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It’s the quality gap between companies run by suits and a company (obsessively) driven by an artist.

While I am a completely satisfied AT&T iPhone customer I also like to peruse other stores to see the exclusive phones. In my suburban mall Sprint store the smartphones are all live units which are available for everyone to fodle. Was the store you visited directly off a street? If so, I can see why they may lock the units; although the increased ability to close a sale by having live units to interact with would seem to trump loosing a demo unit once in a while.

Compare it to AT&T stores (and even Verizon stores, though in my experience Verizon employees tend to be friendlier), and your experience with Sprint is pretty standard. I’ve never had a great experience shopping for a mobile phone at a carrier store, and nothing compares to the Apple Store experience.

It’s true – Sprint hates America.

Ryan, was it definately a Sprint owned store and not a Sprint reseller?

There’s a world of difference between an Apple Store and a Wireless Zone.

Every cell phone store I’ve been in has been staffed with sullen, barely-helpful people. I don’t pretend this is universal, it’s just been my consistent experience.

The sprint stores I’ve been to in southern California are the same as Ari described – all units live and on display. The store I frequent you always get greeted at the door and directed appropriately.

It is true and sad. I believe retail stores such as Sprint loose a lot of potential customers and sales with this behavior. It shows a lack of trust to their customers and people in general walking around their stores.

Sprint pretty much runs the construction/contractor phone market, which is the only reason they’re still around.

Having dealt with carrier stores in the past… I would rather stick needles in my eyes instead of going into one of those mausoleums and try to get one of those walking corpse salespeople to help me out.

“Who makes these decisions?”

Bean counters who worry more about pilferage than sales and view every person who enters their precious store as a potential shoplifter rather than a potential buyer.

I have had the completely opposite experience in the sprint stores where I live.

Every store I walk in is clean and well staffed. Some stores are busier than others, so occasionally there is a wait if you need service, but it’s never more than 10 minutes. The walls are lined with demo units, one every 3 feet or so, tethered with anti-theft clamps. The clamps occasionally interfere with slider phones a bit, but the units are live and waiting for you to play with them.

As you walk in, each store has a stand near the front with a greeter who will take your name if you need to speak to a rep regarding service or billing. While waiting, you are welcome to browse the new phones, they’ll call your name when they are ready.

I tend to visit a slightly-off-the-path store that’s never busy, so I’m always helped immediately. The manager there is friendly and will often chat with the customers about the news while the associate is navigating computer screens or transferring contacts.

I wouldn’t normally comment, but all of my experiences with Sprint have been pleasant, the only complaint being not enough parking at one particularly busy store, and waiting for nearly half an hour when I went to a the same store just after 5. Over a dozen staff, just happened to be a lot of customers.

I can’t say if it’s typical, but the stores I’ve been to in Colorado had live units and a salesperson showed up to answer any questions within a few seconds of picking up a phone.

One thing I like about Sprint: when they are passing a charge on to their customers they at least say so on the bill rather than hiding it behind a name that makes it sound like something the government requires.

I don’t know about Sprint, but I know Verizon has some stores that have real phones and some smaller, lesser staffed ones that just have fakes.

The one and only time I went into a Sprint store was to drop off a lost Sprint phone that I had found somewhere. After about five minutes trying to get someone – anyone – to talk to me, the person I did hand it over to acted as if I was from Mars for going out of my way to return it. I guess she expected me to sell it on eBay or something.

At the verizon stores I’ve been to, they tend to have the fakes on display, but you can ask to see a real phone whenever, and they’ll bring out a real one for you to check out.

Sprint stores in our area have functional demo units of every phone out on display and to play with. Why even have the phones if they’re in a glass case? They might as well close the store and just leave a catalog at a kiosk instead. Weird.

Sprint = NASCAR …nuff said?

It’s not just Sprint. Walk in to the mobile section of your local Best Buy (or at least mine) and you’ll see even the iPhone with a screenshot sticker.

