vB Easy Archive - working for an agent..???

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working for an agent..???
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Posted by: jeffro01

I applied at both cing corp and an agent. It seems that for whatever reason cing corp isn't interested in hiring me, no call for an interview. Why? That i don't know... i have experience in wireless sales, never missed quota and already have a ton of knowledge about the industry etc.... An agent though interviewed me and seemed interested in hiring me because of what i bring to the table as a candidate. My question is, i used to work for a cingular agent a few years ago. Have thigns changed? What can a agent not do (other than taking payments)? Also will working for an agent tank any future possibility with employment with cing corp? Thanks

Jeff

Posted by: xbox360gamer

working for an agent doesnt have the same clout like one would have while working for a corp store.

for example, I would think that it would be very difficult to get the same job benefits from working for an agent like you would while working at a corp store.

not only that, but working for a corp store would de-classify you as being a dirt bag for which everyone knows that agents are the green algae that grows underneath rocks on dirty ponds.

Posted by: theclarks1

Quote:

Originally Posted by xbox360gamer

working for an agent doesnt have the same clout like one would have while working for a corp store.

for example, I would think that it would be very difficult to get the same job benefits from working for an agent like you would while working at a corp store.

not only that, but working for a corp store would de-classify you as being a dirt bag for which everyone knows that agents are the green algae that grows underneath rocks on dirty ponds.

I have to disagree with this kind of attitude. Another generalization from someone, man thats a very offensive comment. Agents are very good to work for, you just have to find the right one. There are lots of bad agents out there but you have to look at corp too, how many bad sales guys send people out the door everyday misinformed and confused. Just ask around about the agent that you want to work for and see how his rep is. Check it out and work for a bit and see if you like it. You can always quit. From what i hear from some of the reps here I wouldnt want to work for retail at the moment.

Posted by: CingularZ

Give it some time, Cingular receives alot of applications and most of the time, there is no slots open for that particular region/territory that you may be applying for.

As for working for agents, theres always going to be positives and negatives , but its up to you and where you want to head your career to

I also would like to say this, and take this with a grain of salt.. time after time, I meet so many people who say the same to me, which is I APPLIED, AND I DONT KNOW WHY THEY DIDNT CONTACT ME..

Chances are , its your RESUME. keep in mind, HR managers dont see you, they see you in writing so please , PLEASE go over your resume, and make sure its up to date, professional, and concise. YOU WILL BE SURPRISED, how many applications Ive met and because of poor writing skills or lack of communication, regardless of experience.. they wont be hired or even considered.

Posted by: cingman66

You really show your ignorance and prejudice with comments like those. While there are several disreputable agents out there (ie., Mobile Solutions), the majority of agents are very good...and the salespeople are exceptional. We actually have to SELL each day...not just sit behind the counter and "clerk" all day. Try working in our shoes for a day before you pass judgement.

Posted by: cingman66

that last post was directed at xbox, btw.

Posted by: thejlw

Quote:

Originally Posted by cingman66

You really show your ignorance and prejudice with comments like those. While there are several disreputable agents out there (ie., Mobile Solutions), the majority of agents are very good...and the salespeople are exceptional. We actually have to SELL each day...not just sit behind the counter and "clerk" all day. Try working in our shoes for a day before you pass judgement.

If your one of those 'agents' in the mall who do everything but tackle a person as they walk through the mall I have no respect for you what-so-ever. That's got nothing to do w/ selling.

Posted by: theclarks1

Quote:

Originally Posted by thejlw

If your one of those 'agents' in the mall who do everything but tackle a person as they walk through the mall I have no respect for you what-so-ever. That's got nothing to do w/ selling.

That not only goes for agents but there are retail guys that do that also! I can say that I feel more pressure when Im in a retail COR store than anywhere else. But there again its all part of the sales game.

Posted by: elushon

I predict a thread lock before sunset.

