vB Easy Archive - Cingular or Verizon ; what would you pick?

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Cingular or Verizon ; what would you pick?
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Posted by: Infornography

Cingular ( after much toil ) wants to hire me. But so does Verizon.

In So. Cal I've seen that Cingular pays more. But has to deal with more crap.

Verizon pays just a bit less but they have their own in-store CS to take care of "muh phone dun werk" crap.

Cingular gets unlimited everything rate-plan. Verizon gets the "don't go over 1000 minutes" rateplan

Verizon's healthcare package seems better.

Cingular's is "okay."

What would you pick and why?

Posted by: tkdlove

i am really trying to pick Cingular but i can't stop hitting speed bumps.

this sux!

Posted by: obstacles can kill

a lil over a year ago, i was offered a slightly better position with better pay for verizon. but i cant work for a company that i do not support. so it was a no brainer for me...

Posted by: Freakshow105

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8700/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102 UP.Link/6.3.0.0.0)

I was offered a job w vzw and the starting pay was almost $2.50 less per hour. They were also vague with me how the commission worked. I decided to stay w cingular

Posted by: magiteck

Guess it depends on your area... anyone I know who worked for Cingular and moved to VZW, pretty much instantly saw about a $10,000-$20,000 annual increase between salary and commissions. Not to mention a philosophy of caring about customers, and a quality nationwide network. I'm not trying to start a flamewar, by any means. I worked for Cingular for 2 years, and I can honestly say that I enjoyed my job. I did know a lot of Cingular employees who wished they could work elsewhere, eg: Verizon. I do not know a *single* VZW employee who would rather work for Cingular. It's a difference in philosophy. Pick which company seems to match up with your ideals. I see a lot more loyalty within VZW, but with customers and employees.

VZW is a lot more cut-throat though. If you're good, looking for a long-term career, and ready for a challenge, I'd go with VZW. If you're looking for a job, where you can feel pretty comfortable that you're very secure in your position, go with Cingular.

Hope that helps answer some of your questions.

Posted by: Superpimp

I went through 13 interviews with Verizon, never got hired I did 2 with Cingular and I was working within a week, after training my first month I'm over 140 opps, I want to for another interview with Verizon just so I can get the HR call and tell them to F off. Cingular is the future IMHO

Posted by: kinghigh779

T-Mobile is clearly the answer here.

Posted by: xj911

Wirelessly posted (Nokia 6682: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Symbian OS; Nokia 6682/4.62.0; 9399) Opera 8.65 [en-US] UP.Link/6.3.0.0.0)

i vote verizon,
stricter, but better pay

Posted by: SuxBeingU

if the pay is close you need to look long term.If you're in school tuition program is important. Look at Benefits, if you have any health issues or a family, can't be w/o health insurance.
IMO Verizon is the better company coverage wise and custmer benefits wise. On site tech, over the counter defective exchanges, NE2 and soon to be prorated ETFs. With these in place you don't have to deal with nearly as many pissed off customer that want to kill you. I would suspect their turnover is lower adn certainly you don't see the I HATE MY JOB threads on the VZW forums very often.

With all things being relatively equal I would go to the stores you would be working at and meet some of the salepeople and your manager, whichever feels better wouuld be the place to be. Follow your gut it knows whats best, you just need to listen to it.

where at in So Cal. my store is in the San Dimas area.

Posted by: Infornography

Ahh thanks for all the replies everyone, from what I've seen the pay is actually better at Cingular, the only reason the pay looks better at Verizon is their Data Quota's are alot higher. I do agree with you though SuxBeingU, their coverage is alot better and they don't have to deal with the dreaded angry customer's. I'm pretty sure I'm going to choose Cingular now though because I've met the manager of the store and she seems pretty good and decent. The reps also are okay whereas the Verizon store I went to looked at me like I was some kinda thief who come in trying to take all their sales. But each store is different so,

oh btw, I'm in the L.A. area.

lol and at Superpimp, thanks to TheMobileSolution, I won't want to work at T-Mobile until they dropt their contract to that crap company.

Posted by: kinghigh779

One thing to keep in mind good sir. There is always a good chance that the manager you are hired by is not going to be your manager a good 5 or 6 months down the road.. Look at it from the company standpoint first. As it stands right now, I would definitely choose Verizon even though they or more strict, they do pay MUCH better.

Posted by: Infornography

lol trust me i'm well aware of the manager situation. It's like that for the whole wireless industry. But bleh. From what I saw of Verizon's pay structure and benefits, cingular was clearly the winner except when it came to medical, which I don't need. lol but again, this is only for the L.A. area, other regions might be different~

Posted by: KingJ2002

i was offered a job from verizon, cingular, and sprint.

i didnt take the sprint offer because i hate the company with a passion. after taking my 500 dollar deposit and putting it as a credit on my account instead of giving it back to me (my first cell phone was from sprint when i was in HS) on top of the dropped calls in santa monica. i just thought i would be fired after i tell customer to get phones form anyone but sprint.

i didnt take the verizon job because i didnt know about the service at all.

so i took cingular's offer ... and ive been here for a year now. it's been pretty good... i work with a great manager and a great team in a high traffic area (West LA)... and i basically get free service from them.

i heard verizon pays more though because there's fewer retail locations... but i take home good money so i wouldnt leave this job anytime soon.

