2 recent articles at Phone Arena (links at end of post) tell the story of issues at T-Mobile retail stores – and they reference both corporate stores and indirect/dealer stores owned by Arch Telecom.
Arch Telecom, a T-Mobile Preferred Retailer, has faced criticism regarding its handling of employee and customer issues, despite promises to operate with integrity. Concerns have emerged over workplace practices and alleged instances of insufficient support for employees, with specific complaints centered around transparency and accountability. This has prompted discussions on the importance of ethical standards among wireless retailers.
The Mobile Report (TMR) learned that Arch is telling their sales reps to tell their customers to bundle in services and other products (such as a tablet and a voice line) that they didn’t ask for. The extra services may not be costing the customer any more money – at the start. The example given is:
T-Mobile Home Internet is typically $70 per month. Customers with a voice line pay only $50 per month and the lowest price for talk and text service is $20 per month. So what happens is any customer buying T-Mobile Home Internet from this store is also getting a voice line from the salesperson whether he/she wants one or not. This improves the rep’s commissions and his metrics and the customer is paying $70 a month as he expected. What the customer doesn’t know is that the deal crafted by the rep gives him a voice line that he didn’t ask for.
Internal documents also show fraud centering around a $5 Tablet deal offered by T-Mobile. T-Mobile‘s deal offering a plan for connected devices (like a tablet) for only $5 per month on the Go5G Next plan was exploited by Arch reps. Tablets that are being promoted on other plans usually have to be connected to a 5GB plan that costs $20 per month with autopay. According to an inside source, Arch reveals that instead of getting charged $5 a month for a connected tablet plan, customers are being charged $20 per month for Go5G Next service for four devices that they could buy from the store. These stores are pushing tablets by bundling together four lines. In situations where the customer doesn’t want to add any additional tablets, he is being overcharged for one line and has three additional lines that he might not know about. T-Mobile’s usual system that catches fraudulent sales of additional lines with no network usage does not track the $5/month Go5G Next promotion.
But that’s not all – T-Mobile Corporate Stores are no better:
A store manager at a T-Mobile corporate store who has had this position for several years, spoke with Phone Arena. He said morale at his store is terrible and part of the problem is the performance goals that reps need to meet and exceed.
T-Mobile reps are telling customers that they cannot buy a new phone without adding a case, a screen protector, a charger, a new line, and more. If the customer does decline these add-ons, in some cases, these were fraudulently added to a customer’s bill without their permission. The pressure to do illegal things like that comes from the performance goal metrics. The manager told reps to strive to add 3 accessories with each phone sold. Reps that fail to meet these goals fear that they will be written up and fired.
The store manager said that the metrics increase every month regardless of whether traffic in the store dies or goals are not met. One telling comment: the only way a rep can meet all of the metrics in a given month is by resorting to fraud.
According to Phone Arena: Most T-Mobile reps I’ve spoken with say that they enjoyed working for T-Mobile when Legere was running the company. The store manager made an interesting comparison. He said that Legere was customer-service-oriented while Sievert is goal-oriented. Being goal oriented is not necessarily bad unless you are blind to some of the things that are being done to reach those goals.
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Link to article on Corporate Stores
One comment on “T-Mobile having retail issues – at both Corporate and Indirect Stores”
Jon Garcia
December 4, 2024 at 1:49 pmI have extensive experience building and leading retail channels for wireless carriers, and I’ve seen firsthand the challenges posed by unrealistic goals set at both corporate and frontline levels. While there is always room to improve how products and services are recommended, the real issue arises when these goals aren’t met—often because customers don’t opt for every bundle. This creates relentless pressure that cascades from the top down, affecting every level of the organization, including both corporate and indirect channels.
For indirect channels, this pressure translates into a survival strategy. Commissions are frequently reduced, forcing indirect partners to sell even more just to stay afloat. This dynamic highlights the need for a more sustainable approach to goal-setting and channel support.