been out for 2+ years. If you wanna clear out old phones, you gotta make them the cheapest thing on the table.

Disgruntled One, I'm interested what district you're in. Our DM is recently promoted, and he's....interesting. He has a tendency to freak out. The partnership with Inphonic isn't bad. I used it to order a A900 for the night manager the other day, took all of five minutes, and I made $10. Not too shabby.

I just think that different prices for different people is incredibly confusing to customers. You're right, though, people will pay it. I mean, I'm a salesperson. It's part of my job to be able to put a positive spin on anything that comes out of my mouth, so that the customer agrees. Truth be told, we are ALOT cheaper than corporate, on EVERY phone, at every activation. However, I still think that one price would be less confusing for customers.

You know what I'm really wondering, though? What happened to Double Commission days? Or Hot Fridays? It seems like all the sales programs lately are for the Store Managers. That doesn't motivate me all that much, honestly. And these sales contests focused on one phone? I mean, the v330 contest, I sold ALL 6 of ours in three days when the contest was announced. Well, now we don't have any, and I have no chance at the contest. There's some stores that have 15 sold! I'm interested to know where the F*** they have been storing 15 of those in the huge boxes?

I'm in an undisclosed location east of the mississippi

Our stores numbers were driven by Sprint. Like 95% driven. The main thing about imphonic that i dont like is the secondary agreement. Say a cust gets hotlined for 6 hours, or changes his phone. When Imphonic checks, there is a strong possibility that the rebate gets reversed, the cust gets the charge, and comes storming in to see me. What then? Or a very real scenario, the phone isnt there in two days. The cust comes to see me. Imphonic isnt the best retailer out there. http://www.dc.bbb.org/report.html?n...compid=23004111

Call me what you will, but I pride myself on customer service, and have a very good reputation in my community as a "straight shooter" if you will. I dont want to risk tarnishing that with a couple of complaints that i cant control. We all know the stats regarding bad customer experiences vs good ones. I also view this as a band aid, definately not a solution. With upwards of 7 stores near me being able to deliver an actual phone, not a promise of one that was never seen or used in reality, where is my edge? Dont get me wrong, i am a seller, and have compensated in other ways with other carriers, but why not just get the goods in store?
What direct to you do you have with the 900? Ours cant get it. I cant get a mini usb CLA to save a life. I havent seen any of the IDEN products yet. The contests are gone, at least the moderately attainable ones like you mentioned. Even the "rewards day"

prizes started sucking. On the first one , a guy in another store i know won a v551 and a 4 megapixel camera. What was in the last one? I dont remember because it wasnt that good.I am all for a company wanting to maximize its profits, but there needs to be a line somewhere. Tough to sell to people looking for a deal $.35 worth of crap for $19 when they know that walmart has the identical pouch or charger for $8. Convenience only goes so far. The best that ive seen so far is the "universal" "leather" case. Look inside, its made for the POS vga1000, just happens to have a large front window, so its universal now. You can fool some of the people some of the time.....
Sorry to be unfocused and rambling, just coming off of a long, rough day. Oh yeah, where DID they keep 15 and counting of those huge boxes? I wonder if its going back to the days of DMs funneling all their stores sales through one for recognition and/or monetary gain? 15 of those fills a whole cabinet! And there should be at least 7 other models in stock too! Hmmm....

Posted by: Rcadden

Sprint's Direct To You has the A900. We don't have any regular mini usb cla's, but have plenty of Igo tips, and people don't usually mind paying them. Like we both said, you put a positive spin on anything. We have one iDen phone, don't worry, you're not missing anything.

Just a tip, try to focus your comparison on corp. stores pricing. I had a guy the other day tell me the exact same phone was the same price on the corp. web page, so I said, really? and pulled it up. Sure enough, same price, and then he said, "and they'll GIVE me the car charger and case." No they don't, and I pointed out that their's were $30 each, where I give 20% so they are half that price. He bought that day.

