As device and service options become more complex, wireless service providers are increasing their efforts to educate customers.
Sprint Nextel Corp., which has been criticized in the past for its customer care, has taken steps to enhance its “street cred.” The carrier earlier this month said it would bring customer service initiatives to its retail stores through Ready Now, a program to educate customers more thoroughly on their devices. David Owens, head of consumer acquisitions for CDMA at Sprint Nextel, said it’s a process where customers sit down individually with an employee to learn about their new phones.
“It’s really formalizing for the customer the ability to become trained and educated on all the handset can do for them,” Owens said. “We think, in our retail experience, we can take it to a completely different level with this program.”
Owens compared the experience to working with a personal trainer, saying that a trainer will set up a workout with a client, and then the client can take those basic lessons to learn more. Customers can go through the process online and they can always come back to the store for more help, Owens said.
Regional operator Cellular South launched a similar in-store customer help option called Discover Centers. Jim Richmond, director of corporate communications for Cellular South, said the goal, just like Ready Now, is to educate the customer. Cellular South has installed Discover Centers in all of its 73 retail locations and employs one person in each store to man the Discover Center.
Richmond said the centers became necessary for customers as handsets become more data-rich and complicated. Many people don’t realize their device has Internet access, Richmond said, and they don’t understand or know about available applications.
“People are just overwhelmed,” he said. “Either they don’t know all that a device can do or they’re overwhelmed with it. They know there’s a lot they can do, but it takes lot of time to search and open sites.”
Like Ready Now, Discover Centers also are available online. Discover Center specialists will assist customers pre-sale to decide on the phone that fits their needs through post-sale to make sure customers understand as much as they want to before they leave the store.
Custom packages
Cellular South has also recently added packages to its devices, with intentions of making life a little easier for its customers. For example, Richmond said the “Smart Mom” package is for moms trying to manage families. Once they click on their Web browser, customers can click on Smart Mom and a page with options comes up, including applications such as a calendar coordinator, Google maps, a recipe section and more. Other recently launched packages include the Gridiron package, Olympics package and even an Election 2008 package. Cellular South will begin hosting Friday seminars every hour, on the hour, once a month to educated customers on these new packages and other various topics over time.
Verizon Wireless offers seminars as well from time to time to help customers better understand devices and how to take full advantage of all the features on more advanced handsets. Brenda Raney, spokeswoman for Verizon Wireless, said the concept is to make sure a customer knows how to call, text message, download games, music, etc., before leaving the store. Beyond that, Raney said there are online tutorials and seminars in certain markets.