I’m sure Apple has a patent on salespeople meandering around curious customers. Sprint would be foolish to try it :-)

Great points and all true! Sprint has been equated with poor customer service for nearly 20 years, and I really don’t see that turning around; I see them going the way of “Circuit City” . Bye Bye Sprint!

I had exactly the same experience with Comet and Apple Store in the UK. That was one of the reasons I bought a MacBook Pro. I went to Comet and had to ask somebody to come and unlock a laptop I planned to buy. After a few tries it came out she doesn’t know the password. She didn’t ask for any help or anything like that. She just didn’t care.

Why people in stores like that are not payed commisions for selling more?

Hi! Very, very nice site thank you

I’d be more concerned with the lockdown they have on the development process iPad.

Over here in Europe the cellphone shopping experience is not much better. Sometimes I wonder if it is because they realize how inferior their software is and they are trying to actively avoid people from experiencing it first-hand. Lots of phones look good on paper, but once you use them you realize the software they are running is pretty shitty.

Strangely, I think Apple just locked this smartphone market.

I used to spend time in devices stores and forums looking for novelties from Sony Ericsson and the others …untill i got my iphone. Before even getting in, i feel nothing will equal my iphone, at best there will be some copies …

Question : Didn’t Apple lock this market? Everyone is copying their touch screen and features list …while before, innovations took various directions.

Seems like nothing else happened since they launched in 2007. Why is it so difficult to come with something really different … ?

I equate sprint stores to the DMV . Only go if you absolutely have to. Know that you’ll be angry when you leave and it will most likely take way longer than it should. If its to get phone repaired or replaced you’ll probably have to come back.

Same exact experiences in FL and MO.

I think companies market to the customers they want. Apple knows how to market to smart, tactile people. Which is why they command the pricing and demand for their products. They act like their customers are mature consumers.

Other companies, like Sprint and Verizon, market their products in a different way, to a customer who it seems can’t be trusted with their products. They hide them behind counters and plastic. This attitude trickles down to the staff, who are sullen and annoyed at the process a single sale can take – just qualifying level of interest is a huge process.

I had my iPhone stolen a couple of weeks ago and had to replace it at an AT&T store. The experience was completely different than all of my Apple iPhone (or Apple at all) transactions. Little one on one time, and the salesperson was apologetic at the replacement price and kept asking me if I was sure that I wanted it – maybe I looked like I couldn’t afford it ;) The transaction took way longer than necessary in a dark and poorly lit store. I’d never repeat that experience again.

On the other hand, I can’t wait to go into my next Apple experience (I’m thinking an AppleTV…).

I had a very good experience when I bought my Palm Pre a number of months ago. Completely live units to play with, very helpful staff answering my questions. In and out very quick. Also they asked a few questions (employer, credit unions, etc.) to get me a discount on my plan. Once they determined I belonged to a credit union (seems any will do) they gave me 10% of every month on my plan.

Speaking of pricing I was real impress compared to the AT&T experience. With AT&T I felt like they were charging you for every little thing they could. If you have an unlimited data plan why charge another $10 or so a month for text messaging. Is that really that much more of a burden than supporting the various IM clients? Just retarded pricing at AT&T. At Sprint it is simply 1 price for everything. That price was already cheaper than AT&T. The extra 10% off just made me that much happier of a customer.

One more testimonial on sprint. I lost the charger for my Pre at a conference. I looked online and they sell for around $30! Decided to check out the store to see if if the price differed. The recognized me from just having bought the phone a week ago and just gave the charger to me at no cost. I guess just to give a new customer the warm fuzzies. Certainly worked. Wouldn’t see AT&T/Apple doing something like that in a million years. They nickel and dime you for everything.

I think the problem here is that Apple stores are consistent while Sprint stores probably have different policies for different areas. Since you live in a big city they probably lock them down more than out in the suburbs where I live.

