T-Mobile rep gets yelled at by customer and it's all due to the carrier's digital transition
T-Mobile continues to move forward with its digital transition and some customers are not thrilled by this.
Customer yells at T-Mobile rep inside corporate store. | Image by PhoneArena
We've told you several times that T-Mobile's reps are not happy with the carrier's transition to a digital Mobile Network Operator (MNO). This change will allow T-Mobile to eliminate reps (also known as MEs or Mobile Experts) and close stores.
What will benefit from the digital transition of T-Mobile?
Instead of paying commissions to its reps, and coughing up the monthly lease for each store, most of T-Mobile's revenue will instead go directly to the bottom line. This means larger profits and, in theory, a higher stock price.
Who benefits from this? T-Mobile's largest stockholders could, such as Deutsche Telekom, the carrier's largest stockholder with a 53.7% stake. Former CEO and current Vice Chairman Mike Sievert remains a large individual holder despite selling over $20 million worth of T-Mobile shares in February (and showing exquisite timing along with the other insiders, as we mentioned earlier).
T-Mobile customers and reps are not happy having T-Life pushed on them
As many of you know from reading our T-Mobile coverage over the last couple of years, T-Mobile has been forcing customers and reps to use the buggy T-Life app. The app is used to handle device orders, purchases of new lines, transactions involving accessories, paying bills, and more.
Customers and reps have not been happy using the T-Life app, which has been described as buggy. Reps have been unhappy because they are being forced to use the app instead of legacy systems. If the app doesn't work, they are told to turn customers away, leading to lost sales.
A T-Mobile rep working at a Corporate store posted on social media that he was yelled at by a T-Mobile customer who lost his phone. The rep, who goes by the username "Branch_Long" on Reddit, told the T-Mobile customer that he couldn't take his money or sell him a new phone unless he had access to the T-Life app or the T-Mobile website.
The guy told the rep that he was going to Verizon making it a lost sale for the ME and a lost customer for T-Mobile, adding to its churn percentage. The rep said that this happens almost every day.
The push for T-Life comes from the top down
He also told a story about how he had to turn away a customer who had broken her phone and needed to contact her family after her best friend had passed away. The rep says that he can't keep doing this and that none of this is okay.
Another rep had a brilliant idea of what any T-Mobile rep should do anytime a customer is upset at a rep because T-Life or the T-Mobile website are inaccessible. He says the rep should get a manager and tell him to deal with it.
Should T-Mobile customers be upset with the digital transition?
In case you're wondering where the push for T-Life is coming from, one ME said that it comes from the top down, mentioning COO Jon Freier and CEO Srini Gopalan. That makes it hard for T-Mobile reps to challenge the use of T-Life.
Store manager here . T-life is really the worst but that’s what the company expects . I have 2 phones (Samsungs) in store where we use for music on the speakers. I have everyone use fingerprint recognition on them so t-life is easy to access. We activate some card for customer who lost their phone or just has no access and throw it into the music phone and we process thru there .
Reddit subscriber
One obvious solution for customers with a lost or broken phone failed to work
T-Mobile subscribers also don't like using T-Life because it forces them away from getting human support and makes them use a buggy app to handle even the easiest of tasks. The quality of in-store service has been decreasing according to customers.
Screenshot from the T-Life app. | Image by PhoneArena
In some situations when a customer has come into a T-Mobile store without a working phone, the rep has opened the new phone that the customer wants, activates it using his still active number, and sets up T-Life. The rep who was yelled at by the customer said that the stores in his district tried this approach for a week, but there were problems.
Customers were backing out of sales, some didn't have the money for the down payment, or they didn't want the phone anymore. It seems that the store that this rep works at has had to use the legacy system before for lost and broken phones dropping its use of T-Life to under the 80% metric threshold. This explains why his managers are being so harsh.
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