[BigAl_BB9900]

Went to a Vodafone store yesterday to sort out a SIM only 3G/Data contract (and to collect the actual SIM, instead of having to wait for Vodafone to post it)

Whilst I was waiting for the (very helpful) chap behind the desk to process all of the bank details, I had a nosey around the store to see if they had a Z30 which I could play on. They did have a display model (their display models are not powered, they just have a sticker on the front to show what the screen should look like), so I asked one of the roving salesman if they had a powered Z30 that I could have a go with.

The salesman's instant response was that Z30 was not a very good phone, and that they had had a lot of returns from dissatisfied customers, and that much better phones for the money were Samsungs and the new HTC

The salesman was a nice-ish enough young lad (assume very early 20's), and certainly an Android fan, and maybe if he had been a little bit older and more mature, I would have had a more reasoned response from him....

When I asked what were the reasons for the returns from dissatisfied customers, he said (summarised):
1) poor battery life
2) screen problems (or that customers had problems with the screens)
3) lack of functionality (especially cited by customers who were previous BlackBerry users)

When I queried again that this was for the Z30 - he actually said that this was the shop's experience of the Z10, and that they had only sold 3 Z30's, and none of them had been returned. He did say, and this was informally agreed with by the other salesman, that in percentage terms the returns of Z10's had been 4 or 5 times as many as the average phone they sold

The salesman then asked me what phone I used, and I showed him my Q10, and he then asked if it had the functionality I had expected when I purchased it.
Summary of conversation:

My response was "No" (as it doesn't have a lot of the functionality I used on my Bold 9xxx's),
and his response was "Exactly - an Android would be much better for you"
I then said "I can't use an Android for security reasons for my job, and I only want a QWERTY keyboard"
And he rather interestingly said "Ah - then you are stuck with BlackBerry, but the keyboard is the best"

[At this point he went off to serve a new customer, and I ended up chatting to some other customers (Bold 9xxx users) who were interested in the Q10, and who played with the Time-Shift camera function on my phone, as well as wanting to know how good the Q10 keyboard is....]

Summary:

• this salesman was a friendly young lad who is an enormous Android fan
• he's a bit young, so he's a little over the top in instantly promoting what he likes (without asking a customer what their needs are)
• there is also a bit of youthful ego involved, in that he believes he is the oracle of knowledge re: mobile phones
• there have been previous bad experiences with BlackBerry OS10 phones (eg the Z10), and these experiences have prejudiced him against BlackBerry
• I never got to play with a powered Z30 (my original request) and still don't know if they actually have one in the store

My Conclusion:

• The negative experience with one phone model, has blackened the perception of the whole brand (in the eyes of the salespeople)
• The salespeople are key stakeholders, as they have a lot of influence on the average consumer
• If stores had such a high returns rate with a model, then the supplier (eg BlackBerry) should have increased their marketing/training/liaison to the salespeople, to restore the loss of goodwill
• BlackBerry marketing to phone salesman is POOR - if BlackBerry had better liaison with this type of store employee, then I do not believe that the salesman's attitude to BlackBerry would have continued to be so negative
• BlackBerry will not regain consumer market share without addressing these negative perceptions of the brand

Note:

• iPhone/iOS was never mentioned at all

I don't normally go into this type of mobile phone store, and I was extremely surprised by what I learnt (even though I have read threads on CB about similar-ish mobile phone store experiences in N. America)

Does anybody have a view on what else BlackBerry can do to repair these negative perceptions?

[I've posted this on the Z30 page, as it all relates to what happened when I asked to play with a Z30 - Mod's, please move to a pertinent page if you see fit]

[whatsever]

Same here in holland

As you all know, this week was the tech show to end all tech shows. The Consumer Electronics Show is held in Las Vegas every January, and tech bloggers from all over the world flock to the Las Vegas Convention Center to ogle at all the newest gadgetry. Among the crew in attendance were a group of four editors from Wired, and they decided to hold a small competition to see which smart phone could handle a show of this magnitude the best. It may come as a surprise to you that BlackBerry pretty much demolished the competition.

Wired first announced the competition at the beginning of the week, and the rules are simple: offer compelling coverage and content at CES 2014 with nothing but a smart phone. No laptops, DSLRs, high quality audio recorders, or fancy tablets allowed.

Each of the four editors were assigned a different smartphone from the four major operating systems, Android (Motorola Moto X), BlackBerry (Z30), iOS (iPhone 5S), and Windows Mobile (Nokia Lumia 1020). The competitors were awarded 25 points for every day they successfully used only the smart phone, as well as bonus points for various other achievements.

Here?s how the competition ended:

4th Place: Android/Motorola Moto X with 100 points
3rd Place: Windows/Nokia Lumia 1020 with 145 points
2nd Place: iOS/iPhone 5S with 147.75 points
1st Place: BlackBerry/BlackBerry Z30 with 257.5 points

Not only did the Z30 win, but it blew everyone else out of the water by over 100 points! I don?t know about you, but that? s a pretty major victory for what they all figured would be the under dog!

