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Marcelo Claure, Town Hall Meetings, New Family Share Pack Plan, Unlimited Individual Plan, Discussion Thread


joshuam

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My only side comment here about Direct2U is that I didn't "get" Amazon Now until my wife was out of town. I ordered diapers and some snacks. The cost was almost identical to my local store (some higher some lower) and I never had to leave the house or wake the baby up. 

 

Pretty awesome to be honest. The only issue Sprint has is that when I ordered my wife's iPhone 6s I didn't even think about Direct2u and waited for the mail to arrive. If I had though more about it/been more aware of it I would have considered Direct2U for sure.

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I totally get the herd mentality.  I've seen it in action in food lines, people around an interesting sales person selling things.....  People are 1. Nosey and 2. want to be a part of things.   At the same time, nobody likes a line. 

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One thing some of you are forgetting, when comparing a direct2u vs store employee;

 

direct2u employees can be managed to a more efficient schedule.

 

instead of standing by waiting for random customers to walk into a store, direct2u can maximize efficiency via keeping those employees scheduled in an effective manner.

 

further, since sprint could take already existing idle employees at slow stores and send them out to actually increase revenue with minimal additional cost.

 

Like AJ said, none of us have any of the information that sprint has to determine if this type of service is costing or generating money.

 

Likewise, the same can be said for many of the other arguments that occur here, such as the viability of unlimited data, SERO and other legacy plans, what constitutes a data hog or abuse, just to name a few.

 

All these topics and more, sprint has all the information they need or can get that information if they choose to, and most of the time all we have is opinion and conjecture, although possibly having a little bit of educated guessing helps.

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Then lets see some numbers, Marcelo. Analysts don't seem to like it.

 

That's not analysts. That's an 'analyst' (though I think think that may be stretching things) and an 'analyst' that's pretty much bearish on anything that Sprint does nowadays. Perhaps there's something in the NYC air because Karl Bode also did something intellectually dishonest in a similar manner yesterday when citing a different Sprint opinion piece from Brian Nichols. It's also interesting that Nichols concedes that he has no numbers or data on the performance of Direct 2 You, but he knows that he doesn't like it. Analyzing something and coming to a conclusion with no data whatsoever seems haphazard at best.

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So my two cents on Direct2U, since I've actually met the guys who do the driving (was at the Apple store when they drove up with the iPhone 6S), thus have REAL world experience and knowledge, and I can tell you that people here LOVE the service.

 

The rep told me that he spends most of his day driving around to different customers, sometimes their offices, sometimes their homes, even local Starbucks.

 

That's spreading company goodwill, that Sprint is looking to add a personal touch to the customer's purchase, something that can't be bought.

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So my two cents on Direct2U, since I've actually met the guys who do the driving (was at the Apple store when they drove up with the iPhone 6S), thus have REAL world experience and knowledge, and I can tell you that people here LOVE the service.

 

The rep told me that he spends most of his day driving around to different customers, sometimes their offices, sometimes their homes, even local Starbucks.

 

That's spreading company goodwill, that Sprint is looking to add a personal touch to the customer's purchase, something that can't be bought.

What would be cool is if these guys could double as network quality checkers also.  Since they are driving around anyway.  Just carry around a little device that collects signal data.

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What would be cool is if these guys could double as network quality checkers also.  Since they are driving around anyway.  Just carry around a little device that collects signal data.

 

That's a great suggestion, will take that back to some folks I know.

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So my two cents on Direct2U, since I've actually met the guys who do the driving (was at the Apple store when they drove up with the iPhone 6S), thus have REAL world experience and knowledge, and I can tell you that people here LOVE the service.

 

The rep told me that he spends most of his day driving around to different customers, sometimes their offices, sometimes their homes, even local Starbucks.

 

That's spreading company goodwill, that Sprint is looking to add a personal touch to the customer's purchase, something that can't be bought.

How dare you bring experience and knowledge to the discussion. That will have no place on the internet.

 

Sent from my SM-T237P using Tapatalk

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If Direct2U was such a big failure in KC and other initial cities, I don't see them expanding it like they are.

 

Sometimes that personal touch is all that is needed to get the sale vs. Magenta, Orange, and Red.

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We will see. If any of the other carriers jump on this like they do when tmobile does things I will be the first to eat my words. If they don't then clearly Sprint is the only one that thinks this is a good investment. I'm betting the other carriers are going to ignore this though.

 

Sent from my SM-N920P using Tapatalk

The other carriers don't have a significant need to add customers. They're already adding customers without this program because of their reputation and their network. Sprint historically has had neither, needs customers and needs to try things to get them. It doesn't mean the program doesn't work. It means the other carriers don't need to spend money on it.
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I was in the midst of writing a post about the Direct2You service this morning, but I fell asleep in the midst of doing so from my pain medication kicking in, so I'm a bit late now in giving my opinion about this. However, this also gives me the opportunity to change the direction of where I was going on my earlier attempt with this.

