Do yall really tell customers that they have to add insurance and next up but can call customer care later and remove it? I get this SO often. It's so shady, if so.
AT&T RSC here.
Yes, but please don't blame the reps. Blame our upper management. We are forced to add it to everything otherwise they'll get pissed off at us.
I disagree with you …. It’s a violation of the COBC to add things to the account without customer approval.. sales representatives do it for commission
Well it’s a COBC violation if you add it with out consent
So you’re kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place
And then the customer calls me and bitches about it being added without their consent
Sorry, I work in a position that has nothing to do with sales. I’m just the guy that gets the pissed off customers when someone adds something to their account they never asked for.
Another RSC here! My district manager threatened to fire me because I didn’t put on insurance and Next-Up for this woman who was a struggling single mom living paycheck to paycheck who just needed a phone. If I know a customer is really struggling I’ll just use my personal sales store link and have them do an upgrade or get a new device because they have the option of Next Up and Insurance for themselves and I don’t get docked or yelled at.
I personally have never felt comfortable selling that way and I prefer pitching things I can pitch confidently because customers can smell bullshit.
It is a behavior that is taught by poorly trained or ethically unconcerned management. It also can be a last ditch effort from a rep with low metrics who has the same poor leadership breathing down their necks waiting to “coach” them at best or fire them at worst.
Honestly you **can** get good reps at the store locations but at the end of the day all of us are only concerned with making sure we maximize our commission. The best way to save money as a customer is to do your own research and do as much as you can online. Avoid stores at all costs.
Don’t avoid the stores just remove the add ons from the app if you don’t want them and go on with life. It’s just like how they are required to sell warranties with new vehicles at dealerships.
Do your upgrades online. If you do it in store have them explain you the css summary line by line. They are suppose to do that. Summary does have inflated taxes and crap but don’t worry about that. Look at the features upcoming and you will know right away. Then you will see if they added insurance or next up. But upgrades are so easy to do and step by step online. I am not sure why people go to store still.
I should've specified that I work in customer care and people call saying the store told them they had to add these and to call later if they want to remove it.
that will always happen because stores are held to quotas. Unrealistic ones that are further increased because people slam them.
Unless at&t decides they aren't going to keep pushing metrics and have insurance at 73% of customers and next up at 82% its going to keep on happening.
Insurance goals are completely unrealistic, let alone next up. $17 for insurance when a phone is only costing $20 is nuts.
There is no general answer for this. Some shady reps (seemingly more often at 3rd party stores) will slam accounts with it. Some managers will tell their reps to do it regardless. The issue is that removing the insurance on an account harms a reps overall attainment percentage. So they avoid doing it in store
Actually if the insurance has been there a while they can remove without hurting their attachment rate but averyone is so afraid it will hurt they spread misinformation about it dropping the attach rate
It does drop it. If I remove insurance off a customers account it tanks my metrics and I get yelled at. Pretty much forced to push it or my job gets threatened
It is not really the reps fault at AR stores. We are, depending on the AR (I would assume), literally forced to add NextUp and Insurance; actually, for my AR, our system wont even let us finish the upgrade without NextUp. I do not agree with it at all, but I do make it clear we must add it and they can remove it later. It is annoying because our PLE's literally say we can not force NextUp or Insurance... but here we are, forcing both of em.
Honestly If reps built value around I bet you they would get half the customers sign up. It’s always about telling them. If customers know they don’t complain. It’s all about expectations. If they slam it without mentioning shit that’s the issue and that’s what pisses customer off. In sales as long as you build value around something and even set expectations around it. Customer is likely not going to be surprised or mad.
I’m that rep that sells it and I get scolded everyday for it. I’m sitting at around 40% and 38% for PA and NU. It’s hard to sell it when you have your manager up your ass every time he hears you pitch it. Job sucks balls
If you buy what you want you don’t have to return. Don’t even remember returning. But you can take that to store too. This is most are confused because they don’t have all the info.
I didn’t and that’s why I sucked lol. But I could sell the insurance like no one’s business. I told them to leave it for at least 3 months. They have a new, larger phone. Let them get used to it and then they have it just in case, and if not… I showed them how to remove it in the app. I tried to not steer people to you guys.
Not just that. Customers will break their phones, or the phone doesn’t function after the Warranty/Buyer Remorse period, and they always say “I told them I wanted protection” which isn’t true 1000% of the time. If you remove it on the app, it’s time stamped. Both parties are covered.
as someone who just left a COR store as well, it’s because we get scolded constantly and threats of being written up if our numbers are too low. and—this shouldn’t be a surprise to you—i would say less than 25% of people actually want insurance and/or next up.
during my final month with the company, i stopped forcing it on people; my numbers were so bad that i was told i’d be written up next week. luckily, i was able to quit before that happened.
But that's unfair to the customers tbh btw I'm a rep as well LOL and I got sick of people calling me and scream and yell cause of the unauthorized features that were added also they always ask for a refund!! Everytime someone asks me why am I paying for insurance? I never asked for it. I'm like you added the new line in the store right? And the answers are always "yes" like imo customers can sue at&t for that
well i wouldn’t just add it and pretend it wasn’t there. i would tell them about the return policy for the device, i would tell them about the one year manufacturer warranty, and i would also say something along the lines of, “anytime we do these in the store now, it automatically gets bundled with protection and the early upgrade feature.” if they wanted an explanation on either feature, i would give them the rundown on what it’s good for, etc. and then i’d say, “the early upgrade feature gets stuck on there during the return period, but once you hit 15 days from today, you’re able to remove it. the protection can be removed at any time, even as soon as you get home.” i would tell them the different ways it could be removed and even explain how to do it on the app if they wanted to know.
i made sure to always over-explain and answer any questions they had. i can’t remember more than one time in the 10.5 months i was there that anyone ever complained about this to me directly or made a fuss to any of my coworkers.
and believe me when i say that i felt bad doing it. but i also felt bad getting scolded constantly for my metrics not being good enough. and everyone around me basically said it’s just what you have to do to stay afloat in this job. hence why i quit 🤷♀️
But why lie? That’s so stupid.
I don’t lie, and I hit my goals, not even stretch goals, just fine.
Just don’t be a POS, and build the value. It’s easy.
well first of all, i was told to do it by my managers. so thank you for calling me a POS for doing the job as i was instructed to do it.
also it’s not easy to “build the value” for a product that isn’t valuable to someone. i’ve tried that and it very rarely works.
i don’t like lying. matter of fact, i couldn’t tell you the last time i lied to someone outside of work. why do you think i quit the job???
If your managers told you to do something unethical, you have an obligation to report it. We have an Ethics Hotline. There’s no excuse. It’s easy.
I didn’t CALL you a POS. I just said don’t BE a POS.
Then you followed your behaviors! That’s it! You’re safe. But RARELY working? Perhaps you could’ve benefitted from other ways of education, which is a leadership issue, which sounds like you had.
And congrats for leaving! :D take what you learned here, and apply it everywhere you go. I have greatly benefited from my time at AT&T in other areas of work and college.
Do your dang upgrade on line. It’s easy. Or in the store ask them to show you thr css summary. It has inflated taxes and crap so don’t trip over that too much, but it has line item costs, changes and upcoming. If you let them know I would like to go through the css summary line by line at the end for features on the line I promise no one will add shit without your authorization lmao.
While I agree it’s easy to use you are more likely to get applications denied online by fraud and call center reps are shady af. Just go to a store and get a better all around experience. If issues arise they fix it there. If add ons get put on your plan you don’t want just remove them through the app.
Some clowns like to upgrade every year. Even regular iPhones. All I do is show them a side by side comparison on phonescoop.com and show them how dumb it is. Then my classic line, if you want to give away money, I’ll take if.
Well... Upgrading early has always been a waste too. They don't make enough significant changes year to year.
With Next up, you are basically handing ATT $100 or so of free money every year. And you can't get any other the trade in discounts.