For more information on how BlackBerry swept the floor with all its competitors, as well as seeing how Wired offered amazing coverage of CES with nothing but smart phones, check out this link.

If you?d like to chime in on what you think about this competition, we?ve already got a good conversation going over in our forums; feel free to voice your opinion in there!

And finally, if you want to congratulate Tim Moynihan on his victory, feel free to hit him up on Twitter. And don?t forget to drop our favorite hashtag, #IChooseN4BB!

Post by Chris Esparza

Posted via CB10

[Taigatrommel]

Unfortunatly many sales staff these days don't really care what the customer wants, they want the customer to take what they like. Because they are the sale reps and they have to know what's good and what's not! From my own experience you rarely get to meet an open minded salesman who actually listens and cares about the needs of a customer.

This is often based on misunderstandings, fanboy'ism and a closed mind. For example I often found many reps don't really know a **** about BlackBerry at all. They either think it's bankcrupt already or that the devices haven't changed since the last three or four years. Many don't even know how to actually domonstrate the strengths or simple gestures of current BB10 devices. Back at the local Saturn market I've sometimes done a much better job at showing off BB10 than any of the staff around there. Very sad, especially when the staff is surprised what the phones they're selling can actually do. Yet they only care about iPhones and the latest Samsung Galaxy range, some know a thing or two about Windows Phone (though they lately got a Microsoft rep, only doing WP there), yet nobody has a clue about BlackBerry or BB10 in particular.

Posted via the awesome Blackberry Q10

[ChainPunch]

From a sales person point of view I can understand why they would push people away from any devices, that have a high return rate. Often times management looks at return rates as a sign of poor sales person. On the flip side, I think sales people should know their products and help a customer pickout a phone that works best for the customer.

[BigAl_BB9900]

For example I often found many reps don't really know a **** about BlackBerry at all. They either think it's bankcrupt already......

Oh yes, I forgot to mention that.... the salesman did say that "BlackBerry are probably going out of business"

[SkypilotOfHope]

@BigAl, I would send what you've written here to customer relations. Can't hurt and you're giving them some assertive feedback.

Posted via CB10

[dikku11]

Same happened to me with my purchase of z10.the sales man actually tried to convince me not to buy z10(btw this is my first BlackBerry phone ).he said it's a bad phone and that BlackBerry are bad and out of age and said to try out other alternatives like the I phone 5 and xperia z but thank god I had already done my homework well hand and went to purchase the mighty z10.

Posted via CB10

[ChainPunch]

Oh yes, I forgot to mention that.... the salesman did say that "BlackBerry are probably going out of business"

By that logic I would have told them that they are probabbly going broke because even with the trouble blackberry is dealing with they are more financially sound than the sales person.

[BigAl_BB9900]

@BigAl, I would send what you've written here to customer relations. Can't hurt and you're giving them some assertive feedback.

Posted via CB10

Feedback to which customer relations?
Vodafone or BlackBerry?

I think this is a BlackBerry problem - not a massive problem for Vodafone (as the store was evidently selling phones/contracts)

Having said that, I did give summarised feedback to Vodafone, by responding to a short survey they sent me today

[lnichols]

You never get a second chance to make a first impression! BlackBerry probably should have held off the BB10 launch till last May when they had 10.1MR ready, and BES10 enterprise ready. They delayed BB10 to get the software "perfect" and released a troubled OS that wasn't ready on hardware priced at a premium with older specs, and the results are what we see now. They probably should have considered waiting for the Z30 to be ready and making the Z30 the flagship and releasing it and the Z10 at the same time with he Z10 at intro level pricing. Probably needed 10.2.1 ready too.

Die Hard BlackBerry fans are willing to deal with these issues, but carriers, salesman, and your average consumer are not.

Posted via CB10

[BigAl_BB9900]

You never get a second chance to make a first impression! BlackBerry probably should have held off the BB10 launch till last May when they had 10.1MR ready, and BES10 enterprise ready. They delayed BB10 to get the software "perfect" and released a troubled OS that wasn't ready on hardware priced at a premium with older specs, and the results are what we see now. They probably should have considered waiting for the Z30 to be ready and making the Z30 the flagship and releasing it and the Z10 at the same time with he Z10 at intro level pricing. Probably needed 10.2.1 ready too.

Die Hard BlackBerry fans are willing to deal with these issues, but carriers, salesman, and your average consumer are not.

Posted via CB10

Couldn't agree more - rushing a deficient product to market is rarely good business sense (especially as they had already missed the Christmas sales)

I also think they should have focussed on the QWERTY devices first (eg Q10 instead of the Z10), to try and lock in their core market (eg enterprise)

[lnichols]

Couldn't agree more - rushing a deficient product to market is rarely good business sense (especially as they had already missed the Christmas sales)

I also think they should have focussed on the QWERTY devices first (eg Q10 instead of the Z10), to try and lock in their core market (eg enterprise)

I don't think the Q10 is not selling well either. And I know that in their strong regulated markets I see complaints of not having full touch devices, and BlackBerry devices with small screens not being desirable. The PKB market is shrinking dramatically as people don't want to give up screen real estate that apps use for keyboards and the virtual keyboards keep improving. I was a PKB guy from the Palm Treo 600 through Centro, to BlackBerry 8830 to 9900, and now that I have a Z10, I'm never going back to a PKB. May consider a slider device but those have their own issues.

