You think buying from Alltel is bad? Well let me tell ya... Try working for them. I'm sure it can't be like this everywhere or they'd have absolutely NO employees left. I once worked for Alltel. Reason I'm submitting this is to just give you an insiders look at what conditions these sales reps work under.
As an alltel employee... You are required to be damn near perfect in everything you do... Mistakes are not allowed. You must be expected to work very long hours and have very little time with your family (mind you, we are told that Alltel is a family oriented company). You work short staffed for most of the time you are employed which means... Even less time to spend with family. You are threatened with termination each and every day. You are 'held responsible and accountable' each and every day and reminded of this several times throughout the day.
You are lucky if you get to eat a lunch, grab a drink or even use the restroom. You are expected to hold every customer for at least ten minutes and try to sell them everything under the sun... Even a 'regular' just paying a bill gets the third degree each and every month.
You have so much internal stress that you go home to your family after an 9-12 hour day at work and can't relax... You're worried about what you might have forgotten to do that day and will be wrote up the next day about. You are not allowed to voice your opinion... If you do... Expect a write up because eventually it will come.
I loved my job... Did very well at it in fact. Was the top sales rep in my store each and every month. Had customers who loved me and a few that hated me. That's sales and I dealt with it. Unethical practices made me start to hate my job. Upon every activation, you are 'encouraged' to apply both text messaging as well as mobile web services to gain the data quota required. You are to 'explain and demonstrate' to every customer what you have just slammed their account with.
Then, you are to remind them that next month... They need to call and remove the feature themselves or they will be billed for it. We are not however, expected to explain to them that even though the promotion is first month free... They will still be billed a pro-rated amount for those 'free' features.
So, in comes my customer that I spent a good deal of time with gaining confidence and trust... Madder than a hornet because the bill is no where near what they anticipated. FRUSTRATING for both the customer and the sales rep. With the emphasis on data... We are expected to push the data enhanced phones such as the Treo, etc. Even though in my area where I sold, those phones do not perform well and had low reception. For telling my customers the truth... I was, of course, given a 'record of converstation' to be put in my permanent file.
Lastly... Our managers. They walk around the store greeting customers and detaining them but not really helping them or the sales reps do much of anything. I'm sure not all managers are like this... But mine sure was.
By the time I'd get a customer who had been waiting for some time... There was no way in h*ll I was gonna offer him/her a $90.00 bluetooth device or ask him/her to add on text messaging. Generally, it was all I could do to even obtain a HI or smile from that customer who stood there for 40 minutes wanting to know how to set up voicemail and the manager just blew off.
I could go on and on for hours... But the moral of the story is... We're human too. We're treated like crap and are expected to do things that go above and beyond. As you go into your local Alltel store mad and upset... Please remember that these sales reps are under alot of stress. They are pretty good people... God, you'd have to be damn near a saint to work there... And they are trying to make a living. Be a bit sympathetic... And given the right relationship, I'd wager to say 99% of them will bend over backwards to help you in anyway possible...
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