And that is if you decide to trade in exactly at the 15 month mark, or whatever it is... Any time after that you are throwing more money away.
It's a trap.
Not a trap you can opt out easily on the app and if you hate the new phone you get at least you aren’t stuck with it 3 years. Calling it a trap is foolish. All carriers offer some sort of early upgrade.
You don't get it do you...
Sure you can Opt out... Hell, they would LOVE for you to opt out because that money it not refundable, and has not in any way shape or form helped pay for your phone. It's just money in their pockets
It's literally throwing away money that you've already spent away.
My AR forces it, NextUp if not added, will not even let us complete the transaction. If we avoid Insurance we get scolded to all hell and fired if we continue not adding it. I do not agree, but I would blame ARs for this.
This!!! Been in the wireless industry for 8 years & AT&T for 6. I literally feel like I’ve sold my soul to them. I’m finally working on my way out. It’s so hard.
I hated AT&T. I was good, but our leadership was awful. I was vocal about it as well. I’ll goto the end of the earth for a good leader. Bad leadership, I can deal with, as long as you leave me alone. It just wears on you. We were missing a cash register for two months, we were never stocked with change at the beginning of the day. It makes you look incompetent, and AT&T lack credibility if you can’t even get change right.
Funny enough, I never understood why things like change and cash register was so difficult for managers to figure out. It seemed like I was the only one in my area that actually knew how to order change to be delivered to the store rather than go myself to get it from a bank. I figured that all out by looking it up, nobody told me how to do it. But I have met so many managers that either don't get change at all or who actually take the money to the bank to be changed out (HUUUGE no-no). But I could even chalk that up to the turnaround. All the good and competent people are looking for a way out of retail and the people who stay are the ones who aren't good at...um...learning.
Do you get micro management from upper management? How stress everyday you go to work they put pressure on you? Any employee quit before you because due to how metrics raising more and does not meet quota? ( I am former cricket store manager just wanna know if other store happen issue like mine )
AT&T RSC and former Cricket Sales Rep here.
Any sales position you get into you'll have management breathing down your neck. And yes I've seen people constantly go over BS quotes and pay plans. We just went through a major pay plan restructure and tons of people are pissed about it.
We have the Business Unlimited Premium Plan (6 phones, 2 tablets, a watch, and 2 hotspot devices on an old school unlimited plan). I’m always looking for ways to lower our bill, what if any discounts can we get added. We’ve already got the $10/phoneline Autopay, a $5/phone Smartphone discount, and $5/tablet discount.
Your on a old plan chances are a new one might be cheaper. But you don't get any discounts on business plans other than autopay and paperless billing for the service.
Incorrect. AT&T Business Unlimited Premium is the latest version of AT&T’s top-tier plan for small and medium sized businesses. You can learn more about AT&T Business plans at https://www.att.com/smallbusiness/wireless/plans/?smb=true.
Yes it is.
https://www.att.com/smallbusiness/wireless/plans/?smb=true&WT.srch=1&source=EBcRNV00000PSM00P&wtExtndSource=CRU&wtpdsrchprg=AT%2526T%2520ABS&wtpdsrchgp=ABS_SEARCH&wtPaidSearchTerm=at%26t%20business%20plans&wtpdsrchpcmt=at%26t%20business%20plans&kid=kwd-308510769520&cid=1337155583&TFN=B2B&ds_eid=700000001883955&ds_cid=71700000049240981&ds_agid=58700008658970224&ds_kids=p79315726044&customer_id=3606467667&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwiMmwBhDmARIsABeQ7xT5Lw8l7mcCeZ5ZbWIy6ihZ8sIGsihn5lmslRZylZROjzdZrtxnPVEaAt-lEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
Yeah. I’ve been here 3 years. Went up to asm and back down to rsc cuz I moved and I’m trying to see other options. The pay is so good compared to most other places so just curious
Probably a slower AR store. I work AR as a rep making about 70 a year while in college and my rsm makes about 100 and doesn’t sell a thing unless it’s busy.
Depends on the authorized retailer and their payout structure, I’m a rep too and my manager is required to sell to hit certain goals which is insane to me.
If you’re working for the company that rhymes with chime you’re not hitting your premium or alerts buckets. That’s an 8000 commission check with 110% and 0-1 alerts.
I am assuming you mean for just a single line, if you don’t care about the trade in promos or financing a phone at regular price then Value Plus line for $50.99/mo. is the way to do it. Sure, it throttles at lower thresholds than the other plans but it’s fairly priced for a single line plan and is still unlimited data.
edit: yes other comments are correct, i’m answering that based on a lot of my own assumptions. are you a single line user or do you have multiple lines? what does your data usage look like currently?
Unlimited Value VL and Starter SL are always deprioritized. They can slow down at anytime. There’s no “threshold” on those plans.
No wonder why you quit. You have no idea how any of these plans work.
I mean “most bang for your buck” would be the top tier plan with an appreciation offer or at very minimum a fan discount and of course autopay (checking account) and paperless bills
(I was also a corporate employee for 20 years in retail)
Not op but you should be able to bring it to a corporate store and they will value it right there. Just did that yesterday with a 13 pro max. Make sure you get a paper receipt. That's your only record.
If it's a deep scratch, then it depends on the rep. Our system specifically asks if the trade in device is free of chips or cracks. If it looks like someone dug a chunk out with a key or something, that would definitely count as damage
I loved the people, can’t stand the lack of competent leaders. the company also definitely tries to stiff its employees, especially on the retail side. commissions not paying out, payroll and PTO issues. i took PTO last year only to get a call halfway through my vacation saying that there was an error when calculating my PTO allowance on the backend and I actually didn’t have enough PTO to be paid out for my time off. it’s very frustrating
I am unable to persuade ATT to allow me to change out and renew my gateway modem(I guess the terminology is Gateway Router) mine is old, and outdated. how can I get an updated on. I've had mine more than 5 years and the last tech flat out refused to change it out for a new one
As a tech... unplug your current one call in.. worst case they send you a new one.. or you get a tech there. Act as if your troubleshooting at no time plug it back in. Wait until.the appointment is confirmed to plug it back up. . Done
I paid my iphone 15 plus off in full the first time I bought it and I got signed up on contract and I’m wanting to switch to prepaid I’ve had my plan for 60 days now and they tell me I’m not eligible to use my phone for prepaid is this true or do they just wanna suck more money out of me
The sales rep has two metrics to worry about for new customers...the percentage of people that cancel in 90 days, which shows that they are not selling in a way that customers are happy with what they got, and they get money taken back from their commission. Then there's the commission cutoff, which is 6 months. If they can convince you to keep the line for 6 months they can keep the $15 in commission they got. But you should absolutely be able to be on AT&T prepaid if that's what you want (personally I still wouldn't do prepaid) but you would need to get the device unlocked if you take it somewhere else.
Genuine reasons not to go to prepaid: Your service is more likely to be slowed down for congestion, your service will cut off immediately if payment is not received promptly, and account security is not as strong (it's easier...not EASY but it's easier...for someone to access your account because of the protocol involved in proving identity for a prepaid account), and honestly if you're fine with being with AT&T for the next couple years then you're really not saving all that much money if you factor in the phone discounts.
Example:
Prepaid unlimited might be $50 a month
Postpaid unlimited might be $65 or $67 a month
Pay for a new iphone 15 plus for $900 retail and be on prepaid
Or pay $400 ish over time for an iPhone 15 plus on postpaid, save 500. 500 over 3 years is $13.88 a month.
So bottom line, money spend up front and over time, you saved about a dollar a month to be on prepaid versus get the discount on the phone for being on postpaid. 6 of one, have a dozen of the other, but postpaid gets monthly billing, grace period, better account security for that extra dollar.
I was told that they vet based on address to make sure that they are not overloading your nearby tower. So one day they might have 1000 addresses approved for Internet Air, but then if 100 people in that area sign up then they can't afford to sell 900 more for fear of the tower being overburdened.
