I Was Talked Out of Buying a Windows Phone 7

I found Sara Yin’s piece on the suspected “strangling” of Windows Phone 7 by carrier retail stores to be highly interesting, so I’m going to share my actual shopping experience (Yin was a mystery shopper) with the Windows Phone 7.

A few months ago, I became eligible to purchase a phone at subsidized prices under my T-Mobile contract, so I went to a T-Mobile store in Manhattan to shop for one.

I was a satisfied BlackBerry user but I wanted to try a touch screen phone. The store I went to essentially offered three choices that fit the bill: LG Android phones, HTC Android phones, and Windows Phone 7.

After looking at the product descriptions and asking the salesperson a few questions, I decided to go with the Windows Phone 7 because it had Microsoft Office. Sadly, I’m not gadget-savvy and that’s the only product attribute I fully understood and appreciated.

When I went to the salesperson to finalize my purchase, the following conversation transpired (produced below to the best of my recollection):

Me: I’m going to take this one.

Salesperson: You told me you like the reliability of the BlackBerry right? Reliability is important to you?

Me: Yeah.

Salesperson: Ok, I’m going to be totally honest with you.

Me: Sure.

Salesperson: Windows Phone 7 is very unreliable. Its has many problems. We get complaints all the time from people who bought them from us.

Me: Oh really?

Salesperson: Yeah. I don’t want you to come back in two weeks and be like, “hey man, why’d you sell me this piece of crap?”

Me: So what should I get?

Salesperson: If you want the touch screen, check out the HTC myTouch.

I was quite surprised by the blunt way he dissuaded me from purchasing the Windows Phone 7.

My first thought was that T-Mobile salespeople get extra commission for selling myTouch phones versus Windows Phone 7. It was just a little bit surreal the way he tried to change my mind during the act of purchase after my decision had already been made.

To this day, I don’t know if any of that is true. But I also don’t care anymore.

I ultimately decided to go with the myTouch that day. I decided that the T-Mobile salesperson wasn’t trying to hustle an inferior product he’s paid to unload. Instead, I chose to believe that he was giving me his genuine opinion.

Today, I’m a happy myTouch user, so I don’t spend time thinking about the motives of that T-Mobile salesperson or if the Windows Phone 7 was really the junk he made it out to be.

What’s incontrovertible, however, is that I was talked out of buying a Windows Phone 7 by an employee of a carrier retail store.