Posted by: cingman66

I agree with the comment about the "mall rats" that sell phones...there should be a law against that. That's why I listed Mobile Solutions in my post. They are actually trained to lie to customers just to get the sale. Their corporate office shows the movie "Boiler Room" as a motivational tactic...rent it sometime and check out the interview scene with Ben Affleck...not exactly the type of persona we want to portray to customers.

Posted by: jeffro01

thanks for the response's.... In regards to my resume, granted its not perfect but i think it presents a decent picture. My main killer is my job time. For my age i have had a lot of jobs. In regards to the anti-agent crap. I did not come here for that, i wanted to know if things still worked the same, etc.... no peoples personal feelings about them. Thank you all who have been constructive

Jeff

Posted by: xbox360gamer

Quote:

Originally Posted by cingman66

I dont have to pass any judgement because I see the same old BS all the time in my friend's corp store.

customer after customer coming in his corp store complain how he/she bought something at an agent and then they go back with any problems or questions and thats when the nightmare(s) begin. 9 out of 10 times the agent(s) in our area tell their customers that there's nothing that they can do and that they should or will have to take their problems and/or questions to the local corp store which of course is my friend's corp store. thats where my friend has to clean up those dirtbag agents' messes time after time and after time again. all these agents care about is getting someone's money up front and then they basically tell the customer to piss off in a somewhat polite sort of way.

that being that, I still stand and will continue to stand behind my opinion about agents (for the most part) being nothing but the used gum that gets stuck underneath the bottom of one's shoes, period, done, over with.

Posted by: CingularZ

In defense to the agents that I oversee, I dont think you're wrong in your opinion but I do think you are wrong for generalization of the whole.

Not all "people" are bad, but once you start putting in everyone in a group and making assumptions, you are going to get fire in return.

IMO , its not whether you are COR, Premier, Exclusive, NON.. its really about how much the individuals/owners care to run their business

Those looking to make the quick bucks, wells.. thats the reason why the store closes down within a month or so.

Those looking to make a career and provide not just for this year or next but for 10 years down the road, make sure they establish a customer base and do the right thing in providing not just phones but customer service, customer retention and customer prospecting..

That is what makes the difference in all of us, not just agents vs cor or so on.

Posted by: cingman66

Maybe if Cingular didn't let every Tom, **** and Harry become an agent, agents wouldn't have this reputation. There are several good agents out there, but unfortunately there are many terrible ones as well. This goes to my point last week: Cingular needs to consolidate--throw out the crappy agents and stick to the Premier stores. We don't need 7 Cingular's in one mall, or on one street. The good agents don't run customers out of the store after the sale and force them to go to COR stores...believe me, the last thing I want to do is suggest that a customer go to another store for ANY reason...because there's a chance they will never come back. We take care of OUR customers from the time they buy their first phone...our referral business is tremendous, and you don't get referrals if you provide crappy customer service.

So let's stop the generalizations and agree that there are good reps and bad reps in every part of the business.

Posted by: theclarks1

Quote:

Originally Posted by cingman66

Maybe if Cingular didn't let every Tom, **** and Harry become an agent, agents wouldn't have this reputation. There are several good agents out there, but unfortunately there are many terrible ones as well. This goes to my point last week: Cingular needs to consolidate--throw out the crappy agents and stick to the Premier stores. We don't need 7 Cingular's in one mall, or on one street. The good agents don't run customers out of the store after the sale and force them to go to COR stores...believe me, the last thing I want to do is suggest that a customer go to another store for ANY reason...because there's a chance they will never come back. We take care of OUR customers from the time they buy their first phone...our referral business is tremendous, and you don't get referrals if you provide crappy customer service.

So let's stop the generalizations and agree that there are good reps and bad reps in every part of the business.

They used to think that they would rather have 10 agents doing 10 phones each a month than 1 agent doing 100. This was announced in a corp meeting we were in we all disagreed but they said this was going to happen and it did. This was due to if they have agents on every street corner they wouldnt miss customers, but now its that way there is a serious problem and they are working it out by shutting down most of the agents.

