[CigarDad]

I finally made time to go to my local Southern California corporate AT&T Wireless store in the mall to check out the new phones.

I have an almost four year old 9900 and I have not seen or tried OS10.

When I walked into the store I was greeted with a hello and can I help you? Yes I would like to the the BlackBerry phones. It's over there the person pointed to a location on the wall.

They only had the BlackBerry Classic on display and the charging cord was damaged so the phone was dead. So I still have not seen or tried OS10.

I asked at the counter if there were any Passports in stock either at this store or others. The salesperson looked online and said there were none within a 30 mile radius. Unbelievable.

I guarantee on or about April 10th they will proudly display, stock and advertise the Galaxy S6 and HTC M9.

Very disappointed.

[sk8er_tor]

Couldn't they get a charger and let you see the Classic? How can a store manager be OK with any phone that has a broken charger and doesn't turn on? This really goes to show the lack of attention and carelessness by the store manager.

[Ment]

BB is dead in the US of A and it would take too much money to raise that corpse. Only enterprise and die-hards know what they have to offer now.

[allisos]

Anyone who listened to the webcast would have heard "we are in the process of training our carrier partners"... until the sales staff is trained, you won't see any effort at all. This will improve in the coming weeks.

[RyanGermann]

BB is dead in the US of A and it would take too much money to raise that corpse. Only enterprise and die-hards know what they have to offer now.

Fine: then AT&T shouldn't agree to sell the devices and they shouldn't even have one on display. It's less about BlackBerry's market position than it is about the standard of acceptable behaviour at carrier stores. It also happens at Future Shop / Best Buy stores: devices on display with defective cables etc., and getting them fixed is less important to the staff than gossiping or whatever.

If I was a regional manager, and I walked into a store and a device was on display and the cable was hanging off etc. first thing I'd do is ask "who in the store knows how to open the cabinet and replace the broken cable?" and if no one knows, then I'd seriously question their employability in this shop. Then I'd ask "how long has this device been on display but customers can't try it?" then I'd find out who closed the store that day or opened the following day and see to it that they got a reprimand for not making sure that the devices were all functional. I'd leave it up to them to decide if the closing staff or the opening staff do the cleanup, but they better decide and not play the "I thought YOU were going to do the devices check!" game.

Of course it would be my job to ensure the staff have the replacement parts they need (spare cables etc.) and an escalation process for when a device gets broken and needs to be repaired, but having a store look like a poorly-maintained gas station bathroom wouldn't be tolerated on my watch.

EDIT and I'd strongly advise my staff to keep their personal attitudes out of recommendations of devices: if you can not identify the customer's requirements and steer them to the correct device without using the word "sucks" then, again, maybe consider another line of work.

[cottonakin]

^^^^^ THIS !!!!! ^^^^^^^

[Luke125]

@ryan. Applies to all products at AT&T store... But AT&T does a job on BlackBerry. It is as if the word has come down from upper management.

Posted via CB10

[RyanGermann]

@ryan. Applies to all products at AT&T store... But AT&T does a job on BlackBerry. It is as if the word has come down from upper management.

yes it is not just BlackBerry devices that are in sorry states: the whole industry needs a boot up their a** to show more self-respect and for their customers too.

Posted via CB10

[jmr1015]

Chen's entire strategy with these new devices is to not produce more than they can sell. The side effect of this, is retailers will not have a lot to stock the shelves with... likewise, AT&T is not going to waste time and money ordering more than they believe they can sell.

Supply and demand. The demand is low, so the supply is appropriately equally low.

The condition of the display device/charging cable is more that specific retailers issue. Not AT&T at large. I've seen plenty of dead display devices at various retailers. It happens.

[mdmullis]

Conyers ga. AT&T store has passport and classic and knowledgeable reps see Oliver firmer Bell South rep. Nice guy and knows BlackBerry.
Michael in Atl

Posted via CB10

[bansheeboyz]

Most store employees are familiar with BlackBerry, the problem is that blackberry doesn't market so you don't have the image of blackberry in your head, right now it's just a phone that sits in the store, in a week how many people inquire, let alone purchase a blackberry

Posted via CB10

[sam81]

Anyone who listened to the webcast would have heard "we are in the process of training our carrier partners"... until the sales staff is trained, you won't see any effort at all. This will improve in the coming weeks.

