You Think *Apple* Employees Are Ignorant...

Gathomblipoob

Gathomblipoob

macrumors 603
My girlfriend I spent a few minutes in her local corporate Verizon store last week. We stood by listening to a sales rep telling a young lady about the iPhone 5. Did you know:

1. The screen is larger because it has more megapixels?

2. The back is made of titanium?

3. The Galaxy S III is faster than the iPhone 5?

4. The 4S and the 5 both have one gigabyte of RAM?

5. Video on the 4S in rendered in DVD quality and on the 5 in Blu-Ray quality?

It boggles the mind.
 
Gathomblipoob said:
My girlfriend I spent a few minutes in her local corporate Verizon store last week. We stood by listening to a sales rep telling a young lady about the iPhone 5. Did you know:

1. The screen is larger because it has more megapixels?

2. The back is made of titanium?

3. The Galaxy S III is faster than the iPhone 5?

4. The 4S and the 5 both have one gigabyte of RAM?

5. Video on the 4S in rendered in DVD quality and on the 5 in Blu-Ray quality?

It boggles the mind.
Click to expand...

That is pretty standard in retail, employees that make minimum wage and no nothing about what they are selling, it makes it even worse when they are on commission.
 
Gathomblipoob said:
My girlfriend I spent a few minutes in her local corporate Verizon store last week. We stood by listening to a sales rep telling a young lady about the iPhone 5. Did you know:

1. The screen is larger because it has more megapixels?

2. The back is made of titanium?

3. The Galaxy S III is faster than the iPhone 5?

4. The 4S and the 5 both have one gigabyte of RAM?

5. Video on the 4S in rendered in DVD quality and on the 5 in Blu-Ray quality?

It boggles the mind.
Click to expand...

That one made me chuckle, because it makes no sense whatsoever. Could have only been said by a n00b.
 
zeyank said:
That is pretty standard in retail, employees that make minimum wage and no nothing about what they are selling, it makes it even worse when they are on commission.
Click to expand...

this. Most "associates" in retail do not make great money $8-$10, so how much do they really even care to know about what they are selling? Granted I would think a sales person at verizon probably makes some commission as well so knowledge is key......or false knowledge :p

what do they say..."ignorance is not as dangerous as the false belief of knowledge"
 
I'm a sales person at a retail store and yes, it happens. Most employees are just trying to get the sale, don't care what it takes. And a little lie here and there won't hurt. :rolleyes:
 
The screen does have more megapixels. To get the mp rating you simply multiply the width by the height. So he's not wrong.
 
My new philosophy is to get in and get out with the device and handle everything else online. It's not any better but at least I'm not wasting as much time. Retail stores refer you online and online stores refer you back to retail. Buy your device directly from Apple and go contract-free. It will lower your blood pressure a few points.
 
RotaryP7 said:
I'm a sales person at a retail store and yes, it happens. Most employees are just trying to get the sale, don't care what it takes. And a little lie here and there won't hurt. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

That's great.
Hope I never have to deal with anyone like you.:rolleyes:
 
I worked at VZ Plus store (are those still around?) a few years ago. I was hired as a temp. I didn't have a whole lot of motivation. I needed a job and was there honestly until I could find something else. Well, it seemed as though that location was thought to the public as a "payment store." Everyone basically walked in to make a payment. Those that were wanting to buy something were interested in Fios. Rarely did someone come in to buy a cell phone (oh yeah there was an actual VZ Wireless in the same parking lot of our store).

So, to shorten, I didn't have a whole lot of motivation selling wireless. I didn't focus much of my short time there learning that. I concentrated on Fios. If someone came in for wireless though I knew enough to get by. If I didn't, I'd ask one of the actual VZ employees who were actually on commission to help. Oh yeah, I was not on commission.

I go into a lot of stores now knowing that if I'm really interested in buying something, I probably know more about it than the person selling the product. I have taken my personal time to research it and its competition. It's weird that I knew more about phones before/after I worked at VZ and than during that time. I spent all day at a store doing something--didn't want to come home and research more phones.

Hope this made some sense.
 
RotaryP7 said:
I'm a sales person at a retail store and yes, it happens. Most employees are just trying to get the sale, don't care what it takes. And a little lie here and there won't hurt. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Ah, retail sales the training ground pre-requisite for used car salesman.
 
The one thing I did appreciate during my 1.5 hour buying experience for an iPhone 5 at a Target Mobile kiosk was that the associate admitted up front to not knowing much about the tech of the phone, and didn't try to fake his way through anything.
 
I've always got free laughs by talking to AT&T and Verizon employees about phones when I"m in the stores. They're ignorant to a comical level. (And I haven't even BOTHERED talking to the people at Best Buy, Target or Wal-Mart!)
 
qckslvrsiete said:
The one thing I did appreciate during my 1.5 hour buying experience for an iPhone 5 at a Target Mobile kiosk was that the associate admitted up front to not knowing much about the tech of the phone, and didn't try to fake his way through anything.
Click to expand...

Target Mobile Kiosk?

:p
 
Gathomblipoob said:
My girlfriend I spent a few minutes in her local corporate Verizon store last week. We stood by listening to a sales rep telling a young lady about the iPhone 5. Did you know:
Click to expand...

He forgot #6: "I'd rather sell you a Galaxy S3, because I get more commission off of it."

Chances her, he accurately knows everything there is to know, backwards and forward, about the Droid and galaxy lines in his store, but because Verizon's staffing model is to have their sales people live off commissions, his motivation is how fat his paycheck is gonna be, not what the customer wants. So he'll say whatever for the iPhones, as long as it's not better than anything Android.

That's why I just buy direct from Apple.
 
These sorts of stories never happen to me. The staff in the shops near me are usually gracious enough to admit they don't know the answer if they don't.
 
Yep. I posted a thread like this yesterday.

Radio Shack told me there would be NO new iPhones shipped to apple or any other reseller until February.

And Verizon stubbornly told me the verizon iphone could do simultaneous voice/data.
I had him "show me". He was quite surprised that it could not. :)

They key (which you know) is: they are sales people. They very often don't know much about the products they are selling, except maybe the one they own. And I'd bet the Verizon guy I talked to was an Android user.
 
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