 

Many of you know my past experiences with Sprint, which were a mixture of both positive and negative, and with the help of advice given to me by a long standing, well respected member of this site who told me since I was relatively new to posting here, many people on this site are well guarded towards the possibility of others coming here to unfairly bash Sprint, and my examples of the negative experiences I had with Sprint may very well been perceived that way, despite that they genuinely were not.

 

After I had received the working Nexus 6, other than Android issues which interfered with the network making it appear during those times the network was problematic when it actually was not the network, but Android causing the problems, the remainder of my network experience on Sprint during that first tryout was good. I only cancelled because of problems with Sprint corporate retail not being honest with me about the Framily plan I wanted and was told by many people here at the time Sprint corporate retail should have given me. So, I cancelled since I was overpaying and was within the 14 days.

 

The second tryout was on a plan a very kind, generous member on S4GRU offered me, but since I was waiting for the Note 5, which wasn't available at the time, I went with the cheap Kyocera Hydro that I could payoff easily when the Note 5 was available. I had a very difficult experience dealing with Sprint corporate retail again while working with this kind member here who tried to help and found a store who's assistant manager happen to be the only nice employee in the entire process. Only problem left, was the device was not connecting well with PCS and in turn, made it a question network vs phone. The assistant manager worked at a store quite aways from where I live, so when I tried going to closer corporate retail stores, they all were blaming the network.

 

I ended up going back to see the assistant manager at the one store far away, who while much nicer to me about it than the rude experiences elsewhere, blamed the network also, but replaced the phone with the same model which had the same problem. Since they weren't willing to try the other similarly priced phone, the Sharp Aquos Crystal, while they continued to blame the network despite my having a much better experience with the Nexus 6 I unfortunately had to send back in that first 14-day window. So again, I had to cancel.

 

I had never meant to bash Sprint or its network, but only to relay what I had experienced from Sprint corporate retail employees and some managers. Some people here understood me as many of them had experienced issues at the retail level, for which is widely reported on their need for much improvement. Yet, some others here ridiculed me for complaint about it as if I were bashing Sprint and its network, even though I only was trying to relay my experience with corporate retail, which unfortunately did include them blaming the network. Being as that was so unusual for an employee of any company to blame their main "engine", was quite surprising and I had to look at this at least somewhat objectionably despite my mostly positive network experience with the Nexus 6. I wrote about that here as a means of full disclosure, not wanting to leave out anything, which I got some negative response for. Now as that is in the last, I hope people here will understand .

 

Anyways, I explained all of this as a means of leading to my viewpoint of Direct2You, in that while I think it can be a good thing for those who need it, the service just isn't enough. If certainly help people suffering from health issues not having to leave their home to go to a store, but only for a device delivery. Direct2You would be much better if it also includes signups and activations, so potential customers wouldn't have to travel to a corporate retail store, possibly to have a negative experience as I and many others have reported. Although, I'm definitely not implying that a negative in-store experience is guaranteed to happen, though it is quite possible.

 

I think Sprint ought to reduce its corporate retail stores to one in an area of 50,000 people and also one within a 50 mile radius, but act less like a store, more like as a local Sprint mini headquarters/distribution center for their main retail locations being Sprint Shacks located one in an area of 20,000 people and also one within a 20 mile radius. The corporate retail stores ought to be more for business and escalations, while overseeing Sprint Shacks for general retail and overseeing Direct2You.

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Slightly off topic, I know. But I noticed I can get an unlimited data phone plan o Verizon through my employer. After some research, I discovered they throttle after 5 GB. I thought they weren't allowed to throttle plans because of their 700mhz FCC requirements?

 

Sent from my MotoG3

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Slightly off topic, I know. But I noticed I can get an unlimited data phone plan o Verizon through my employer. After some research, I discovered they throttle after 5 GB. I thought they weren't allowed to throttle plans because of their 700mhz FCC requirements?

 

Sent from my MotoG3

 

The 700 requirements have nothing to do with device throughput, rather it states any device capable of being on the network must be allowed. If company XYZ makes a phone and gets Band 13 FCC approval, Verizon must be willing to activate it.

 

Its not about what speed Verizon must provide, or what price Verizon should charge.

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Anyways, I explained all of this as a means of leading to my viewpoint of Direct2You, in that while I think it can be a good thing for those who need it, the service just isn't enough. If certainly help people suffering from health issues not having to leave their home to go to a store, but only for a device delivery. Direct2You would be much better if it also includes signups and activations, 

 

You sign up online ... they bring the phone to you, activate it, and help you set it up. That sounds like exactly what you want.

