I have a question for any RIMarkable readers that work in a Verizon store. Are you incentivised to sell the Motorola Q over the BlackBerry 8703e?

I ask this question because I saw two Verizon sales reps working at different stores try to talk a customer out of getting a BlackBerry 8703e and into getting a Motorola Q instead. I was actually kind of shocked at the clear bias towards the Q over the BlackBerry when the customer clearly asked about the BlackBerry.


In one case, the customer knew that he wanted a BlackBerry 8703e as he was upgrading from from a 7250 and the clerk, instead of just showing the customer the BlackBerry that he was asking for, which cost significantly more than the Q by the way, proceeded to try to tell the guy about the features of the Q. The customer actively cut him off and said “I think I will stick with the BlackBerry.”

In the second case, the customer appeared to be new to smartphones. They said that wanted a BlackBerry but didn’t really know much about them. The Verizon rep immediately asked if the customer may ever need to open documents that they receive in email because if they did, they may want to take a look at the Motorola Q.

Being the conspiracy theorist that I am, I decided to see what would happen if I asked about the Motorola Q. Would the clerk be as eager to tell me about the BlackBerry as they were to talk about the Q to customers inquiring about the BlackBerry? When the next sales person walked out of the back and called my name, I said that I was interested in the Motorola Q and the Verizon rep showed me exactly what I asked for. The BlackBerry wasn’t mentioned until I said that I wanted to check out the BlackJack from Cingular before I made my decision.

Maybe it was just me but it seemed kind of odd when two different reps at two different stores made it a point to talk about a device that the customer never said they were interested in, yet, when I asked about the Q, was shown exactly what I asked for.