Now to the phones. The reps make ZERO money on the phones nada, nothing, so get the crap about the phone pricing and them trying to up sell to a higher priced phone out of ur head (they really don’t care as long as u sign up and leave happy). The pricing for the BB data plan is the same price as the other PDA plans and they make the same commission off both. Again they don’t care as-long as u sign up and leave happy.

The big issue is that BB’s are considered hardcore business products and not for the casual 9-5er. Also most 9-5ers want a unified device meaning camera, expandable storage, etc. WAIT do not yell at me about the pearl I don’t know why or when we will be selling it. The current BB’s don’t provide those features PLUS their $100+ more then the Q which you can get for close to $99.

Now do me a favor and understand that these guys work as hard as they can at helping you out and getting you in the right device but they don’t know everything so if you know what you want save them some time and just str8 up tell them. Also remember their jobs depend on them selling so throw them a bone and buy the car charger.

They didn’t want to sell my friend the BlackBerry, and convinced him to go with the Q, which died every day because of the awful battery time. See my rant above for the details.

I think that there is a lack of understanding on the part of the employees (I’m sure not all of them) regarding the BlackBerry. It is too bad, to be sure – -

Note I am a Verizon 7130e user. Love it.

So, here was my experience when I visited my local Verizon store earlier this week to actually “hold” the phones they say they offer. (note: I’m a longtime Verizon customer and a “Merit” level — which is some type of VIP program they have.)

To validate previous postings — the salesperson was not very knowledgable at all — in fact I’m being really nice just saying that. I knew more about each phone and Verizon’s service offering than the salesperson. And to verify Robb’s observation — she was most comfortable speaking about the Motorola Q. If I had to go in order of her “pitch” it went Motorola Q, Treos and then BB’s.

Even worse — they didn’t even have a floor model or demo model of the BB 7130e for me to evaluate the SureType functions (nor did they have any sales associates with this phone.)

And to top it off — the price they had listed on the floor for the BB units were $50 to $100 more than their own Verizon Wireless web site.

Basically — based on their lack of knowledge and incomplete demo models made it clear they are not serious about the Smartphone/BB segment.

Right now I’m trying to get a straight answer out of Verizon as to what BB phones are planned to be released — otherwise, there is a good chance Cingular will be getting my business.

Any Verizon BB roadmap information (or postings) you can point me to would be very welcome.

Hopefully Verizon get’s there BB act together — because right now it is REALLY sad!

Steven Katz

And minimum wage…do you have any idea how much vzw people make?

For the record my 8703 is the best, and the Q is a huge heap of crap.

This may have been the case in the situation where the customer didn’t really know what they were looking for. At the first store, however, I am going to say that the Verizon rep just wasn’t a very good sales guy.

The customer buying the 8703e literally had to shut the rep up from talking about a device that he didn’t want so that he could write him a check for the one he did want.

One of the first rules of sales is to stop selling when the deal is done and in the first case the deal was done before the customer even walked into the store.

When the guy said I want to replace my 7250 with an 8703e, the rep should have shown him exactly what he was asking for and maybe asked if he needed a skin or a leather case or something.