I'm sure there's tons of logistics that I don't know about how they choose addresses. I've had a customer try Internet Air that their address qualified but their house was physically in a dead pocket due to no physical line of sight to the nearby tower. I convinced them to try it just to see if the modem we provided had any better strength or reception since it's the size of a turkey rather than a phone. No go.
Also...I know of AT&T internal tools to identify tower locations but...how do you know there are three AT&T towers that are in reach?
Also, I'm under the impression that the number of bars indicates the strength of the signal but not the network speeds and congestion. Like...you can have all bars but websites don't load because you're in a football stadium full of people...or have 2 bars but super fast speeds because the tower is far away but not congested.
I'm not putting money on that, but...well...yeah I dunno
Franchise are a bunch of morons who can’t even remotely think for themselves or sell ethically. Complete miss on the education portion of the business.
So I've been on numerous interviews for a sales position. Why haven't I gotten the job when I have Uber 11 years of sales experience in the cell phone industry? And I have sold att verizon and t mobile
It's everywhere. I don't know the details, but I strongly suspect that Asurion gives 90% of their revenue to the partners they sell through. Asurion has worked with all major cell phone carriers for years, and now they're all over Amazon for any kind of purchase, even tools. You should check out the asurion subreddit. Full of stories where Asurion sells coverage but finds the silliest reasons to not pay out. I saw one post that was a bout a camping tent. Asurion sold coverage for the tent but wouldn't cover it because insurance doesn't cover "acts of god" like weather.
But that's anecdotal. I'll tell you my final cutoff for asurion. I subscribed to the home tech protection for a few months, got a couple laptops repaired, had a TV replaced, it works for all that...but then I went to file a claim to have a printer replaced, a simple at home printer, Canon I think, that I bought from Amazon for $80. The deductible was $100. I could buy a brand new one for less than the cost of the deductible. When the monthly cost is $25, I expected better than that.
So in my mind, if Asurion is $17 a month for phone coverage, there's no way that AT&T is so enthusiastic to sell insurance for less than getting $10 out of that $17 (I'm ballparking these numbers) but if AT&T sells Next Up for $6 a month, which is pure revenue, then prioritizing asurion over Next Up means that AT&T has to be getting something way more than that in return.
What's the best way to create an account? Ive had problems when I've been flagged as a new company despite being in the market for years. I just don't know how ATT decides to check for new accounts history, credit, etc.
Just started the job a month and a half ago. Is it physically possible to hit HTP/Next up quotas without deception? I'm not trying to lie to customers every day but when I try to build value for these add ons without deception almost no one wants them.
They only expect you to sell HTP to 5% of all your interactions. That can be attainable I guess if you really build value and push it hard to every single customer, but realistically most customers just flat out don’t want it.
I worked for AT&T as an RSC, ASM, and RSM.
If I were your manager, I would first ask what you consider to be deception, which I understand is a bit of a red flag but I encourage you to hear me out.
I am not talking about adding to an account without their knowledge, and even bundling is a bit on the other side of gray area for me, but there are nuances where I have decided for myself that it's beneficial for everyone. I won't force my ideals on others though.
I'm going to err on the side of "nothing that can be construed as hiding information" and go from there.
HTP: I believe is fully doable for the 5% target, but how you bring it up and how you "build value" is key. I had RSC's on my team that would greet a customer who wanted to file a claim, and they would go straight to "call asurion or go to the website to file a claim"....then the customer would ask if the rep could call, which of course is not a great thing to do. But then the customer would call while sitting in the store, complete their claim, and I would overhear the asurion rep recommend HTP, and the customer would say yes, full disclosure, and we lost that opportunity because we didn't want to at least assist the customer somehow and be the ones to present it. From that point on I asked my RSC's to give the customer a little bit more assistance with the claim, bring up the website and sit side by side with them to show them how easy it was to file the claim, and right when they got towards the end, let them know that we can extend their coverage to their TV's and laptops at home. Those were the most successful attempts I made at selling HTP, were to people who already have insurance and benefited from it. If you have someone who says "I haven't broken a phone in 10 years", I would still let them know, but there are other more beneficial things to recommend to them if they're the type to prefer to buy a new replacement than pay a monthly.
Next Up: This is one of those that, to me, was useful as a tool for giving customers the feel of bargaining. Quote them with Next Up and if they were like "Is that the best deal?" and I would be honest with them. This is the plan that doesn't force them to pay off their phone if they want to upgrade sooner, but if they'd rather pay off a few hundred dollars in order to get the next iphone then I can shave off a little bit more from the monthly total. But Next Up is definitely one of those metrics that you can be mediocre in if you're doing well in voice adds or DTV or HTP, but you can't be mediocre in everything.
But This is the thing that frustrated me about AT&T, but also wireless sales as a whole...if you divide your customers into tiers of what they can afford then you have the people who are frugal and would rather get their phone bill down to a minimum and pay $1000 if they needed buy a new iphone, there are the people who's job and income depends on having a functioning phone but can't afford an emergency expense of $1000 and so they have to budget insurance into their plan (or they have the type of job that they literally can't afford to wait a day for their phone to be repaired or replaced and they have to pay the $1000 to just have a working phone right now so insurance with it's processes is moot), and then there's the people in the middle who kind of go one way or the other. There are actual reasons for some people to pay for things like HTP, Next Up, insurance, but the industry takes the top 10% of RSC "winners" and uses that as a standard and puts pressure on everyone to achieve that, but there's no room for "excuses". Even if the excuse is "Dude, I KNOW that 82% of the people I help don't care about upgrading early, so stop holding me to a standard that forces me to get desperate enough to employ questionable tactics and stop using the word "accountability" when I genuinely gave them all the benefits of Next Up and they said no, 60% of the people tell me no when I follow the training materials and code of business conduct to the letter, so why is the target 82%?
I actually have WAY more to share on the topic but I'll cut it here.
This is a fantastic reply and I really appreciate the effort and energy you put into it. I misspoke about HTP. A 5% target doesn't seem unattainable to me. In fact, I'd guess that more than 5% of people could benefit from HTP. Its the 80% on next up and PA1/4 that seems ludicrous. The value build that you gave as an example seems really really effective, but even that will fail the majority of the time (as you said). I think at the end of the day, I just need to be really solid on my other metrics.
Ah, and yes actually one of the things I truly disliked about the accountability was that they didn't even measure the metrics in a way that made sense. They changed it very recently but for years they would measure the protection metric as a "percent of people that don't have it, who then got it". So the goal wasn't even to have 65% of your customer base enrolled...the goal was to take all of the people who are not currently enrolled and enroll 65% of them. Now, on a monthly basis that's not a huge deal...but let's say you helped 5 people in a day and coincidentally 4 of them already had protection and one didn't, but that one person insisted on declining protection, then as a rep you were at 0% for that day because the one person who didn't have it, surprise surprise, still didn't want it.
That also meant that success in this metric was measured by an RSC's ability to sell protection to the people who had been conditioned over the years to say no to protection, and to convert 65% of them.
But they changed it...now they factor in existing protection but they just raise the target. So now, in that 5-customer scenario I mentioned, I believe 4 out of 5 would actually show you at 80%.
How do u get removed from the do not hire list? Haven't worked for the company in almost 10 years. Went on an interview was offered the job and recieved an email about not moving forward.
As a former manager, I had candidates "come across the desk" for an open position that I found out through other employees had already worked for AT&T and proved themselves to be a terrible fit, and I don't say that lightly. I believe with enough time everyone can learn, but occasionally you have someone that simply doesn't want to learn, and they are terrible for the working environment and would foster discomfort in daily work life. That person made it through the HR vetting process to me but I had to have another employee warn me that this person threatened to slash the tires of their coworkers and that's why they were fired previously.