Posted by: CingularZ

Quote:

Originally Posted by theclarks1

Finally, you said it !!

that is the number 1 reason why AGENTS were getting terminated, becaue there is an issue with the quality and performance of agents out there ..

NOT BECAUSE CINGULAR WANTS AGENTS TO GO ALL EXCLUSIVE .

Funny, you say this in this topic but in the other, you are saying otherwise..

Im done.

Posted by: theclarks1

Quote:

Originally Posted by CingularZ

Whatever dude...lol you are funny. Cingular is forcing the all exclusive thing so in turn there are going to be lots that are shut down, plus there are lots of low quality agents out there. But the all exclusive letter is out there you just havent seen it or heard of it yet. You must not be in the loop. But the low performers are not the only ones that have been shut down. If you look or listen at any agent meeting and see how many that are doing 100's or more a month have been shut down. They are reputable agents too. Its an EXCLUSIVE market, no matter what #'s you are doing.

Posted by: Seltzer

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeffro01

I applied at both cing corp and an agent. It seems that for whatever reason cing corp isn't interested in hiring me, no call for an interview. Why? That i don't know... i have experience in wireless sales, never missed quota and already have a ton of knowledge about the industry etc.... An agent though interviewed me and seemed interested in hiring me because of what i bring to the table as a candidate. My question is, i used to work for a cingular agent a few years ago. Have thigns changed? What can a agent not do (other than taking payments)? Also will working for an agent tank any future possibility with employment with cing corp? Thanks

Jeff

Cingular was to rely solely on the Direct (corporate stores, e-store, telesales, NBO, Premier, etc) and National Retail channels to do business. This is the business model that the top dogs have committed to for the future. I'd stay away from Indirects, IMO.

Posted by: chrischoi

i didnt read through all of this. but im at a agent. and we can take payments.

Posted by: jeffro01

Well i was offered the job by the agent that i interviewed at and they way they run their business is not your average "agent". So i decided to accept the offer.

Jeff

Posted by: tkdlove

i need to post my 2 cent.

i work for one of the largest Premieres Cingular has and i personally manage 6 stores.
we have our weak agents and trouble makers and we fire them as quick as possible(hr dictates procedure)

the problem with the statements is the COR guys think your poop don't stink?!?! i get a ton of customers that either refuse to go back to the COR store or were so miss informed with BS from a COR rep that when i set it straight they stay my customer for life.
see the story goes both ways ... not to mention my company has more stores in the area than the COR does but any one of my stores out sell the COR month to month.

don't be all high and mighty because you are corporate. you simply took a personality test to get your job... i had to sell the DSO a phone....

christ,,,,,,, ignorant people.

Posted by: thejlw

I personally don't think I would go to an agent store to purchase service. The only agent 'stores' I come across are the blood suckers that work in the mall. Everytime I have to walk past one of these 'stores' I get as far as I possibly can away from them and make sure to avoid eye contact at all costs. Occasionally I will not be paying attention and walk right past one of them and I get bombarded by stupid comments like, "What kind of phone do you have?" or "Do you got Tmobile".

If I wanted to talk to you I would! One day I see myself snapping and getting arrested because one of these morons is going to say something and I'm going to show them my best impression of a 20-year old Mike Tyson.

I see the 'agent stores' where they are actual stores, but most of those try to disguise themselves and make themselves look as much like a regular corp. store as possible.

Posted by: cingman66

Quote:

Originally Posted by tkdlove

i need to post my 2 cent.

i work for one of the largest Premieres Cingular has and i personally manage 6 stores.
we have our weak agents and trouble makers and we fire them as quick as possible(hr dictates procedure)

the problem with the statements is the COR guys think your poop don't stink?!?! i get a ton of customers that either refuse to go back to the COR store or were so miss informed with BS from a COR rep that when i set it straight they stay my customer for life.
see the story goes both ways ... not to mention my company has more stores in the area than the COR does but any one of my stores out sell the COR month to month.

don't be all high and mighty because you are corporate. you simply took a personality test to get your job... i had to sell the DSO a phone....

christ,,,,,,, ignorant people.