Posted via CB10

[unbreakablej]

unfortunately I think they had to release a sub par product anyway. Because what makes the z30 so great was that they took into account all the complaints and feedback from z10. Even if they had held back the release, it still wouldn't have made such a difference. I mean, that's how I feel it is. Maybe they should have just done a quieter release though and only go all out with the marketing once they had perfected the device!

Posted via CB10

[SkypilotOfHope]

Feedback to which customer relations?
Vodafone or BlackBerry?

I would suggest both. Getting something in writing is good feedback.



Posted via CB10

[BigAl_BB9900]

I would suggest both. Getting something in writing is good feedback.



Posted via CB10

If someone can send me details (eg email address) for BlackBerry UK Marketing, then I'll forward it on....

[TrueKulcha]

Here in Canada when I went with my friends to replace the sim for their Z30s at Rogers store we encountered a saleswoman who was downright hostile towards BlackBerry. I told her that Verizon soon come to eat her lunch and that BlackBerry will be in business much longer than she will have that job. Whenever I encounter these people I make it my duty to show them up.
They know very little about the capabilities of BB10 and even less about a specific device on that platform. Like are you working here to try and sell me the phone you are using or are you here to assist me in choosing one of the devices you have on display?

Posted via CB10

[raxamillion]

In my experience proof always outshines prophecy. I've proved many a shop wrong on almost all their points. Since 10.2.1, the "almost" part has gone. Nothing my Z30 can do with equal measure if not better than every other phone out there.

Posted via CB10 on my sexy white Z30 rocking 10.2.1.1925

[DSS900]

Had the same experience here in Calgary, True. However, just prior to the z10 release, a number of rogers reps told me they were dumping there iPhone for the z or q10. I believe some of them simple bought into the mob mentality and switched to the hate on blackberry side.

I've got 3 family members on iphones and I wouldn't trade my z10, or z30 for any iPhone.

Posted via CB10

[TrueKulcha]

On Z10 release date here I bought two. One had a freezing issue and just as a precaution I returned it for an exchange. Never had an issue with either since. I passed mine on to my niece who had an iPhone 4S and live the Z10 way more. The other is being used by a converted Android die hard and she's loving it ever since too. Now I'm on Z30 and loving the extra space for typing with my jumbo fingers. All in all like one person mentioned it comes down to actual experience with bb10. The UI is second to none.

Posted via CB10

[LonelyTylenoL]

Does anybody have a view on what else BlackBerry can do to repair these negative perceptions?

It is increasingly apparent that the answer to your question is "Nothing."

It's too late.

There is simply too much resistance in the distribution channel.

Mobile Today | BlackBerry flagship Z30 shunned by operators

[TrueKulcha]

I am of the opinion that this company will turn things around with Mr Chen at the helm and dedicated users like us here on Crackberry. I see things are starting to move in the right direction and how stupid those naysayers are starting to feel

Posted via CB10

[lnichols]

It is increasingly apparent that the answer to your question is "Nothing."

It's too late.

There is simply too much resistance in the distribution channel.

Mobile Today | BlackBerry flagship Z30 shunned by operators

Why do the British hate BlackBerry so much? Can we stop blaming the America now?

Posted via CB10

[BB_Jay]

I had a similar experience at my local Verizon store here in the US. I had to get an issue my voicemail fixed after getting my Z10. The salesman was completely clueless on how to use the phone.

Via my awesome Zed-10

[xhead75]

The problem is that these uneducated twerps working in the stores hold way to much sway power over the cattle consumer. Blackberry should start selling it's devices direct online at wholesale, unlocked and start marketing that along with the facts of what the phone is capable of. Android is good for one thing, being unproductive. That should be their marketing strategy headshot.

Posted via CB10

[robincoops]

Why do the British hate BlackBerry so much? Can we stop blaming the America now?

Posted via CB10

Nothing to do with consumers. It's the company that is to be blame for producing poorly finish software and hardware

blackberry is notorious for having a Poor customer service . Return a defect product and u r made to feel that u broke the phone and have to wait for a long time for BlackBerry to acknowledged there phones are rubbished and need repair or replacing ( this is the case for majority of people). Information from my mate whose a manager for vodafone.

IPhone u just walk in an apple shop with iPhone 4 without any warranty and they will still repair your phone for free. ( wife phone) .. if u don't have an apple store near u.. they get a company to come get your phone and u get a replacement within 24 hrs.

With android Samsung will provide u with a replacement phone while it's bring repaired.

So there's your answer.

I have a z30 and love it by the way and cross fingers so far no issues and this is the best phone I've ever had.



Posted via CB10