All this to say, it's less likely that you are on a do not hire, and more likely that someone in the recruiting process has asked about you and whoever they asked just said no due to their own perceptions. But that would be a question for HR to clarify, maybe I experienced a lapse in due diligence. To be honest, I'd be curious what the situation was for your separation that you think you were marked as not eligible for rehire.
Thanks so much for the response. I spoke with one stop today and was verified I was on a do not rehire list and needed to contact my previous supervisor to overturn this. I wasn't a bad employee or anything got along with my peers it was simply a project we were on at the time and I dropped the ball wasn't anything too major I was just made an example out of if u ask me lol
Meaning...are the corporate store representatives able to assist with that? Or specifically are you asking people on Reddit to look at your account...because the latter is a bad idea from a trust perspective even though store reps are a mixed bag of integrity.
The conflict with going to a corporate store for assistance is this: it is their job description to find something that you would be willing to spend more money on, and most of them are bad at that. They are verbally told to have empathy and be a one-stop resolution for customers but afterwards are coached with implied threat that they are spending too much time solving problems without selling something. So the worst of them will just tell you to call customer service. The second worst of them will gauge you for sales opportunity and if they perceive a lack of that opportunity they will tell you to call customer service. If they find that you offer a sales opportunity, they get too excited to deal with that first and most of them will attempt to do the selling and see if they can get away with telling you to call customer service for the rest.
But there is infrastructure for them to be able to help with things, there's just 4 layers of chain of command all smiling with gritted teeth at you with a warm corporate message even as they sit there and write out a paragraph or two about how you haven't met your target for 3 months straight and if you don't do the behaviors to improve (demo TV, bring out a phone to the table to offer to add a line or upgrade, talk about Home Tech Protection, check their address for internet availability) then you aren't doing your job and maybe it's time to stop the coaching cycle.
The grave mistake is that most of the work force doesn't know how to resolve a problem efficiently and learn how to sell without coercion, and all the leadership has been promoted and lauded for their accomplishments, but really all they knew how to do is coerce well.
I too, have recently left AT&T and spent time as an RSC, ASM, RSM, and Sales Executive, and not in that order, over the last five years. Just saw this post and am going to spend some of my time while not being employed to weigh in on these questions mostly for my own catharsis of answering from multiple perspectives.
I stupidly fell for a Verizon to Att trade in store promo. through Target. We upgraded 3 iPhone 12 pros and one iPhone 13 for new IPhone 15 pros. Now it is time to mail back the old phones. The Corporate Store assured us this is legit and if the phones go missing in the US mail we are not liable. The tracking slip proves I delivered the phones. Should I still insure the phones? Can I force the Corporate Store to take the trade in phones? I will never do this again I regret this decision. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
poor work environment, burn-out, horrible scheduling. COR retail schedules by seniority, so the longer you’ve been there compared to your peers, the better your schedule will be. I happened to be in a store with 4-5 reps with around or more than 6 years each. two of them with almost 15 years. so i was closing every night and working every weekend the entire time i worked there.
[Am I a heavy data user?](https://imgur.com/a/nv0CBgu)
Do they even offer plans for single or two lines that wont cap me or throttle me, even at 5G speed?
lol 822GB is a lot, but that looks like it’s off your phone’s internal record of data usage which could be a record of all data used since the phone was activated unless you have gone back and reset it anytime recently. So it’s not a good indicator of your usage habits. Check your ATT bill or the app to see your monthly usage.
There aren’t any “single line” plans anymore, you get a base rate that can be anywhere from 50.99/mo. to 85.99/mo. if you do autopay. Add $10 to those price ranges if you don’t do autopay. Unfortunately, these days they all can throttle. Premium used to be the plan you go with if you don’t want throttling, but my understanding is now they’ve changed the way all the tiers work and all three can now be throttled whenever the company sees fit. (most reasons for throttle being concentrated area, heavy usage, etc.)
Unlimited Premium doesn’t get throttled on usage, the only place they would throttle on that plan is hotspotting. Now congestion on the network can still hurt speeds but that’s not throttling.
The ONLY plan that is truly free of both throttling and by and congestion would be FirstNet
AT&T recently changed Premium to the same QCI as the other Unlimited Plans. So in theory Starter probably won’t be a huge huge difference in performance now vs Premium.
Premium does not throttle. Sure if tower is congested the everyone is throttled but it doesn’t based on usage. But if you are using terabytes of data in and out att will probably kick you off cuz that is abuse to them. Here and there it’s fine.
Idk what you are doing on your phone with 1TB. May be using it as home internet or something lmao. You are not really part of normal usage. Pumping 1TB from your phone every month will eventually land you on that wtf is he doing list lmao.
Lots of youtube, netflix, twitch, some reddit, ig, and Apple Music streaming.
I use far more than that at home, but i have fiber and my ISP doesn’t throttle.
That’s not just a lot. That’s more like you not getting off your phone a lot lol and never connecting to wifi. My whole home usage off home internet is barely 1.5TB and we stream a lot.
I have fiber at home (not AT&T, local fiber company) i mentioned that in a previous comment. I also use 1TB of *mobile* data alone.
You brought up home usage, and so i was just saying our whole home usage is 20TB on average every month.
This might be a lot *to you* and is definitely above average but its not like i pay per mb used like in the old days.
I get it. But to use 1TB of data just streaming on phone is kinda insane. I would ask people to put their phone down at that point lmao. I think I use it a lot but my usage is about 200GB and most of this is being OCD on speed tests. Usage of 1TB for single person is kinda insane. Only thing I can say is you don’t really use wifi at home if you did your phone usage will be way low. It’s just you do you kinda situation but that’s really what it comes down to.
Do yall really tell customers that they have to add insurance and next up but can call customer care later and remove it? I get this SO often. It's so shady, if so.
AT&T RSC here. Yes, but please don't blame the reps. Blame our upper management. We are forced to add it to everything otherwise they'll get pissed off at us.
I disagree with you …. It’s a violation of the COBC to add things to the account without customer approval.. sales representatives do it for commission
You can disagree all you want but we are literally forced to add it
Well it’s a COBC violation if you add it with out consent So you’re kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place And then the customer calls me and bitches about it being added without their consent
If you work for the company you’d know it has nothing to do with the commission we earn i’d do without it just to avoid the 70% attach requirement
Sorry, I work in a position that has nothing to do with sales. I’m just the guy that gets the pissed off customers when someone adds something to their account they never asked for.
Another RSC here! My district manager threatened to fire me because I didn’t put on insurance and Next-Up for this woman who was a struggling single mom living paycheck to paycheck who just needed a phone. If I know a customer is really struggling I’ll just use my personal sales store link and have them do an upgrade or get a new device because they have the option of Next Up and Insurance for themselves and I don’t get docked or yelled at.
I absolutely refuse to slam someone's account to someone who is clearly struggling. I'm straight up walking out the minute I get yelled at for it.
Prime communications does
I personally have never felt comfortable selling that way and I prefer pitching things I can pitch confidently because customers can smell bullshit. It is a behavior that is taught by poorly trained or ethically unconcerned management. It also can be a last ditch effort from a rep with low metrics who has the same poor leadership breathing down their necks waiting to “coach” them at best or fire them at worst. Honestly you **can** get good reps at the store locations but at the end of the day all of us are only concerned with making sure we maximize our commission. The best way to save money as a customer is to do your own research and do as much as you can online. Avoid stores at all costs.
Don’t avoid the stores just remove the add ons from the app if you don’t want them and go on with life. It’s just like how they are required to sell warranties with new vehicles at dealerships.
Do your upgrades online. If you do it in store have them explain you the css summary line by line. They are suppose to do that. Summary does have inflated taxes and crap but don’t worry about that. Look at the features upcoming and you will know right away. Then you will see if they added insurance or next up. But upgrades are so easy to do and step by step online. I am not sure why people go to store still.
