Carphone Warehouse rates vs Original Operator

Puteq

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but I was wondering something. I am looking into getting a new phone, so I went to the carphone warehouse and picked out one I like (which happens to only be provided by meteor). Now, question is this – if I went into a meteor store directly rather than going through the carphone warehouse, would I get cheaper rates, or the same rates, or maybe more expensive rates? Y’know, like call charges per minute, free texts a month, all them packages on offer. I went through some of the available packages in the carphone warehouse but then I started wondering this and didn’t want to commit, and the nearest meteor store is out of the way so I don’t want to go there and check only to find there no difference!

I mean, I would assume the carphone warehouse must charge more, otherwise, how do they make their money? The handset would be free if I signed up to meteor so it cant be on that they make their living …

paulm17781

Operators pay them commission on phones they sell. You will get the same rates from any operator. It is illegal otherwise.

Doctor DooM

The only difference in effect is that the actual cost of the phone itself may vary, and you in general will recieve better customer care from the network stores, as they represent the network you are having an issue with.

I always tell my friends if they are NOT sure which network they want (not applicable in your case, but I am feeling verbose ) that instead of just asking in carphone warehouse they should visit each networks store for an opinion, as sales staff for carphone warehouse just recommend the network which will give them the best commision (I heard this from a couple of their staff.)

Sam Vimes

SDooM wrote: »

The only difference in effect is that the actual cost of the phone itself may vary, and you in general will recieve better customer care from the network stores, as they represent the network you are having an issue with.

I always tell my friends if they are NOT sure which network they want (not applicable in your case, but I am feeling verbose ) that instead of just asking in carphone warehouse they should visit each networks store for an opinion, as sales staff for carphone warehouse just recommend the network which will give them the best commision (I heard this from a couple of their staff.)

that is not true in 99% of cases and would be far more true of the network stores. if somebody walks into a store that sells all networks and simply asks what is the best network, the agent may be getting more commission for one of the networks and recommend them despite maybe not being the best option, this is a possibility. but in a network store it is an inevitability

what do you think would be the response if you walked into an o2 store and asked what is the best network? do you think that if vodafone currently had a better offer you'd get directions and a friendly goodbye?

also, in carphone warehouse and others that sells all networks, they have to keep up with all the latest offers that the other networks are offering and can directly compare them. do you think an o2 employee is always up to date with the offers of all four networks?



better customer care is a possiblity because the network store employees have more access to systems etc but they hardly turf people who can't get voicemail working out because they bought their phone in cpw. all customers get the same customer care regardless of where they bought the phone*. so buying in a store that sells all networks has all the positives while having a considerably reduced chance of giving a biased recommendation (~1% vs 100%)


*except for damage/fault related issues but all the networks have roughly the same policy as regards repairs which the non-biased stores follow. the only difference i've ever seen is o2's excellent swap out policy but they swap out phones that were bought in the non-biased stores anyway


edit: also, what about problems that involve multiple networks such as porting or just calling and texting between networks. does an o2 employee have a dealer support line for all 4 networks in case a cross network problem occurs? an o2 store is obliged to help an o2 customer regardless of where the phone was bought and not having direct contact with the correct people in other networks could be a great hinderance. cpw would generally be better at those issues but can tell someone to f*ck off if the phone wasn't bought there.

Puteq

Thanks for the info folks. Looks like going with carphone warehouse is the best option for my specific circumstances anyway - i was looking to get the Sony Ericsson K550i (Plum colour) for the g/f, saw it in cpw for free, but the only operator that offered it was meteor. so i made my way to a meteor shop, where it was not free, cost 30 quid, and the plum colour wasn't available (I was looking to go billpay with it in both stores). I asked meteor what gives and they told me that presumably cpw were doing some kind of promotion on that particular phone. So this decision is a no brainer for me, though i cannot understand why meteor could do worse on their own phones and tariffs that cpw.

neilled

The best way of looking at it is that the mobile retailers that belong to the networks are seperate to the networks themselves, ie they have two divisions - the network/hq and then the retail divisions.

Whilst they all report to the corporate hq the retail sector sets its own budgets, promotions etc. Its swings and roundabouts really. Basically if meteor stores always had the best deals they'd either reduce their margins or get their equipment at a lower price than everyone else to do so constantly.