...

i hear t-mobile rake in the big bucks though... because their commission system is based off the phones instead of the plans / features like cingular. All they do is sell sidekicks all day so it isnt uncommon to see a rep take home a fat commission check... the biggest i heard was 10G's... but it seems too good to be true.

Posted by: Superpimp

Quote:

Originally Posted by KingJ2002

i hear t-mobile rake in the big bucks though... because their commission system is based off the phones instead of the plans / features like cingular. All they do is sell sidekicks all day so it isnt uncommon to see a rep take home a fat commission check... the biggest i heard was 10G's... but it seems too good to be true.

It's too good to be true, I had an azz for a manager and lasted 2 weeks(got mad at me for getting to work early) I like the way Cingular pays out commision, data is the future like it or not.

Posted by: panrispter

at the time, I was with cingular for a year and a half, managing an agent store and received a very low secret shop score. (another long story) agent GM came to me and told me that because of that score they were demoting me. i laughed at them and applied at verizon and was offered a job a couple days after my first interview. pay was better but mostly based on commission. i decide to try it and put in my 2 weeks with my boss. owner of the company came to me a day later and told me he didnt want me to leave and created this current position im in, which i actually enjoy doing, have no pressure to sell or goals to meet, dont have to deal with the average customers and spend most of my time doing training programs for new hires and take care of our business customers.

plus i liked working for cingular and wanted to stay with them and gsm

Posted by: suicidal2af

Quote:

Originally Posted by Infornography

Ahh thanks for all the replies everyone, from what I've seen the pay is actually better at Cingular, the only reason the pay looks better at Verizon is their Data Quota's are alot higher.

Either someone lied to you, or you were at an agent.

Switching from cingular to vzw, I gained roughly $6K more in salary per year. My average commission check at vzw is roughly $1800/mo more than it was at cingular.

The best performing rep at the cingular store I used to work at, on the new commission structure, is earning about $5K/yr less than I am after salary and commissions. She works about as hard as the top performing rep in my vzw store, who makes an average of about $85-90K/yr.

Data quota is actually lower, and isn't really a quota.

The reason you won't get clear answers on the commission structure is because it varies by location. Busier stores have lower payouts than dead stores or kiosks. If you compare a vzw kiosk to your average cingular store, which have similiar quotas, vzw kiosk reps can make as much as $120 on a single activation. That's before data and accessories. Exceeding quotas also puts you into multipliers, which multiply your commission values depending on percent to quota. Back in May, I did 130% to quota, and had about a $2500 check pre-multiplier. 130% is a 1.4. Ended up being about 3500, plus I had another $300 in spiffs.

It's also much easier to advance in this company. I couldn't even get interviews for new positions with cingular, whereas I've gotten offers at vzw.

Honestly, regardless of thoughts or opinions on policies/network/phones/etc, vzw is a much better company to work for. They actually listen to employees. A few months ago, they cut our payouts and raised quota. Lots of people complained about it, and they lowered quota below where it was before that, and raised the payouts back up. AND gave us an obscene spiff on a few things.

Honestly, I regret ever accepting my job at cingular. Only good thing about it was gambling on the job and getting a free 6230, 3 razrs to sell on ebay, and a bb 7100 to sell on ebay.

Posted by: Infornography

Thank you for your input suicidal. But, from the initial interview, to gathering information from the people trying to hire me, and talking to the store reps and managers, I feel it's better for me at Cingular. At the store I was at, everyone was so rude and uptight it was unbelievable. They would only vaguely talk about the quota's and commission and they were breathing complaints left and right. To be honest, only about 2 of the reps seemed really knowledgable but to be fair, I wasn't interrogating them for hours and hours, just odd questions here and there. Also, I'm not looking to advance in the company, I'm just going to use my hobby of cell phones to make some money to start my own buisness. Thank you for your input though, I always love to hear both sides of the story.

Posted by: suicidal2af

Quote:

Originally Posted by Infornography

Thank you for your input suicidal. But, from the initial interview, to gathering information from the people trying to hire me, and talking to the store reps and managers, I feel it's better for me at Cingular. At the store I was at, everyone was so rude and uptight it was unbelievable. They would only vaguely talk about the quota's and commission and they were breathing complaints left and right. To be honest, only about 2 of the reps seemed really knowledgable but to be fair, I wasn't interrogating them for hours and hours, just odd questions here and there. Also, I'm not looking to advance in the company, I'm just going to use my hobby of cell phones to make some money to start my own buisness. Thank you for your input though, I always love to hear both sides of the story.

Until you get hired @ vzw, most reps won't really spend much time talking to you. When one sales position opens up, we'll have upwards of 20 people in for interviews. We talk after you get hired

Posted by: Infornography

lol that's the thing. I was offered a position at both Cingular and Verizon. Both places are begging me to join up. And I went into the store, introduced myself and that's where it all went off. lol it was like being with a group of vultures who kept thinking you were gonna steal the prey.

Posted by: corys00

Well Infornography, best of luck which ever way you decide but on Friday I had my new hire orientation for VZW and I had 3 ex-Cingular employees, 2 TMO and 1 Alltel out of 18 people there. I had an opportunity to go with Cingular but decided to stay with VZW (moving from an indirect agent) and after that class it only reaffirmed me that I made the right decision.