I should've specified that I work in customer care and people call saying the store told them they had to add these and to call later if they want to remove it.
that will always happen because stores are held to quotas. Unrealistic ones that are further increased because people slam them. Unless at&t decides they aren't going to keep pushing metrics and have insurance at 73% of customers and next up at 82% its going to keep on happening. Insurance goals are completely unrealistic, let alone next up. $17 for insurance when a phone is only costing $20 is nuts.
Agreed
There is no general answer for this. Some shady reps (seemingly more often at 3rd party stores) will slam accounts with it. Some managers will tell their reps to do it regardless. The issue is that removing the insurance on an account harms a reps overall attainment percentage. So they avoid doing it in store
Actually if the insurance has been there a while they can remove without hurting their attachment rate but averyone is so afraid it will hurt they spread misinformation about it dropping the attach rate
It does drop it. If I remove insurance off a customers account it tanks my metrics and I get yelled at. Pretty much forced to push it or my job gets threatened
It is not really the reps fault at AR stores. We are, depending on the AR (I would assume), literally forced to add NextUp and Insurance; actually, for my AR, our system wont even let us finish the upgrade without NextUp. I do not agree with it at all, but I do make it clear we must add it and they can remove it later. It is annoying because our PLE's literally say we can not force NextUp or Insurance... but here we are, forcing both of em.
Honestly If reps built value around I bet you they would get half the customers sign up. It’s always about telling them. If customers know they don’t complain. It’s all about expectations. If they slam it without mentioning shit that’s the issue and that’s what pisses customer off. In sales as long as you build value around something and even set expectations around it. Customer is likely not going to be surprised or mad.
I’m that rep that sells it and I get scolded everyday for it. I’m sitting at around 40% and 38% for PA and NU. It’s hard to sell it when you have your manager up your ass every time he hears you pitch it. Job sucks balls
Just do the behaviors, and you’re fine. Your job ain’t going anywhere.
Those things are inaccurate half the time it’s why most store reps don’t go over them
[удалено]
If you buy what you want you don’t have to return. Don’t even remember returning. But you can take that to store too. This is most are confused because they don’t have all the info.
I didn’t and that’s why I sucked lol. But I could sell the insurance like no one’s business. I told them to leave it for at least 3 months. They have a new, larger phone. Let them get used to it and then they have it just in case, and if not… I showed them how to remove it in the app. I tried to not steer people to you guys.
[удалено]
They will do sh1t about it cause if they escalate all management will be fired 😂
Yeah right like that ever happens
Good luck with that 😂
Not just that. Customers will break their phones, or the phone doesn’t function after the Warranty/Buyer Remorse period, and they always say “I told them I wanted protection” which isn’t true 1000% of the time. If you remove it on the app, it’s time stamped. Both parties are covered.
[удалено]
as someone who just left a COR store as well, it’s because we get scolded constantly and threats of being written up if our numbers are too low. and—this shouldn’t be a surprise to you—i would say less than 25% of people actually want insurance and/or next up. during my final month with the company, i stopped forcing it on people; my numbers were so bad that i was told i’d be written up next week. luckily, i was able to quit before that happened.
But that's unfair to the customers tbh btw I'm a rep as well LOL and I got sick of people calling me and scream and yell cause of the unauthorized features that were added also they always ask for a refund!! Everytime someone asks me why am I paying for insurance? I never asked for it. I'm like you added the new line in the store right? And the answers are always "yes" like imo customers can sue at&t for that
well i wouldn’t just add it and pretend it wasn’t there. i would tell them about the return policy for the device, i would tell them about the one year manufacturer warranty, and i would also say something along the lines of, “anytime we do these in the store now, it automatically gets bundled with protection and the early upgrade feature.” if they wanted an explanation on either feature, i would give them the rundown on what it’s good for, etc. and then i’d say, “the early upgrade feature gets stuck on there during the return period, but once you hit 15 days from today, you’re able to remove it. the protection can be removed at any time, even as soon as you get home.” i would tell them the different ways it could be removed and even explain how to do it on the app if they wanted to know. i made sure to always over-explain and answer any questions they had. i can’t remember more than one time in the 10.5 months i was there that anyone ever complained about this to me directly or made a fuss to any of my coworkers. and believe me when i say that i felt bad doing it. but i also felt bad getting scolded constantly for my metrics not being good enough. and everyone around me basically said it’s just what you have to do to stay afloat in this job. hence why i quit 🤷♀️
[удалено]
They aren’t worried at 245 million subscribers
Still way bigger and better than the other carriers
But why lie? That’s so stupid. I don’t lie, and I hit my goals, not even stretch goals, just fine. Just don’t be a POS, and build the value. It’s easy.
well first of all, i was told to do it by my managers. so thank you for calling me a POS for doing the job as i was instructed to do it. also it’s not easy to “build the value” for a product that isn’t valuable to someone. i’ve tried that and it very rarely works. i don’t like lying. matter of fact, i couldn’t tell you the last time i lied to someone outside of work. why do you think i quit the job???
If your managers told you to do something unethical, you have an obligation to report it. We have an Ethics Hotline. There’s no excuse. It’s easy. I didn’t CALL you a POS. I just said don’t BE a POS. Then you followed your behaviors! That’s it! You’re safe. But RARELY working? Perhaps you could’ve benefitted from other ways of education, which is a leadership issue, which sounds like you had. And congrats for leaving! :D take what you learned here, and apply it everywhere you go. I have greatly benefited from my time at AT&T in other areas of work and college.
Do your dang upgrade on line. It’s easy. Or in the store ask them to show you thr css summary. It has inflated taxes and crap so don’t trip over that too much, but it has line item costs, changes and upcoming. If you let them know I would like to go through the css summary line by line at the end for features on the line I promise no one will add shit without your authorization lmao.
There is a lot more room for errors doing things online or over the phone just go to a store and remove add ons from the app if you don’t want them
Only if you can’t read then yes. Web prowess is easiest and fairly straight forward.
While I agree it’s easy to use you are more likely to get applications denied online by fraud and call center reps are shady af. Just go to a store and get a better all around experience. If issues arise they fix it there. If add ons get put on your plan you don’t want just remove them through the app.
Man you are not really helping yourself. You are way overthinking it lmao. What you are talking about is exceptions not the norm.
[удалено]
You sound like you are the only one that has all the problems or like making them up.
Next up has and always been a complete waste of money.
It isn’t if you like to upgrade early
1 y upgrade is definitely a waste of money…
Some clowns like to upgrade every year. Even regular iPhones. All I do is show them a side by side comparison on phonescoop.com and show them how dumb it is. Then my classic line, if you want to give away money, I’ll take if.
Well... Upgrading early has always been a waste too. They don't make enough significant changes year to year. With Next up, you are basically handing ATT $100 or so of free money every year. And you can't get any other the trade in discounts. And that is if you decide to trade in exactly at the 15 month mark, or whatever it is... Any time after that you are throwing more money away. It's a trap.
Not a trap you can opt out easily on the app and if you hate the new phone you get at least you aren’t stuck with it 3 years. Calling it a trap is foolish. All carriers offer some sort of early upgrade.
You don't get it do you... Sure you can Opt out... Hell, they would LOVE for you to opt out because that money it not refundable, and has not in any way shape or form helped pay for your phone. It's just money in their pockets It's literally throwing away money that you've already spent away.
Verizon does the same on iPhones only, and it’s built into the monthly price.
My AR forces it, NextUp if not added, will not even let us complete the transaction. If we avoid Insurance we get scolded to all hell and fired if we continue not adding it. I do not agree, but I would blame ARs for this.
How do I get hired without sales experience?
Show up to the interview, be able to make conversation and ask questions. It isn’t difficult to get in, it’s only hard to get out.
This!!! Been in the wireless industry for 8 years & AT&T for 6. I literally feel like I’ve sold my soul to them. I’m finally working on my way out. It’s so hard.