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Slightly off topic, I know. But I noticed I can get an unlimited data phone plan o Verizon through my employer. After some research, I discovered they throttle after 5 GB. I thought they weren't allowed to throttle plans because of their 700mhz FCC requirements?

 

Sent from my MotoG3

I have two iPad Air 2 on Verizon for field research with the same "unlimited" 5GB corporate plan. I can speak from experience that the throttle is rarely used - it's more bandwidth prioritization than a hard throttle.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Slightly off topic, I know. But I noticed I can get an unlimited data phone plan o Verizon through my employer. After some research, I discovered they throttle after 5 GB. I thought they weren't allowed to throttle plans because of their 700mhz FCC requirements?

 

Sent from my MotoG3

I have a similar plan on my AT&T work iPad. I don't know how much they throttle because I use it for work purposes only. Nothing that requires alot of data. Also it's only 2gb instead of 5gb.

 

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

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You sign up online ... they bring the phone to you, activate it, and help you set it up. That sounds like exactly what you want.

I agree. Between Direct2You and Radio Shack/Sprint Shack are the best options, which is why I'm supportive of Sprint expanding them.

 

Actually, I was just in the local Shack store again getting a new USB extension cable they were sold out of, but they were nice to call another nearby store which does have them in stock.

 

While my mother was dealing with that, I talked with a very nice employee there who I complimented and mentioned how every time I've been in there they've been nice, especially in contrast with my experiences at Sprint corporate retail stores. She told me that I wasn't the only person who has mentioned that, which I definitely believe.

 

The only issue with trying to get this line setup there, instead of at a corporate retail store, is that there is a loyalty credit for the device lease on the account. I'm not sure if they'd be able to apply that not being directly corporate.

 

So, my other idea is for us to see if Sprint corporate would set it up, but rather than shipping the device, use Direct2You instead, which does seem like the best idea, despite my also liking Sprint Shacks.

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The thing I'd like to point out that I haven't seen on here is that the Sprint Direct2You is a huge mobile billboard!

 

Marketing, marketing, marketing. If the picture of one of the Fiats that they used online is the actual fleet car that they use for this, that logo is different and it's proven in marketing that white on black or yellow on black is the top color scheme the brain remembers. I see so many benefits of this service even beyond the fact it's a delivery and setup service. 

 

Deval and clbowens make a great point. If they can also have these people check the network in all these different locations that they need to go, it will make the network better optimized for the real world user. Office buildings, subdivisions, parks, downtown, the coffee shop... they are going where the average consumer will be.

 

Either way, it's publicity, signage and marketing for them.

 

And yes, it is still a "newer" service but jeez, keep an open mind people. I probably will never use it myself, but thinking in others peoples shoes I could totally see how this would make the process of getting any device easier for some. 

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I know a thing or 2 about meeting customers face to face. I sell medicare health plans to seniors age 65 and up. My 65 year olds are my young clients. I know that I'll keep them as clients for around 20 years (statistically speaking). 5-6 years ago less than 1% of them had smart phones. Today 15-20% have smart phones. I sell on the phone and online but mostly face to face.

 

Out of my online sales, my phone sales and my face to face sales guess which clients I tend to retain the longest? Guess which clients tell their friends, neighbors and family about me and get me the most referrals? Guess which ones buy from me over and over are the most loyal?

 

I knew from the day I heard about Sprint doing this "Direct2You" thing that it would be a success. My father has worked this way for 33 years. I've been doing this job for over a decade and I have the option to just work online and over the phone but I chose to do face to face appointments. I choose to meet people at their homes or a coffee shop. That face to face meeting is invaluable. Most people aren't phone wizards and switching around between Apple, Android etc may not be as easy for them as it is for most of us. I know what works and what doesn't. Those online buyers aren't going to be your most loyal customers.

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 That face to face meeting is invaluable. Most people aren't phone wizards and switching around between Apple, Android etc may not be as easy for them as it is for most of us.

This is an excellent point, we have to understand most S4GRU members are not the target audience. But even millennials struggle switching between platforms, even if its currently limited to those two competitors.

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Well I walked right into this. Lmao

 

Yes, you did walk into it.  Now, do you hear the five note sequence?  Walk into the spaceship and go back to your home planet.

 

 

AJ

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Just got an interesting email from Sprint about my iPhone Forever return:

Thank you for your recent equipment return for 314-XXX-XXXX. A review by the Sprint Return Center has determined it is not eligible for a credit based on our Return Policy. Visit sprint.com/returns to learn more or call *2 for assistance.

 

 

I returned the three week old iPhone 6 Plus in the return package. Can't wait to call and find out that I owe $536.79.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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