vB Easy Archive - Did you get terminated?

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Did you get terminated?
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Posted by: CingularZ

Prior we had a huge discussion / debate about agents being terminated and agents having to go exclusive..

So im wondering for those who debated it heavily, did you lose your code? Did you go exclusive or did you stay as a non exclusive?

Posted by: cingsocal

I saw the debate, but did not comment. Here's what happened in my market (So Cal).

1. Mid-summer my Master Agent sent out a letter stating that we must be exclusive by December 1st or stop selling Cingular.
2. I had corporate cingular reps come out to each one of my locations and write up a report. They said they would let me know if my locations met their standards within a few months.
3. ALL DEALER CODES were terminated on December 1st. Only those subs who went exclusive were issued new dealer codes.

I'm still selling Cingular exclusiveley with my new dealer codes - my old ones were cancelled. I peronally have at least 10 friends in this market who 1) decided to not go exclusive (and lose their dealer codes) or 2) for whatever reason were denied by Cingular corporate when they tried to go exclusive.

Your previous posts were misinformed. You are absolutely wrong if you think Cingular did not terminate dealers because of exclusivity issues.

Posted by: SuxBeingU

Z what CingSoCal says is absolutely what happened. I too am in So Cal so at least in this market it seems to be consistant.

Posted by: CingularZ

I see. I think we may have a misunderstanding or perhaps I wasnt specific enough, I can only speak for the market here Northeast. You obviously can only speak for your market

In NYC, there were good large amount of subs that were extended, and non exclusive.

Lets see if theres any more.. thanks guys.

Posted by: cingsocal

That's interesting. So you're telling me that there are still mutil-carrier stores in NYC that offer Cingular? I can tell you for sure that such stores no longer exist in So Cal. Yakety-Yak, a multi-carrier franchise with a bunch of stores on the west coast had to drop Cingular on December 1st. I actually purchased some phones from them that they had to liquidate.

What's your point anyway? If it happened in my market, it can (and most likely will) happen in your market.

Posted by: JDScott302

Yeah we got dropped and our agent code was still active for awhile. We were an exclusive sub agent. And what angers me the most is that there are still people around that are non-exclusive that are still selling. Not neccessarily fair. And now i get people complaining about the other store in town, fortunately i could care less now.

Hell we still recieved all the display stuff for many many months after being dropped. Something was fishy there.

Posted by: CingularZ

Wells you most likely got dropped because of your metrics or the possibility that you are near a COR store who's numbers overexceed yours.

theres no reason for Cingular to drop you if you were doing good numbers,

on top of that, Im not sure what you mean by fair. An exclusive vs non exclusive imo is not any higher or better, its just how you run your business.

The ironic thing is, our original debate was that YOU HAD TO GO EXCLUSIVE.. or you will be dropped.. hence in your situation, you are EXCLUSIVE and got dropped.

go figure.

Posted by: mshelby

There are still stores in LA/MS/AL that are non exclusive and still selling postpaid accounts.

Posted by: Telegraph

oy for the last time seesh.

Cingular was trying to eliminate most of their employees through attrition. This worked very well. In fact, it worked too well. Cingular noticed that even with the most incompetent reps (replacement lackys that don't know squat over good reps such as the posters on this board), that they still produced *good* numbers. One thing that is barely mentioned though is that MANY of those numbers are inflated because of the trac phone activations. But i digress, nevertheless, Cingular felt that the market was still too saturated with people selling cingular. Not enough stores were closing down in some areas, thus Cingular took it one step further. If they can't eliminate their own stores, they'll force the indirect channel to become exclusive in areas where cingular stores are too saturated (i.e NY and CA). This forced many dealers to stop selling Cingular. This worked too well. Now Cingular says "to heck with the indirect channel, screw em all. Who needs em?" And is basically making all indirect stores who sell cingular to die a slow and painful death. Greedy mofos!

Posted by: cingsocal

Amen brother!!! It's like pancreatic cancer for those left here in So Cal. Like I said in previous posts, corporate is advertising the V3 for $50 after rebate on all ups/act/migs, which is unmatchable in most situations. I will match this price on the occasional 2 yr. new act primary line, but everyone walking into my store wants V3s for the whole family and I have to turn them away. The ad runs until April 6th and it is killing me.

Posted by: CingularZ

You gust must have a higher price structure, because I know that all the non exclusives here in NY can easily match that $50 razor and/or give it away for free , 2 years only of course..

Btw, Telegraph, I understand what you're saying but in a way, If the market is saturated as you stated, then wouldnt it make sense for Cingular to cut down those that shouldnt be there? Ive stated before, if you;re doing the right thing and doing your numbers.. theres no reason for cingular to cut you. The mistake of markets being saturated was of the masters, who didnt want quality but went for quantity.. and everyone is hurting in the end.

Posted by: intrepidusa

OK, here is an addition to this thread...we got notice here in South Florida that ALL independants were losing their codes and being CUT OFF and were no longer able to sell or activate Cingular products. We were told this at 5pm yesterday and sure enough this morning our code no longer works and we can not service our existing Cingular customer base. What a crock of $#!T this is...what is Cingular/AT&T trying to accomplish with this, do they not realize that they are going to lose a bunch of customers by doing this? There are locations I am sure that are like ours, a niche cellular shop in an affluent location such as ours (downtown Boca Raton Florida) that have a very loyal customer base who refuse to go to corporate stores due to the lack of personal customer service. There have to be more shops out there like ours and I hope you all do the same thing that we are doing, getting every customer to switch their service to another provider, probably Verizon just to really stick it to them. I read this thread about those being forced to become exclusive stores, but is anyone else being kicked to the curb like this? Our numbers were good down here even with being a dealer for everyone else at the same time so they had no room for complaints nor did they ever complain about numbers. Thanks to all here at HoFo for making this a great place to discuss mobile issues and looking forward to hearing from others with the same problem.

Posted by: Telegraph

Quote:

Originally Posted by CingularZ

You gust must have a higher price structure, because I know that all the non exclusives here in NY can easily match that $50 razor and/or give it away for free , 2 years only of course..

Btw, Telegraph, I understand what you're saying but in a way, If the market is saturated as you stated, then wouldnt it make sense for Cingular to cut down those that shouldnt be there? Ive stated before, if you;re doing the right thing and doing your numbers.. theres no reason for cingular to cut you. The mistake of markets being saturated was of the masters, who didnt want quality but went for quantity.. and everyone is hurting in the end.

The REASON why they want quality over quantity is....

1. Reduction of churn.
2. They are number 1.

As long as Cingular remains number 1....they will continue to execute these new rules. If you notice on these boards, many MANY employees of cingular (not customers) are hoping the carrier falls to number 2 or possibly number 3. Why? Maybe, just maybe, they will start realizing that the way they are treating their employees (and agents) is wrong. I hope the employees go on strike. From another thread.