But history has shown us this has no effect on the desire of American carriers to sell BB. It's still BB fault for not marketing properly but they get zero effort from carriers

[mdmullis]

BlackBerry as manufacturer does not offer similar price support incentives as do other manufacturers. So really, what do you expect when the carriers push better margin products. Never have probably never will.
Michael in Atl

Posted via CB10

[to boldly go]

But AT&T does a job on BlackBerry. It is as if the word has come down from upper management.
Posted via CB10

I feel this too, altho a couple of the guys at my local ATnT store say nice things about BlackBerry when i inquire.

[Oiram Asojonih]

I finally made time to go to my local Southern California corporate AT&T Wireless store in the mall to check out the new phones.

I have an almost four year old 9900 and I have not seen or tried OS10.

When I walked into the store I was greeted with a hello and can I help you? Yes I would like to the the BlackBerry phones. It's over there the person pointed to a location on the wall.

They only had the BlackBerry Classic on display and the charging cord was damaged so the phone was dead. So I still have not seen or tried OS10.

I asked at the counter if there were any Passports in stock either at this store or others. The salesperson looked online and said there were none within a 30 mile radius. Unbelievable.

I guarantee on or about April 10th they will proudly display, stock and advertise the Galaxy S6 and HTC M9.

Very disappointed.

Where in So Cal? I live in the S.F. Valley and both the Woodland Hills and Northridge corporate stores have both the Passport and Classic in stock and have working displays, I've been into both stores and played with both devices. Both stores also confirmed in store stock as well although both stores told me they only had about 5 of each devices which was going on about a week / week and a half now. Planning on going back in a few days for a Passport, contract officially ends today.

Posted via CB10

[CigarDad]

Where in So Cal?

42 miles (North) from Woodland Hills corporate store.

[jgrobertson]

AT&T wants to be able to supply enterprise customers that are going with BlackBerry 10 and give consumers what they want. Carriers are selling connectivity services for whatever device the customer wants.

Posted via CB10

[R1cowl]

I had a similar experience at the AT&T Corporate Store in Syracuse, NY. I donated my Z10 to my daughter's BF. He was switching from Verizon. The sales person was very offensive even after we clarified that the whole family was BlackBerry. When asked about display models because my wife wanted to hold the Classic (upgrade for her Q10) he was quick to say "we don't have any in this store. as you can see Apple owns the whole front of the store". I wont go into details about his comments but it was basically this wont work as good as the Android that he was moving from. Then when asked if the 15 pictures could be moved. The salesperson spent 15 minutes behind the desk then said BlackBerry wouldn't allow the pictures. WTF!? He suggested emailing them to himself. I only wish I had my BlackBerry by choice T-shirt.

[BerryRipe]

So you (op) are familiar with CB but not familiar with BB10?

Why not order a Classic or Passport from Amazon.com?

If you don't like it just return it.

Posted via CB10

[RobLosAngeles]

II live on the Wesside of Los Angeles, Justb picked up an ATT Passport from a company store at Pico and Sepulveda. Got their last one on Sat 3/28. On looking at other locations in Los Angeles,several other stores sold out last weekend. I thi nk it's not hard to do as each store only orders abourt 2-5 or so at a time. There are still a few stores on the Westside of Los Angeles that say in stock. The other thing that I noticed is that my own local AT&T store that I went to that was closer to me did not stock it, and they say they they probably will not stock it. I asked a rep, and he said as long as a certain percentage of stores stock them, that's OK. So not every store seems to be required ot stock Blackberry?

[Cameo Gonzales1]

I had the same problem. My town does not offer the passport or classic. So I drove 45 min to Fort Worth to check it out there. Which was annoying

Posted via CB10

[gbaldwin93257]

Yeah I went to my local at&t store and they asked me how can we help you I said I want to upgrade to the passport the sales person said you don't want that...I got it of course

Posted via CB10

[pattyhill556]

All the emails they are sending me are about Android phones. Even though am a blackberry z30 owner,they are not promoting any blackberry phone.

Posted via CB10

[alternator77]

That's ok the one in waterbury ct still has a ten foot banner for the fire phone up...and we all know how that went.

Posted via CB10

[CTU2fan]

That's ok the one in waterbury ct still has a ten foot banner for the fire phone up...and we all know how that went.

Posted via CB10

Haha gotta love Dirty Water lol.

It's not just AT&T sadly. Tried to buy a Sprint Q10 at the Southington store, all they had was the fake cardboard one, not an actual Q that you could try. And none in stock, they had to order it.

Posted via CB10