All in all, i find accessories to be an easy sale. The difficulty lies in the phone pricing.

Posted by: Gman-2006

Quote:

I don't see how phone manufacturers fit into the equation at all.

The reason why manufacturers do fit into this equation is because if they didn't charge such high prices for there poducts then the carriers would be able to provide us with more commissions on upgrades. You can go to the manufacturers web sites and buy the phones but you will pay too much for them. Our customers are complaining about having to pay $ 30.00 more for the upgrade price, how do you think they will feel when you tell them that they can buy it directly from the manufacturer and pay $ 100.00 - $ 200.00 more for the same phone?

I don't know how many people would pay that price and I'm not sure what the statistics are for people wanting there phone unlocked, but I don't see many in my Market, it may be different for you.

We only care about having our phones unlocked: not too many customers care about that until we tell them. I may be wrong on the last point but that's my personal observation.

Manufacturers need to drop prices for carriers to pay more on upgrades and features.

Cell companies need to realize that it is more beneficial for them to keep there current customers happy and paying commissions correctly.

And we need to have one standard, more inventory and better management to keep the train moving.

Posted by: Rcadden

I have to disagree on the manufacturer argument. Just like HDtv isn't very useful without an HDtv, you don't hear anyone complaining to the TV manufacturers to drop their prices. I think that some phones are overpriced, and I don't buy those phones. On the other hand, I encounter alot of people who would just as soon go buy a phone on ebay or elsewhere for full retail than sign another contract. I think very soon it's going to go to that completely. I don't think phone prices are a problem at all. If you think, for instance, the retail price of a 6682 is $400ish. That phone is a phone, which we'll say should cost $50. It's also an MP3 player, there's another $100. I use mine as a PDA, that's another $300, we've already paid more for the individual items than the one unit itself. That's how I look at it, anyhow.

Posted by: theclarks1

Why are we not blaming Motorola/Samsung/Nokia etc. for there high prices?

If you knew what kind of profit margin Cingular made on the handsets alone, Im sure that you wouldnt even say something like that. If you are buying thousands (and thats a very low estimate) of phones do you think that motorola or any other maun. are not selling these phones at a very low cost? Im sure that Cingular and any other carrier are getting a very good deal on these phones.

Posted by: Gman-2006

Quote:

On the other hand, I encounter alot of people who would just as soon go buy a phone on ebay or elsewhere for full retail than sign another contract.

That makes no sense to me, a customer will complain about how they don't want to pay more than $ 100.00 for a phone and then turn around and spend twice or even three times that on eBay, where they are taking a chance of being burned.

Quote:

I don't think phone prices are a problem at all.

Phone prices are what dictates how much money we make because the cheaper the phone the more that customer will be back complaining about their service. I have come to see that the people that spend the money on good phones tend to spend more on accessories as well as features and higher rate plans.

I do agree with you that if we don't fix some of the issues we wil be losing customers to other providers as well as to the manufacturers.

Posted by: theclarks1

That phone is a phone, which we'll say should cost $50. It's also an MP3 player, there's another $100. I use mine as a PDA, that's another $300, we've already paid more for the individual items than the one unit itself. That's how I look at it, anyhow.

I really have to disagree with this, here you have the mp3 player well thats going to be mostly software. So I dont see where any of these items would fit in. You dont have to market it seperatly. So in itsself that saves a ton of money. No case for the pda, no case for the mp3, no indivdual boxes or marketing of anykind you can ad that in with the cost of the marketing of the phone. Either way you can buy lots of phones way below retail on ebay for brand new. You still have the manuf. warranty and most of us come on we have phones laying around so to send it off is not that big of a deal. So the carrier again should be taking a hit on the pricing because they make lots more in addition to what they make on the phone from the activation! If you figure it on a 24 month contract 39.99 before features, almost 1k from 1 customer, tower costs and all really you dont have to do anything other than maintain or upgrade and thats a write off. So in turn really they arent loosing anything by giving the customer a brake! I would rather have customers that have been with me for years and give them a 50$ bluetooth headset and other acc. than have them switch and loose all of the money total! So Cingular stop whining and making excuses and do what you should be doing!