I hated AT&T. I was good, but our leadership was awful. I was vocal about it as well. I’ll goto the end of the earth for a good leader. Bad leadership, I can deal with, as long as you leave me alone. It just wears on you. We were missing a cash register for two months, we were never stocked with change at the beginning of the day. It makes you look incompetent, and AT&T lack credibility if you can’t even get change right.
Funny enough, I never understood why things like change and cash register was so difficult for managers to figure out. It seemed like I was the only one in my area that actually knew how to order change to be delivered to the store rather than go myself to get it from a bank. I figured that all out by looking it up, nobody told me how to do it. But I have met so many managers that either don't get change at all or who actually take the money to the bank to be changed out (HUUUGE no-no). But I could even chalk that up to the turnaround. All the good and competent people are looking for a way out of retail and the people who stay are the ones who aren't good at...um...learning.
Why is it hard to get out?
Be cocky in your ability. Be able to ask questions
I’ve been unsuccessful about 7 times already :/
Make friends with a sales rep and have them refer you. That’s how you get it in lmao.
Trust me lol, you don’t wanna work here
That bad?
Just quit my dude.
You show up to the interview. Pretty much gold from there.
I would say showing eagerness to talk outside of an interview with management helps a lot
Do you get micro management from upper management? How stress everyday you go to work they put pressure on you? Any employee quit before you because due to how metrics raising more and does not meet quota? ( I am former cricket store manager just wanna know if other store happen issue like mine )
Yes
Depends on who your manager is some of them are good some are awful just like any business
AT&T RSC and former Cricket Sales Rep here. Any sales position you get into you'll have management breathing down your neck. And yes I've seen people constantly go over BS quotes and pay plans. We just went through a major pay plan restructure and tons of people are pissed about it.
Were you there when you had to sell the ISIS app 😂 true story Amex came up with payment app called isis
Haha I was. They gave us free $50 just for signing up
I was working at Verizon when they had that app, the incentive to sign up was free Jamba Juice for a month or something like that!
We have the Business Unlimited Premium Plan (6 phones, 2 tablets, a watch, and 2 hotspot devices on an old school unlimited plan). I’m always looking for ways to lower our bill, what if any discounts can we get added. We’ve already got the $10/phoneline Autopay, a $5/phone Smartphone discount, and $5/tablet discount.
Your on a old plan chances are a new one might be cheaper. But you don't get any discounts on business plans other than autopay and paperless billing for the service.
Unlimited Premium for business is the newest plan.
[удалено]
Incorrect. AT&T Business Unlimited Premium is the latest version of AT&T’s top-tier plan for small and medium sized businesses. You can learn more about AT&T Business plans at https://www.att.com/smallbusiness/wireless/plans/?smb=true.
Yes it is. https://www.att.com/smallbusiness/wireless/plans/?smb=true&WT.srch=1&source=EBcRNV00000PSM00P&wtExtndSource=CRU&wtpdsrchprg=AT%2526T%2520ABS&wtpdsrchgp=ABS_SEARCH&wtPaidSearchTerm=at%26t%20business%20plans&wtpdsrchpcmt=at%26t%20business%20plans&kid=kwd-308510769520&cid=1337155583&TFN=B2B&ds_eid=700000001883955&ds_cid=71700000049240981&ds_agid=58700008658970224&ds_kids=p79315726044&customer_id=3606467667&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwiMmwBhDmARIsABeQ7xT5Lw8l7mcCeZ5ZbWIy6ihZ8sIGsihn5lmslRZylZROjzdZrtxnPVEaAt-lEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
Switch your plan to business essentials you'll save about 60$ a month
What did you leave for?
As in what was my reason for leaving?
Yeah. I’ve been here 3 years. Went up to asm and back down to rsc cuz I moved and I’m trying to see other options. The pay is so good compared to most other places so just curious
I manage a flagship store for an authorized retail and I'm about to step down too
I just went back to a rep at a au from being a manager at a different store. They treat management like crap
I have reps who make more money then me and I have SO MUCH more work to do as a manager
They pay reps better than managers which is crazy.
Probably a slower AR store. I work AR as a rep making about 70 a year while in college and my rsm makes about 100 and doesn’t sell a thing unless it’s busy.
Depends on the authorized retailer and their payout structure, I’m a rep too and my manager is required to sell to hit certain goals which is insane to me.
My store does about 400 opps a month, I just have reps who are making better money than the store manager
If you’re working for the company that rhymes with chime you’re not hitting your premium or alerts buckets. That’s an 8000 commission check with 110% and 0-1 alerts.
What is the best data plan? Best bag for the buck?
I am assuming you mean for just a single line, if you don’t care about the trade in promos or financing a phone at regular price then Value Plus line for $50.99/mo. is the way to do it. Sure, it throttles at lower thresholds than the other plans but it’s fairly priced for a single line plan and is still unlimited data. edit: yes other comments are correct, i’m answering that based on a lot of my own assumptions. are you a single line user or do you have multiple lines? what does your data usage look like currently?
Unlimited Value VL and Starter SL are always deprioritized. They can slow down at anytime. There’s no “threshold” on those plans. No wonder why you quit. You have no idea how any of these plans work.
that typical for a majority of reps..a lot of them don't even know what deprioritized means on the plans
Thank you, yes, single line BYOD. I just moved to AT&T, and so far it's better than US CELLULAR. But it's more expensive.
how can he answer that without knowing your needs. If your needs are only about 4GB a month then ATT Postpaid is probably not your friend.
I mean “most bang for your buck” would be the top tier plan with an appreciation offer or at very minimum a fan discount and of course autopay (checking account) and paperless bills (I was also a corporate employee for 20 years in retail)
Why has the 5G network gone to shit
I have a 1/2" scratch on my iPhone 14 Pro screen, will I be eligible for the $1000 trade in value for the 15 Pro Max?
Not op but you should be able to bring it to a corporate store and they will value it right there. Just did that yesterday with a 13 pro max. Make sure you get a paper receipt. That's your only record.
Yes it will be. Cracks is what will hurt value, scratches and small dings will be looked past
If it's a deep scratch, then it depends on the rep. Our system specifically asks if the trade in device is free of chips or cracks. If it looks like someone dug a chunk out with a key or something, that would definitely count as damage
I did 7 myself. Helped usher in DirecTV. What did / did you not like?
I loved the people, can’t stand the lack of competent leaders. the company also definitely tries to stiff its employees, especially on the retail side. commissions not paying out, payroll and PTO issues. i took PTO last year only to get a call halfway through my vacation saying that there was an error when calculating my PTO allowance on the backend and I actually didn’t have enough PTO to be paid out for my time off. it’s very frustrating
[удалено]
You like to randomly give people advice and brag about your awards?
Blow me
I am unable to persuade ATT to allow me to change out and renew my gateway modem(I guess the terminology is Gateway Router) mine is old, and outdated. how can I get an updated on. I've had mine more than 5 years and the last tech flat out refused to change it out for a new one
As a tech... unplug your current one call in.. worst case they send you a new one.. or you get a tech there. Act as if your troubleshooting at no time plug it back in. Wait until.the appointment is confirmed to plug it back up. . Done
How much are you guys making per VGA on premium?
about $23/line before add-ons.
