Phones 4 U go in to administration - Page 4

RichardCoulter · 25-09-2014, 01:34

I bet the founder of the company is glad he sold it when he did (for £1.5bn).

Russ · 25-09-2014, 06:14

When I did mystery shopping for them it certainly seemed the front-end of the business ran well. There were certain criteria I had to watch out for and whereas some of the staff just about failed the tests (I caught out one deputy manager blatantly lying to try to get me to take a contract) many exceeded them. P4U have had a reputation of employing chavs and slimy 'used car salesman' types in the past but I didn't find many of them. There were details that we might consider small and insignificant but were very important to the company. For example when they took a phone out of the box for you to have a look at (or in P4U terms, "give the customer a sense of ownership"....), staff weren't to simply hand it over, they were to place it in one hand and put the other just behind it so the phone is 'standing up' as it's presented to you.

Of the stores I tested the ones in Currys/PC World seemed to score lowest but only just. One of the things I had to look out for was whether I was approached by any staff whilst I 'hovered' around the edge of the concession area and each time I had to wander about several times before anyone came up to me. Quite a few times all the staff were huddled together around the till - apparently this can often be team meetings and a chance for the managers to staff information and briefings etc. On my reports I always commented that I felt this looked unprofessional as it should have been done before the store opened. Still, the vast majority of staff and stores passed and passed well. The final question of each test report was "On the basis of your visit today would you recommend Phones 4U to a friend or relative?" and out of something like 30+ mystery shops I only responded negatively once.

alanbjames · 25-09-2014, 10:15

Well i doubt they will reopen the one in Swansea as we already have 2 EE stores within a 5 min walk of each other the old Orange store and old T Mobile shop and Phones4u is only 2 or 3 doors down from old Orange shop.

Russ · 25-09-2014, 13:16

Is that the one on the corner of the entrance to the market?

alanbjames · 25-09-2014, 14:31

Yes that's the Orange shop and then u have the old T mobile shop by the entrance of the Quadrant where the Quadrant gate pub used to be.

Mythica · 25-09-2014, 18:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hom3r

The Phones4U guys who worked in my local Currys are being kept on by CPW, as the know the Currys staff and have become friends

Haha, what?

All the Phones4u staff that worked store in store (sis) in Currys are being kept on by Dixons Carphone. It has nothing to with them knowing or being friends with Currys staff. How does this stuff get made up.

Stephen · 26-09-2014, 23:28

Well P4U have changed their minds and now will not be issuing refunds for all those who pre-ordered the iPhone 6 from them.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29377077

To be honest I wasn't surprised to hear that.

27-09-2014, 09:41

I had a staff member from P4U approach me in PC World a few weeks ago. I was only looking - not buying! :-)

Anyway, he approached me with the gambit of giving me a discount in store *today* on anything I purchased....if I upgraded my phone.

I told him my phone was virtually new (One M8) - April / May this year, but he just didn't get the message and tried to continue on the "sell me an upgrade" speech.

The guy was very aggressive in his selling tactic and put me put me off ever using in the future.....if they existed.

Not really sure how their model worked - I've read if was profitable so they must have been getting some discount along the supplier chain - i.e. the major networks - until they pulled the plug on them.

Russ · 27-09-2014, 12:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by LSainsbury

Anyway, he approached me with the gambit of giving me a discount in store *today* on anything I purchased....if I upgraded my phone.

That is often the case, and usually not down to the staff member themselves. The store manager will get an urgent brief about needing to sell a particular handset/tariff/network that day (or hour in some cases) and this gets passed on to the frontline staff.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LSainsbury

The guy was very aggressive in his selling tactic and put me put me off ever using in the future.....if they existed.

Part of the sales procedure was obviously to sell but aggresive tactics were an absolute no-no, the difficulty was 'agressive' to one person might be 'a bit pushy' to another and therefore awkward to quantify - and this is where we came in. Enough reports of one staff member being judged as agressive in their sales tactics would see them investigated from within the company.

techguyone · 27-09-2014, 18:48

Aggressive sales are nothing new, I remember back when 3G came out, I was approached in the street by a 3 network salesman, who tried to sell me a 3 phone on the strength of watching football videos on my phone... when I (initially) said no thanks, not interested, he got increasingly belligerent, up to the point I had to tell him to **** off.

I'd have been gutted if I'd forked out for a pre sale iphone, and then find out that I wasn't going to get it, and no refund either, hopefully there's provision for people that use debit/credit cards in those cases.

RichardCoulter · 28-09-2014, 18:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by alanbjames

Well i doubt they will reopen the one in Swansea as we already have 2 EE stores within a 5 min walk of each other the old Orange store and old T Mobile shop and Phones4u is only 2 or 3 doors down from old Orange shop.

As there are now more mobile 'phone contracts than there are people in this country, it looks like consolidation is taking place following saturation of the market.

Once BT enter the foray, I foresee more job cuts and store closures in this sector.

**Hugh** · 28-09-2014, 20:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

As there are now more mobile 'phone contracts than there are people in this country, it looks like consolidation is taking place following saturation of the market.

Once BT enter the foray, I foresee more job cuts and store closures in this sector.

Actually, when I was working on BT Cellnet (as was) Data Warehouse programme 2000-2003, I doubted the Marketing department's customer number forecasts when they said that by 2010, there would be as many contracts as people in the UK.

We were both right - the numbers came about five years after they forecast, but none of us realised people would have multiple contracts (work phone, personal phone, data-enabled tablets....).