This type of service is why I left Sprint in the first place. Back when the iPhone was nothing more than a pipe dream, I was ready to upgrade two phones. After 10/15 minutes in the store with not a single sales associate speaking to me, I left and have been with Cingular/AT&T ever since. I had the distinct feeling that day that had I been dying on the floor of the store, I still wouldn’t have received any assistance.

If you like the iPhone but don’t like AT&T you should check out the Droid from Verizon. I actually know two people who switched from the iPhone to the Droid and love it.

How else would you get a first class experience to purchasing a product? Apple purposefully lets you do whatever you want on their devices in the store so you can feel, even if for one moment, that it’s your own. A pasted screen doesn’t let you test anything of the sort.

Sounds like a fear mentality. Rather than embracing the risk like Apple has, businesses would sacrifice a great (potential) customer experience for the sake of a $200 display phone.

Welcome to 2010 everybody, where businesses still don’t get it.

The AT&T store where I bought my iPhone (Texas) had live demos and iPhones enabled with internet. After that first initial visit I had the iPhone in my mind all the time until I went back and bought it.

Best Buy carries phones from all carriers… and I mean… it’s Best Buy. At least you know what to expect of the sales staff.

There’s a big difference between Sprint owned stored and Sprint retailers. Go to an actual Sprint store.

I’ve had that same awful experience in any Sprint store I go to. I currently have their laptop card for mobile internet and do all my business online. Calling them on the phone isn’t much better. It’s a cultural problem there – staff doesn’t give a s*.

The Palm Pre is great, despite Sprint.

You have to hand it to Apple, they were latecomers to this market, and they’ve completely destroyed the competition. While I’m not 100% thrilled with my iPhone, my issues are more with AT&T than with the phone itself.

But there’s just nothing on the market that can hold a candle to the iPhone, so I’ll just continue to grin and bear it. :)

“Who makes these decisions ?”

In 1994 my company designed the first furniture to present mobile phones in stores in Belgium (Belgacom – Proximus) We designed an open furniture. “No way ! Management said.” “There needs to be a glass door” My point was: Why putting something behind glass, I you want to communicate that this is a device for everybody.

The reason was simple: For every stolen phone, the staff needed to go true an official administration procedure that would take a half a day of work (police etc..) If not changes where staff would just “loose them” :-)

The second reason is money: Every phone you want to protect with a quality alarm is costing 120 $. If you have a 100 stores times 50 phones… = 600.000 $

So, only stores with a high margin or right kind of vision will invest in this client friendly approach.

Apple has a high margin and the right kind of vision !

So, that’s why :-)

Have you seen the TV spots in Sprint’s current ad campaign? Stodgy, old CEO boring me to death about why Sprint is so exciting. Those commercials couldn’t be any less exciting! Compare those TV spots to Apple’s commercials for the iPhone.

It reminds me of John Gruber’s “The Auteur Theory of Design.” Ultimately, the idea boils down to the notion that, “the quality of any collaborative creative endeavor tends to approach the level of taste of whoever is in charge” (http://bit.ly/bOf9AZ). Nowhere is this more apparent than the disparity between the experience offered to their customers (and would-be customers) by companies like Apple and Sprint.

Apple built their entire company around the consumer/retail experience. It’s what they know, and they do it extremely well—it’s as designed/engineered as a piece of software or hardware.

Ryan, I’m surprised you don’t mention Apple’s post-sale support experience, which is also outstanding.

That’s lame. The first time I went into a Sprint store after the Pre came out they had it out for anyone to play with; but I don’t really make a habit of going to cell phone stores if I can avoid it so I don’t know if that’s an exception.

As far as I know Sprint doesn’t actually have its own stores; the stores and kiosks you see are resellers who may exclusively sell Sprint, or may sell other cell phone brands as well. Sprint and Palm, either by choice or financial necessity, has chosen to sell the Pre and Pixi as “just another cell phone option” which you buy the same way you’ve always bought a cell phone, as opposed to the “experience” that Apple/AT&T sells.