In Ireland, taking aside the astronomically high price of mobile handsets and services, the networks have it all their own way as well when it comes to the retail end of things. There is a severe lack of independent dealers on the market to encourage competiton in the manner that happens in the uk, and this applies to online dealers as well as larger independents - the only big one is the previously mentioned carphonewarehouse whereas in the uk there are a number of competitors.

krudler

that is not true in 99% of cases and would be far more true of the network stores. if somebody walks into a store that sells all networks and simply asks what is the best network, the agent may be getting more commission for one of the networks and recommend them despite maybe not being the best option, this is a possibility. but in a network store it is an inevitability

as someone who knows a few people working for different carphone warehouse stores that is true, their payscale isnt much so its all based on commission

also, in carphone warehouse and others that sells all networks, they have to keep up with all the latest offers that the other networks are offering and can directly compare them. do you think an o2 employee is always up to date with the offers of all four networks?

its called the internet:rolleyes:

edit: also, what about problems that involve multiple networks such as porting or just calling and texting between networks. does an o2 employee have a dealer support line for all 4 networks in case a cross network problem occurs? an o2 store is obliged to help an o2 customer regardless of where the phone was bought and not having direct contact with the correct people in other networks could be a great hinderance. cpw would generally be better at those issues but can tell someone to f*ck off if the phone wasn't bought there.

[/QUOTE]

again,wrong. all networks tech departments have direct contact with each other in case ports go wrong, we can see exactly why a port has failed and for what reason so if its on the other networks side it can be raised and investigated with them

Sam Vimes

krudler wrote: »

as someone who knows a few people working for different carphone warehouse stores that is true, their payscale isnt much so its all based on commission

as someone who used to work there i can tell you its quite rare. I know exactly what they got paid and i know all about the commission.

if a customer wanted a specific thing that only one network provided or one network did much better, it was just too much hassle to lie to them and pretend that the high commission network did something they didn't

for example, if someone told me they only call meteor numbers and they can see unlimited meteor calls on the page in front of them, its damn hard to convince them that unlimited vodafone calls would be better. The only time someone got recommended the high commission network by me was when they had no personal preference and there was no clear winner, ie it didn't really matter what network they were on. And even then, it had little bearing on the recommendation. Also, I'd still never recommend 3 unless they insisted they wanted it

the whole reason i never applied to work in a network store was i didn't want to have to lie to people to get commission

krudler wrote: »

its called the internet:rolleyes:

do you honestly think that a quick browse of the vodafone site gave you as much knowledge as someone who sold the products every day? And of course had access to the many thousands of pieces of relevant information that aren't on the website?

krudler wrote: »

again,wrong. all networks tech departments have direct contact with each other in case ports go wrong, we can see exactly why a port has failed and for what reason so if its on the other networks side it can be raised and investigated with them

i said nothing about the tech departments, i was talking about the staff in store. You can't deny that having a direct line to every network is an advantage, especially in the many cases that don't require the tech department

basically it boils down to this: in a store that sells all the networks, you talk to someone who has intimate knowledge of every network (not just what they read on the website :rolleyes:) and who is 99% likely to be giving you unbiased information.

In a network store you talk to someone who's job it is to sell you their product whether a different network would be better or not.

if you buy in a non network store you get all the customer care related benefits of buying in a network store and the peace of mind that you were almost certainly given the best deal available in the country, not just the best on one network

and there is always the fact that if, for example, you want to compare an lg shine and a 6234 side by side, you can't do it in an o2 store

neilled

I'd agree with the points that Vimes made. I've worked in one of the flagship network stores and am currently working for an independent. To be quite honest with you the only time that network stores kept updated about what was happening with the competition is when a new service was launched and comparison made to them.

When competing with the independents the only way a network store can compete is by offering superior services such as the O2 retail SOS or the concept that orange stores have in the uk of "phone trainers"

Again when I worked for the network store it was emphasised that we should be offering the premium level of service and support if we did customers would pay that bit more for our services. Coincidentally i used a different network than than i worked for so i always had to fudge the question about what phone do you have !

Mind you, network stores don't always offer this, I had a customer in yesterday who couldn't top up on prepay and had been to the network store three or four times to try and solve the problem to no avail, the only suggestion was sending it off for repair. I got the customer to switch the language of the phone to english and turned the DTMF tones on. Problem solved, cue delighted customer rattling to their friend about something to do with me and "professionale" in their native language!

At the end of the day the purpose of network stores is to

* Create a brand recognition for the network by having a high street presence and human contact

* Be a first line of customer service, creating the illusion of better care than you would get with an independent (although o2 sos is an exception) and get the idea that "meteor" or "vodafone" "o2" or "three" are looking after you, as opposed to your phone being fixed by nokia or sonyericsson or whoever the independent is.