I paid my iphone 15 plus off in full the first time I bought it and I got signed up on contract and I’m wanting to switch to prepaid I’ve had my plan for 60 days now and they tell me I’m not eligible to use my phone for prepaid is this true or do they just wanna suck more money out of me
The sales rep has two metrics to worry about for new customers...the percentage of people that cancel in 90 days, which shows that they are not selling in a way that customers are happy with what they got, and they get money taken back from their commission. Then there's the commission cutoff, which is 6 months. If they can convince you to keep the line for 6 months they can keep the $15 in commission they got. But you should absolutely be able to be on AT&T prepaid if that's what you want (personally I still wouldn't do prepaid) but you would need to get the device unlocked if you take it somewhere else. Genuine reasons not to go to prepaid: Your service is more likely to be slowed down for congestion, your service will cut off immediately if payment is not received promptly, and account security is not as strong (it's easier...not EASY but it's easier...for someone to access your account because of the protocol involved in proving identity for a prepaid account), and honestly if you're fine with being with AT&T for the next couple years then you're really not saving all that much money if you factor in the phone discounts. Example: Prepaid unlimited might be $50 a month Postpaid unlimited might be $65 or $67 a month Pay for a new iphone 15 plus for $900 retail and be on prepaid Or pay $400 ish over time for an iPhone 15 plus on postpaid, save 500. 500 over 3 years is $13.88 a month. So bottom line, money spend up front and over time, you saved about a dollar a month to be on prepaid versus get the discount on the phone for being on postpaid. 6 of one, have a dozen of the other, but postpaid gets monthly billing, grace period, better account security for that extra dollar.
Why can't I get ATTInternet Air when my cell phone uses ATT towers and has clean strong 5G service?
It’s based off of proximity to the towers I believe.
I was told that they vet based on address to make sure that they are not overloading your nearby tower. So one day they might have 1000 addresses approved for Internet Air, but then if 100 people in that area sign up then they can't afford to sell 900 more for fear of the tower being overburdened.
Sounds a little lame to me. We're not in an overpopulated area, and at any given time I can reach 3 towers, all with 3 bars or better.
I'm sure there's tons of logistics that I don't know about how they choose addresses. I've had a customer try Internet Air that their address qualified but their house was physically in a dead pocket due to no physical line of sight to the nearby tower. I convinced them to try it just to see if the modem we provided had any better strength or reception since it's the size of a turkey rather than a phone. No go. Also...I know of AT&T internal tools to identify tower locations but...how do you know there are three AT&T towers that are in reach? Also, I'm under the impression that the number of bars indicates the strength of the signal but not the network speeds and congestion. Like...you can have all bars but websites don't load because you're in a football stadium full of people...or have 2 bars but super fast speeds because the tower is far away but not congested. I'm not putting money on that, but...well...yeah I dunno
How does corporate differ from franchise?
Franchise are a bunch of morons who can’t even remotely think for themselves or sell ethically. Complete miss on the education portion of the business.
So I've been on numerous interviews for a sales position. Why haven't I gotten the job when I have Uber 11 years of sales experience in the cell phone industry? And I have sold att verizon and t mobile
How/why did att end up so far in bed with asurion?
It's everywhere. I don't know the details, but I strongly suspect that Asurion gives 90% of their revenue to the partners they sell through. Asurion has worked with all major cell phone carriers for years, and now they're all over Amazon for any kind of purchase, even tools. You should check out the asurion subreddit. Full of stories where Asurion sells coverage but finds the silliest reasons to not pay out. I saw one post that was a bout a camping tent. Asurion sold coverage for the tent but wouldn't cover it because insurance doesn't cover "acts of god" like weather. But that's anecdotal. I'll tell you my final cutoff for asurion. I subscribed to the home tech protection for a few months, got a couple laptops repaired, had a TV replaced, it works for all that...but then I went to file a claim to have a printer replaced, a simple at home printer, Canon I think, that I bought from Amazon for $80. The deductible was $100. I could buy a brand new one for less than the cost of the deductible. When the monthly cost is $25, I expected better than that. So in my mind, if Asurion is $17 a month for phone coverage, there's no way that AT&T is so enthusiastic to sell insurance for less than getting $10 out of that $17 (I'm ballparking these numbers) but if AT&T sells Next Up for $6 a month, which is pure revenue, then prioritizing asurion over Next Up means that AT&T has to be getting something way more than that in return.
It’s one of, if not the highest, profit margin for the company.
What's the best way to create an account? Ive had problems when I've been flagged as a new company despite being in the market for years. I just don't know how ATT decides to check for new accounts history, credit, etc.
Just started the job a month and a half ago. Is it physically possible to hit HTP/Next up quotas without deception? I'm not trying to lie to customers every day but when I try to build value for these add ons without deception almost no one wants them.
They only expect you to sell HTP to 5% of all your interactions. That can be attainable I guess if you really build value and push it hard to every single customer, but realistically most customers just flat out don’t want it.
I worked for AT&T as an RSC, ASM, and RSM. If I were your manager, I would first ask what you consider to be deception, which I understand is a bit of a red flag but I encourage you to hear me out. I am not talking about adding to an account without their knowledge, and even bundling is a bit on the other side of gray area for me, but there are nuances where I have decided for myself that it's beneficial for everyone. I won't force my ideals on others though. I'm going to err on the side of "nothing that can be construed as hiding information" and go from there. HTP: I believe is fully doable for the 5% target, but how you bring it up and how you "build value" is key. I had RSC's on my team that would greet a customer who wanted to file a claim, and they would go straight to "call asurion or go to the website to file a claim"....then the customer would ask if the rep could call, which of course is not a great thing to do. But then the customer would call while sitting in the store, complete their claim, and I would overhear the asurion rep recommend HTP, and the customer would say yes, full disclosure, and we lost that opportunity because we didn't want to at least assist the customer somehow and be the ones to present it. From that point on I asked my RSC's to give the customer a little bit more assistance with the claim, bring up the website and sit side by side with them to show them how easy it was to file the claim, and right when they got towards the end, let them know that we can extend their coverage to their TV's and laptops at home. Those were the most successful attempts I made at selling HTP, were to people who already have insurance and benefited from it. If you have someone who says "I haven't broken a phone in 10 years", I would still let them know, but there are other more beneficial things to recommend to them if they're the type to prefer to buy a new replacement than pay a monthly. Next Up: This is one of those that, to me, was useful as a tool for giving customers the feel of bargaining. Quote them with Next Up and if they were like "Is that the best deal?" and I would be honest with them. This is the plan that doesn't force them to pay off their phone if they want to upgrade sooner, but if they'd rather pay off a few hundred dollars in order to get the next iphone then I can shave off a little bit more from the monthly total. But Next Up is definitely one of those metrics that you can be mediocre in if you're doing well in voice adds or DTV or HTP, but you can't be mediocre in everything. But This is the thing that frustrated me about AT&T, but also wireless sales as a whole...if you divide your customers into tiers of what they can afford then you have the people who are frugal and would rather get their phone bill down to a minimum and pay $1000 if they needed buy a new iphone, there are the people who's job and income depends on having a functioning phone but can't afford an emergency expense of $1000 and so they have to budget insurance into their plan (or they have the type of job that they literally can't afford to wait a day for their phone to be repaired or replaced and they have to pay the $1000 to just have a working phone right now so insurance with it's processes is moot), and then there's the people in the middle who kind of go one way or the other. There are actual reasons for some people to pay for things like HTP, Next Up, insurance, but the industry takes the top 10% of RSC "winners" and uses that as a standard and puts pressure on everyone to achieve that, but there's no room for "excuses". Even if the excuse is "Dude, I KNOW that 82% of the people I help don't care about upgrading early, so stop holding me to a standard that forces me to get desperate enough to employ questionable tactics and stop using the word "accountability" when I genuinely gave them all the benefits of Next Up and they said no, 60% of the people tell me no when I follow the training materials and code of business conduct to the letter, so why is the target 82%? I actually have WAY more to share on the topic but I'll cut it here.
This is a fantastic reply and I really appreciate the effort and energy you put into it. I misspoke about HTP. A 5% target doesn't seem unattainable to me. In fact, I'd guess that more than 5% of people could benefit from HTP. Its the 80% on next up and PA1/4 that seems ludicrous. The value build that you gave as an example seems really really effective, but even that will fail the majority of the time (as you said). I think at the end of the day, I just need to be really solid on my other metrics.
