It Was Just As The Advert Said... (Phones 4U)

Member Name: angeelu

Product:	Phones 4U
Date:	24/05/04 (393 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good level of service experienced, Good offers, Upfront staff who are willing to negotiate and discuss deals

Disadvantages: Service not consistent in every store

Phones for you, for less, at Phones 4U...

You can't have missed the incredibly annoying adverts with that tune that sticks in your mind (Everybody step into a big canoe, and row on down to Phones 4U...), and to be honest those adverts had put me off wanting to buy from Phones 4U... or at least, I thought that I had been put off buying from them. In actual fact, this weekend saw me parting with my hard earned cash in a local Phones 4U shop...

Background
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The mobile I had was nearing the end of its contract. It's a Nokia 7210 on a T-Mobile contract and was bought from a T-Mobile shop. I've had it 10 months, and not one of my 10 bills I've had so far from T-Mobile has been 100% correct with no adjustments. I'd been overcharged on calls, then the following month after complaining I'd have a credit applied because of the overcharge in the previous month, but I'd also be overcharged again in the current month, meaning I'd have to complain again to get a credit for the amount I'd been overcharged... this would go on and on most months. That's all another story, one which I may very well write a review on in the future, but anyway, the hassle I'd had with T-Mobile is what had made me start thinking about cancelling my contract and changing networks.

My boyfriend, also on T-Mobile, had had not quite so many problems as me with T-Mobile, but he'd had more than enough, despite only being with the company for about 4 or 5 months. As we were both thinking of changing networks, and therefore getting a new mobile we started to look at what phone we fancied... Our decision - the Sharp GX30. We decided to shop for the same phone in the hope that by buying two phones we might get a discount!

The Shopping Trip!
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We'd done some research online to see what kind of deals were available. The phone we were after is only currently
available on the Vodafone network, so we'd looked at the Vodafone website as well as various other sites such as The Link, Carphone Warehouse, Mobile Chooser and Phones 4U. Armed with our research we hit the High Street!

First stop was a Phones 4U shop. There are two Phones 4U stores in the town I live in, one a bit smaller than the other, the first visited was the smaller of the two...

Phones 4U - Shop 1 - the smaller shop
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First impressions were that the shop was neat and tidy, and well laid out so we could see exactly where we needed to be. We headed for the display and started to read the information about the phone we were interested in. It was obvious we'd been spotted by a Phones 4U salesman, but he held back a while whilst we were reading the info then stepped in to see if he could help. After explaining what we were looking for and telling him we'd already done a bit of research so were now out to see what the best deal we could get for purchasing two phones and taking up two new contracts would be his immediate response was along the lines of 'Well, I'm sure we can do something about the price, in fact, I could probably do the two phones at half price'. Well, already we were hearing the kinds of things we wanted to hear, but not wanting to be too hasty after hearing what he could offer we thanked him and went to our next shop.

Visits to other shops
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We visited a few other shops, and to be honest weren't impressed - I won't go into too much detail here as it's irrelevant to the Phones 4U review, but needless to say at this point it still seemed like Phones 4U would be the shop for us.

Phones 4U - Shop 2 - the larger shop
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The second Phones 4U shop we visited was larger than the first, and situated in a more central and busier area within the town. The fact that it was a busier area
made it slightly more difficult to browse the displays, but once again, as expected, the displays were neatly laid out and it was easy to find what we were looking for. It wasn't long before we were approached by a salesman, who this time escorted us to his desk to discuss what we were after.
We didn't particularly reveal much about what the salesman at the other store had said, but we did mention we'd been in the other store. His response was, that being a bigger store he would probably be able to offer a better deal. Sounded good so far! We once again explained what we were after, but this time, rather than starting to tell us what he could offer he seemed reluctant - he told us that this month O2 were doing the best offers, and as the phone we wanted was on Vodafone then we should perhaps wait until next month, as what usually happens is that if one company does a good deal one month, therefore taking more of the sales, the other companies tend to do a good deal the next month. This sounded plausible. He then went on to say that if we waited until next month he could probably save us about £100 between us. Now, that may sound good, but the salesman at the smaller store had already offered a deal that saved £100 and that was without us actually getting down to negotiating a deal.

Back to the Smaller Store!
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So, to cut a long story short, it was back to the smaller store. The salesman there had been much more approachable and seemed more willing to help us the first time around so we were happy to give him our custom.
Once we told him we were definitely interested he was extremely helpful in assisting us to complete our transaction. The phones weren't in stock due to high demand, but he immediately offered us alternative phones to use for the time being until our new phones arrived. As we were purchasing two phones he asked for two of the sales assistants who put the transactions through t
he till at the same time in order to save us time. As we started to fill out the paperwork and the sales assistants performed our credit checks he disappeared for a while. When he came back he said he'd been able to drop the price even further for us, saving us 75% on each phone. This was great! We'd already been happy with the 50% reduction and were starting on the transaction so the fact that he went this one step further for us was a welcome surprise!

As both my boyfriend and I work during the day and the phones we have ordered are expected in during the week the salesman immediately offered to drop the phones off at our house one evening. It was then more surprising to see a couple another member of staff offer to deliver them instead as they lived slightly closer to us. This was a level of service we certainly hadn't expected! Additionally, another nice touch to the service was that, while we were in the store both my boyfriend and I phoned up T-Mobile to obtain our PAC codes in order to transfer our existing numbers to our new contracts. My phone battery was about to die by the time I'd finished my call, and without asking him, the salesman offered to put my phone on charge whilst we completed the transaction - again, only a small gesture, but added to the good service we'd received whilst in this shop it's just one more thing that would make me consider going back there in the future and will certainly be making me recommend friends and family to visit the shop.

Final Thoughts
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It seems that I was wrong to be put off Phones 4U because of the adverts. Although I wasn't particularly impressed with the larger store the salesman was still much more accomodating than in other shops we visited. Maybe the salesman in the larger store was trying to do us a favour, but it seems a bit odd when a salesman tries to put you off buying by telling you to come back next month - being the
cynical people we are, we put it down to the fact that perhaps this salesman had already reached his sales target for this month and would prefer to add us to his figures for next month.

The service we received within the smaller store was excellent. The salesman did his best to do a good deal for us and seemed to be honest enough. 75% off as well as a few months free insurance and the phones being delivered to our houses in person one evening in order to save us a trip into town all seemed like a good deal to us!

I've heard of people having bad encounters with Phones 4U, but I would certainly say don't let the adverts and other people's bad encounters put you off. They're certainly worth a look if you're thinking of changing your mobile phone.

Had I only been to the larger store I would probably have given Phones 4U a score of 3 or 4. Had I only been to the smaller store I would probably have jumped straight in with a 5. As I've encountered great service as well as ok service I'll settle with a score of 4 out of 5.

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