* Drive down costs and increase already handsome profit margins, if networks sell through their own stores they can cut down on paying third party dealers

* Create an environment where customers can be shown and as a consequence sold extra network services that may not happen with an independent. Networks internal mystery shoppers and the alerts tend to emphasise showing off certain features or services. When I worked for the network store it was emphasising their mobile web services but it could be anything and varies from time to time.

Sam Vimes

neilled wrote: »

Coincidentally i used a different network than than i worked for so i always had to fudge the question about what phone do you have !

i know most of the staff of the nearest o2 store an they're all on meteor. i found it very hypocritical. i always thought it was good to tell people that everyone in my shop was on meteor and everyone in the o2 shop was too and i always thought that what i was saying carried much more weight because i wasn't working in meteor.

neilled wrote: »

Mind you, network stores don't always offer this, I had a customer in yesterday who couldn't top up on prepay and had been to the network store three or four times to try and solve the problem to no avail, the only suggestion was sending it off for repair. I got the customer to switch the language of the phone to english and turned the DTMF tones on. Problem solved, cue delighted customer rattling to their friend about something to do with me and "professionale" in their native language!

i had the same situation hundreds of times. people were constantly telling me that they'd just been in the o2 store and had left because of the dreadful service they'd received. to be fair it was usually the same person they had been dealing with but still, buying in a network store does not necessarily increase the likelyhod of good customer service


for example, the meteor store would constantly tell people that we bought cheap phones from south east asia and if anyone came in with a problem they were told the reason was they bought it in crappy carphone and they were fobbbed off.

one particular time a bloke came in who couldn't use gprs and mms. i spent about 5 minutes doing a few tests, realised he wasn't provisioned for it (nothing to do with the phone) and a quick call to dealer support sorted the problem. he came back about ten minutes later with a bottle of wine for me and an apology for believing the lies of the network store

neilled

Thats a fairly bull excuse because pretty much all handsets are made in south east asia these days bar a small minority that are still in europe, mind you, my uk built ericsson t20 was riddled with problems back in the day, my french made p990i's keypad has died and the list goes on and on with various finnish built nokias.

European built does not ensure better quality.

I suppose you could always turn the arguement on its head - Carphone could charge less if they were allowed to use their bulk buying power and bring handsets in from europe and flash irish software on them instead of buying from the cartel of handset distributors with their prices that "reflect local market conditions" . No names here but anyone in the trade will know who i'm refering to!

Oracle

Just my 2cents, but I'd never buy a phone from the Carphone Warehouse. I've had a bad experience with them, and so has a friend of mine, and many others on the boards. In a nutshell their customer service is terrible if anything goes wrong with the phone. They simply do nothing and refuse a refund, I ended up having to take them to the Small Claims Court, (and so did my friend) a place CPW often finds themselves, I believe. Stay away, or buy at your own risk, you have been warned! :eek:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054954314

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055096622

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055060541

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055019873

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054942803

Tree

I've always found the carphone warehouse very pleasant to deal with. and the advantage that the independents also sell sim free models is great. best spot to have a poke of a new phone is to go into an independent, find the geekiest looking guy or girl and say show me what you got, you get an hour of delighted tech talk and you get the play w/ the new phone. any cute dude could melt me by coming in to ask about the latest SE....

you can ususally spot a commision driven seller a mile off too, if you have a small bit of backgroudn done. there was a girl who used to work w/ me was on meteor and would swear blind she was on o2 when she wanted to sell o2 coz the commsion was higher, rather than offering the customer the detailsont he meteor or three price plans. Ask her about the offers on the other tariffs and she'd tell you you were imagining things. i specifically told my friends to never buy stuff off her but if you ever need a refund, go straight for her.

neilled

Oracle wrote: »

Just my 2cents, but I'd never buy a phone from the Carphone Warehouse. I've had a bad experience with them, and so has a friend of mine, and many others on the boards. In a nutshell their customer service is terrible if anything goes wrong with the phone. They simply do nothing and refuse a refund, I ended up having to take them to the Small Claims Court, (and so did my friend) a place CPW often finds themselves, I believe. Stay away, or buy at your own risk, you have been warned! :eek:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054954314

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055096622

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055060541

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055019873

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054942803

Whoopdy do. I worked for a network store and they engaged in similar behaviour when things went wrong, refusing to give a different handset unless they had the boxes etc ....