Phone prices are what dictates how much money we make because the cheaper the phone the more that customer will be back complaining about their service.

Give existing customers a discount on a very nice full featured phone and they are going to come back saying that they dont use half of the features, or want you to tell them how to use it! If they are within there 30 days then if they dont like the service the will bring it back anyway! Otherwise people are always going to complain about something. Outages are just a fact of life, voicemail problems are a fact of life, billing issues are a fact of life. Most of these problems are made to happen by people who put things in wrong or things that just happen. Everyone makes mistakes no matter what you do. Life isint perfect and there is nothing that you can do about that.

Posted by: Gman-2006

Quote:

So Cingular stop whining and making excuses and do what you should be doing!

And what is that?

You are not taking into account the acquisation costs, commissions paid, property rent, and what ever else comes with activating or upgrading a customer. The 1k that you are taking about is now probably less than 300-400.

Cingular is in it to make money not lose money.

Lets see how the Manufacturers like it when they don't make the money they have come to expect and they have to go to there shareholders and tell them that. Everything works hand in hand. The manufacturers drop there prices, the providers than can drop there prices to the agents, the agents can then charge less for that product and pay us more money so we can better help that customer. It's a complete circle and I know that it's not this simple but thats how I see it.

Posted by: theclarks1

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gman-2006

And what is that?

You are not taking into account the acquisation costs, commissions paid, property rent, and what ever else comes with activating or upgrading a customer. The 1k that you are taking about is now probably less than 300-400.

Cingular is in it to make money not lose money.
Lets see how the Manufacturers like it when they don't make the money they have come to expect and they have to go to there shareholders and tell them that. Everything works hand in hand. The manufacturers drop there prices, the providers than can drop there prices to the agents, the agents can then charge less for that product and pay us more money so we can better help that customer. It's a complete circle and I know that it's not this simple but thats how I see it.

So what you are saying is that out of cingulars millions of customers they are only making about 300-400k off of that a year?

You would have had to pay a higher comm. on a new act if Im not mistaken due to what you are making on the existing customer. There again this customer is still going to be with you for another 2 years if you work it right, with the new customer you dont know whats going to happen when they walk out the door! They could deact within 6 months and say come and get the ETF or whatever you want to charge. Then take them to court pay that cost, laywer and so on. I would rather have the existing that I can trust due to the history that they have. Why should I drop my price and get less money on my customer upgrades when I am in it to make money too? I have to pay money to keep my lights on benefits to my employees and so on. Multi million dollar companies like cingular are not going to loose if they give discounts. How many customer do you think that they loose every year due to pissing people off by not giving some kind of discount? Either way corp is just greedy, they arent in it for the customer they are in it for #1.

Posted by: Gman-2006

Quote:

So what you are saying is that out of cingulars millions of customers they are only making about 300-400k off of that a year?

No.

What I said was that out of the $1000.00 dollars that a customer spends with Cingular they are PROBABLY only making $300.00 to $400.00 dollars after everything is said and done.

The cost of the phone to you is discounted so Cingular has either only broken even or is in the hole depending on which phone it is.

Then you are paid for that upgrade which can range from ? to ?, I have no idea depends on your market.

Must pay that RAE who is SUPPOSED to come visit you.

Pay his/her boss the ARSM, who also SHOULD visit you regularly.

Pay there BOSS the Director and above.

Pay for taking you out to lunch/dinner if you do good.

So the math is that you are now left with probably very little money.

Does that make sense???

Posted by: Gman-2006

Quote:

If you knew what kind of profit margin Cingular made on the handsets alone, Im sure that you wouldnt even say something like that

You don't know either so lets not guess what kind of profit Cingular makes!!!!