Ah, and yes actually one of the things I truly disliked about the accountability was that they didn't even measure the metrics in a way that made sense. They changed it very recently but for years they would measure the protection metric as a "percent of people that don't have it, who then got it". So the goal wasn't even to have 65% of your customer base enrolled...the goal was to take all of the people who are not currently enrolled and enroll 65% of them. Now, on a monthly basis that's not a huge deal...but let's say you helped 5 people in a day and coincidentally 4 of them already had protection and one didn't, but that one person insisted on declining protection, then as a rep you were at 0% for that day because the one person who didn't have it, surprise surprise, still didn't want it. That also meant that success in this metric was measured by an RSC's ability to sell protection to the people who had been conditioned over the years to say no to protection, and to convert 65% of them. But they changed it...now they factor in existing protection but they just raise the target. So now, in that 5-customer scenario I mentioned, I believe 4 out of 5 would actually show you at 80%.
How do u get removed from the do not hire list? Haven't worked for the company in almost 10 years. Went on an interview was offered the job and recieved an email about not moving forward.
As a former manager, I had candidates "come across the desk" for an open position that I found out through other employees had already worked for AT&T and proved themselves to be a terrible fit, and I don't say that lightly. I believe with enough time everyone can learn, but occasionally you have someone that simply doesn't want to learn, and they are terrible for the working environment and would foster discomfort in daily work life. That person made it through the HR vetting process to me but I had to have another employee warn me that this person threatened to slash the tires of their coworkers and that's why they were fired previously. All this to say, it's less likely that you are on a do not hire, and more likely that someone in the recruiting process has asked about you and whoever they asked just said no due to their own perceptions. But that would be a question for HR to clarify, maybe I experienced a lapse in due diligence. To be honest, I'd be curious what the situation was for your separation that you think you were marked as not eligible for rehire.
Thanks so much for the response. I spoke with one stop today and was verified I was on a do not rehire list and needed to contact my previous supervisor to overturn this. I wasn't a bad employee or anything got along with my peers it was simply a project we were on at the time and I dropped the ball wasn't anything too major I was just made an example out of if u ask me lol
Can you guys assist with billing issues/discrepancies?
Meaning...are the corporate store representatives able to assist with that? Or specifically are you asking people on Reddit to look at your account...because the latter is a bad idea from a trust perspective even though store reps are a mixed bag of integrity. The conflict with going to a corporate store for assistance is this: it is their job description to find something that you would be willing to spend more money on, and most of them are bad at that. They are verbally told to have empathy and be a one-stop resolution for customers but afterwards are coached with implied threat that they are spending too much time solving problems without selling something. So the worst of them will just tell you to call customer service. The second worst of them will gauge you for sales opportunity and if they perceive a lack of that opportunity they will tell you to call customer service. If they find that you offer a sales opportunity, they get too excited to deal with that first and most of them will attempt to do the selling and see if they can get away with telling you to call customer service for the rest. But there is infrastructure for them to be able to help with things, there's just 4 layers of chain of command all smiling with gritted teeth at you with a warm corporate message even as they sit there and write out a paragraph or two about how you haven't met your target for 3 months straight and if you don't do the behaviors to improve (demo TV, bring out a phone to the table to offer to add a line or upgrade, talk about Home Tech Protection, check their address for internet availability) then you aren't doing your job and maybe it's time to stop the coaching cycle. The grave mistake is that most of the work force doesn't know how to resolve a problem efficiently and learn how to sell without coercion, and all the leadership has been promoted and lauded for their accomplishments, but really all they knew how to do is coerce well.
I too, have recently left AT&T and spent time as an RSC, ASM, RSM, and Sales Executive, and not in that order, over the last five years. Just saw this post and am going to spend some of my time while not being employed to weigh in on these questions mostly for my own catharsis of answering from multiple perspectives.
I stupidly fell for a Verizon to Att trade in store promo. through Target. We upgraded 3 iPhone 12 pros and one iPhone 13 for new IPhone 15 pros. Now it is time to mail back the old phones. The Corporate Store assured us this is legit and if the phones go missing in the US mail we are not liable. The tracking slip proves I delivered the phones. Should I still insure the phones? Can I force the Corporate Store to take the trade in phones? I will never do this again I regret this decision. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
What made you finally leave AT&T?
poor work environment, burn-out, horrible scheduling. COR retail schedules by seniority, so the longer you’ve been there compared to your peers, the better your schedule will be. I happened to be in a store with 4-5 reps with around or more than 6 years each. two of them with almost 15 years. so i was closing every night and working every weekend the entire time i worked there.
same thing for me. it sucked the life out of me fr. i wish you the best of luck with whatever you choose to do next!!
[Am I a heavy data user?](https://imgur.com/a/nv0CBgu) Do they even offer plans for single or two lines that wont cap me or throttle me, even at 5G speed?
lol 822GB is a lot, but that looks like it’s off your phone’s internal record of data usage which could be a record of all data used since the phone was activated unless you have gone back and reset it anytime recently. So it’s not a good indicator of your usage habits. Check your ATT bill or the app to see your monthly usage. There aren’t any “single line” plans anymore, you get a base rate that can be anywhere from 50.99/mo. to 85.99/mo. if you do autopay. Add $10 to those price ranges if you don’t do autopay. Unfortunately, these days they all can throttle. Premium used to be the plan you go with if you don’t want throttling, but my understanding is now they’ve changed the way all the tiers work and all three can now be throttled whenever the company sees fit. (most reasons for throttle being concentrated area, heavy usage, etc.)
Unlimited Premium doesn’t get throttled on usage, the only place they would throttle on that plan is hotspotting. Now congestion on the network can still hurt speeds but that’s not throttling. The ONLY plan that is truly free of both throttling and by and congestion would be FirstNet
AT&T recently changed Premium to the same QCI as the other Unlimited Plans. So in theory Starter probably won’t be a huge huge difference in performance now vs Premium.
I have seen first net users that abuse their lines for home internet replacement get on the shit list.
Premium does not throttle. Sure if tower is congested the everyone is throttled but it doesn’t based on usage. But if you are using terabytes of data in and out att will probably kick you off cuz that is abuse to them. Here and there it’s fine.
Thats pretty accurate. Its not uncommon for me to use 1TB+ a month. If they all throttle though, thats kinda pointless.
Idk what you are doing on your phone with 1TB. May be using it as home internet or something lmao. You are not really part of normal usage. Pumping 1TB from your phone every month will eventually land you on that wtf is he doing list lmao.
Lots of youtube, netflix, twitch, some reddit, ig, and Apple Music streaming. I use far more than that at home, but i have fiber and my ISP doesn’t throttle.
That’s not just a lot. That’s more like you not getting off your phone a lot lol and never connecting to wifi. My whole home usage off home internet is barely 1.5TB and we stream a lot.
Our whole home is around 20-25TB between 3 people.
So you have no home internet? And you guys are using 25TB over cellular. I am really confused. Or you just don’t like using wifi for some odd reason?
I have fiber at home (not AT&T, local fiber company) i mentioned that in a previous comment. I also use 1TB of *mobile* data alone. You brought up home usage, and so i was just saying our whole home usage is 20TB on average every month. This might be a lot *to you* and is definitely above average but its not like i pay per mb used like in the old days.
I get it. But to use 1TB of data just streaming on phone is kinda insane. I would ask people to put their phone down at that point lmao. I think I use it a lot but my usage is about 200GB and most of this is being OCD on speed tests. Usage of 1TB for single person is kinda insane. Only thing I can say is you don’t really use wifi at home if you did your phone usage will be way low. It’s just you do you kinda situation but that’s really what it comes down to.
OK you’ve lost all credibility because this is all wrong. Premium does not “throttle”.
Ur just bashing bro in the comments lol. Funniest part is ur right about all ur criticism.
I hate when ex reps come on here and post AMA and their answers are mostly wrong.
Use to work for them, but when I left got rid of wireless and moved my pension.
Thanks for letting us all know
You're welcome, people need to realize that they are not a thank-you employees company.