I have to agree...there are only maybe 7 COR stores in the state, and the ones near me need some serious help in the old customer service department...not to mention the training department. Sometimes customers come in that are SO misinformed by the COR store it is funny (well, not really funny, just sad sort of). Plus, COR stores just "push" whatever they are told to push as far as phones go...no matter that the LG1500 is a big pile of crap--they are told to sell it, so they do. They are not really customer advocates, they are merely corporate drones. At least (some of) the agents are more unbiased. We don't have an agenda when it comes to which phone to sell the customer. We can honestly tell them that the LG is a pile of crap and to go with the slightly more expensive Nokia. The problem the agents have is that there are WAY too many of us out here, and the rotten apples spoil it for the rest of us. Like the mall stores you talk about...I don't know how they sleep at night. But the reputable agents have it hands-down over any other agent, and certainly the COR stores.

Here is Cingular's biggest problem: They want to eliminate agents so they can save on commissions, but they NEED agents in the field to handle customer service. They believe that they should be able to SELL the phones through Telesales or E-sales, and that the brick and mortar stores should handle the customer service end of it for them (to keep a good Reputation). Well there's a slight problem with that formula--we don't get paid for customer service! We only get paid for Sales, so if you eliminate that part of the equation, you will eliminate the agents. And we have no qualms about educating the customer to this fact. We tell them that everytime they spend money on-line or over the phone, they take a little bit out of our pockets, and we will NOT be able to help them with their phone down the road. Soon, there will be no more "actual stores," only e-locations and endless wait times to talk to customer "care."

Here is the biggest thing that drives me nuts--Customer walks in with a phone they purchased on-line or through telesales and they want help with voice mail/activating the SIM because telesales can't figure out how to do this simple task/transferring their phone book to their new phone/operating the camera/using media net/etc...and they expect ME to help them--HA HA HA there is no way in hell I am helping this customer--Cingular are you listening?--I am not going to contribute to my own demise by enabling Cingular to cut me out of the equation. I tell the customer that I wish they had bought the phone from my store so that I could provide the level of service they are expecting, but since they chose to save a few bucks and give their money to someone else, then maybe that someone else should handle their problem.

And then I smile and all is right with the world again. If Cingular expects us to be here for the customer, then they better figure out that we need to sell a few phones to stay in business long enough. And don't get me wrong, I don't mind competition, and I don't mind people buying phones elsewhere...it's just that on-line and telesales are able to offer customers such ridiculously low prices that we can't/won't match them--which is why people buy things on-line and over the phone anyway. But Cingular expecting me to help out these customers that they "stole" from me to begin with is ludicrous.

But I digress...

Posted by: theclarks1

Quote:

Originally Posted by thejlw

I personally don't think I would go to an agent store to purchase service. The only agent 'stores' I come across are the blood suckers that work in the mall. Everytime I have to walk past one of these 'stores' I get as far as I possibly can away from them and make sure to avoid eye contact at all costs. Occasionally I will not be paying attention and walk right past one of them and I get bombarded by stupid comments like, "What kind of phone do you have?" or "Do you got Tmobile".

If I wanted to talk to you I would! One day I see myself snapping and getting arrested because one of these morons is going to say something and I'm going to show them my best impression of a 20-year old Mike Tyson.

I see the 'agent stores' where they are actual stores, but most of those try to disguise themselves and make themselves look as much like a regular corp. store as possible.