Trust me, generally speaking I'm on the consumers side and have argued with head office that customer x or y was badly treated, didn't feel that they'ed been treated well by the company and they should get a new handset.

On the other hand i've had customers fabricate lies and invent faults in order to try and change handsets that they weren't technically minded enough to operate and that they bought on impulse earlier. Of course they would stomp their feet and huff and puff and say they were in the right, they'ed been appallingly treated, they knew their consumer rights etc......

Tree has it right - spot the techie and deal with them and ignore the blatently obvious commission driven sellers. Chances are if they know their handsets inside out they'll know the networks and tariffs too.

Sam Vimes

Oracle wrote: »

Just my 2cents, but I'd never buy a phone from the Carphone Warehouse. I've had a bad experience with them, and so has a friend of mine, and many others on the boards. In a nutshell their customer service is terrible if anything goes wrong with the phone. They simply do nothing and refuse a refund, I ended up having to take them to the Small Claims Court, (and so did my friend) a place CPW often finds themselves, I believe. Stay away, or buy at your own risk, you have been warned! :eek:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054954314

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055096622

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055060541

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055019873

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054942803

every store in the country has had bad staff at one stage or another. you can't blame the whole company because a few staff didn't know something. its a complicated job. as i mentioned before, i had dozens of customers who stormed out of the local o2 shop in a rage at one particular employee who was an idiot

if those customers had come to me they would have had a completely different opinion of the shop. except for the guy whose phone was sent away, those mprc w*nkers take weeks to repair the phones and there's nothing we can do about it. i usually recommended people drop the phones in themselves because it was the only way to speed up the process.

and you are right, cpw does sometimes end up in the small claims court. in the extremely vast majority of those cases, the customers believe they're entitled to something that they are in fact not. i could always spot the people who didn't know their rights because they would say "i know my rights". they always thought they were the first people to ever have a broken phone and that we hadn't had the same situation 5 times that week already

Tree

aye, the "i know my rights" folks are NEVER entitled to what they think they are. they shout and shout and shout at you, and then behave nicely when the manager confirms that they're not entitled to anything.

also, when they say water damage, YOU WATERDAMAGED YOUR OWN PHONE YOU FOOL. it's not a cop out, dont use your phone in the rain, rain is water you tools!

/rant

Sam Vimes

Tree wrote: »

also, when they say water damage, YOU WATERDAMAGED YOUR OWN PHONE YOU FOOL. it's not a cop out, dont use your phone in the rain, rain is water you tools!

rain is water!?!?!?!? :eek:


didn't you get the memo? mprc, who only get paid when they repair a phone, for some reason decide to pretend your phone got water in it and send it back. so they pay a courier to bring it to them, they pay an assistant to bring it to the engineer, they pay an engineer to look at it and then they pay the courier to bring it back again, and for all this they receive no money because they didn't fix the phone. they do this because they are retarded

a woman once handed me a phone for repair and insisted she hadn't put it anywhere near water and under the screen was completely covered in condensation

Random

Commander Vimes wrote: »

rain is water!?!?!?!? :eek:


didn't you get the memo? mprc, who only get paid when they repair a phone, for some reason decide to pretend your phone got water in it and send it back. so they pay a courier to bring it to them, they pay an assistant to bring it to the engineer, they pay an engineer to look at it and then they pay the courier to bring it back again, and for all this they receive no money because they didn't fix the phone. they do this because they are retarded

a woman once handed me a phone for repair and insisted she hadn't put it anywhere near water and under the screen was completely covered in condensation

But condensation isn't water!

Tree

Commander Vimes wrote: »

rain is water!?!?!?!? :eek:


didn't you get the memo? mprc, who only get paid when they repair a phone, for some reason decide to pretend your phone got water in it and send it back. so they pay a courier to bring it to them, they pay an assistant to bring it to the engineer, they pay an engineer to look at it and then they pay the courier to bring it back again, and for all this they receive no money because they didn't fix the phone. they do this because they are retarded

a woman once handed me a phone for repair and insisted she hadn't put it anywhere near water and under the screen was completely covered in condensation

we didnt use mprc. think we were using sigma's repair lot. loads of pages and photos of chipboards stating water damage.]


gotta love the ppl who deny dropping their phones too, despite the phone being covered completely in chips and scratches adn the repair company sending back pictures of the switches all being shattered off the board. phone shop customers are the greatest.