I dont know why everyone has this kind of outlook on agents. We arent all like that. Some of us may make more money than a COR. the only reason that we look like a COR is becuase we HAVE too. cingular makes the signage, regualtes what we can and cant put up so thats there fault. We provide a service that some COR dont. We spend more time with people trying to make things understandable so that we dont get chargebacks. Most of the time if Im in a mall store I may stand outside just to get out, yes I make eye contact and say hi but thats just being nice! If someone wants to talk to me about a phone they will ask me when im out there, or they will come in. We can give you just as many bad examples of COR reps that do things that we dont like and other customers that complain. I mean we work with other retail stores! I send them business and we do repair on certian things and they send us business!! We dont see each other as a threat. In turn we can help each other out. I cant tell you how many times that I have sent customers to COR to do upgrades, add a lines and things that we really dont get paid for that you guys do!

Posted by: thejlw

Quote:

Originally Posted by theclarks1

There are 'bad apples' everywhere. I'm just giving you my experience with agents.

Posted by: Lambert

Quote:

Originally Posted by thejlw

There are 'bad apples' everywhere. I'm just giving you my experience with agents.

Some agents in my area are full of it. Some COR stores too. Doesn't mean anything.

Posted by: Telegraph

I think COR stores have MORE reason to lie than agents. Why? Your livelyhood depends on it. You'll do anything, or SAY anything to spin a sale your way.

You will say "agents sell refurbished phones" as an excuse as to why agents can sell phones at a lower price than you.

You will say "agents are a third party which will not offer the same wireless shopping experience as a COR store", yet in turn will often (mind i say often from what i read on this board) REFUSE service if they didn't buy from you, let alone another COR store.

You will say "agents lie and simply want your money" This iin part is true, they DO want your money, it is after all a business. They also want your BUSINESS. Many agents i know will offer the customer THE BEST SOLUTION AND CHOICE FOR THE CUSTOMER!!!. If that might mean turning the customer away to another carrier, then so be it. Good customer service will always win out. What can you do at a COR store if they do not want Cingular or if Cingular is not their first choice? You'll still try and sell the customer a phone so you can get paid (regardless of the customers opinion), you'll spin a vertical onto the customer just to meet your feature add on goal, you'll spin an accessory onto the customer just to meet your accessory goal. In the end you are working for yourself without the customers best interest at heart.

Customer: "I prefer Verizon over Cingular. I had a bad experience with Cingular 3 years ago"
COR REP: Oh that was with the old AT&T network, we're CINGULAR now, come try us out for 30 days and you'll see the difference"
Customer: "But i had 0 bars"
COR REP: "That doesn't matter now, that was then, this is now"
Customer: "So what free phones can i choose from? Verizon and T-Mobile are offering many phones for free"
COR REP: Our phones are better, so they are not free.
Customer: "But aren't GSM phones compatable with other networks?" Isn't that Nokia flip phone the same as T-Mobile's?
COR REP: No, that nokia flip phones model is the 610 TWO, T-Mobile's is the 610 ONE. See, our model is one step better than the competitions. After all, the higher model is always the best right?"
Customer: Sign me up!

And to all COR reps i've offended by this post...... GOOD!

Maybe now you might understand how an agent feels when ALL agents (whether good or bad) are ALL lumped together.

I understand that there are good cor reps and bad cor reps. I CAN and DO explain that to the customer. Can you? hmm.....

Posted by: cingman66

Hip Hip Hooray! Someone else finally said it, too.. There are good and bad everywhere...you have to live with yourself in the end. There are 2 things to remember: 1. We are all in this business to make money, and 2. We SHOULD all be in this business to help customers. When the 2 things coexist, it's a win-win. Sales reps shouldn't just sell what makes them money, or what Big Orange tells them to sell, if it is not in the best interest of the customer. We offer a wireless "solution," not just what makes us short-term money. It's all about the repeat business.

I'm jus' sayin'!

Posted by: Onlyfellonce

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeffro01

In our market (dont know if its everywhere) you have to have a period of separation from an agent store of at least 3 months before Corporate will even consider you. Which is unfortunate, as I received a call for an interview with Corp about a week after having to take a job at the agent Im with now.