Technology

I used to work at a third party store that worked on a different model and was pretty incredible.

The owner took all the commissions and paid everyone a straight (decent) salary. This caused a number of changes in how the place was run.

Better customer service. It didn't matter to us if you were coming in to buy a phone or for a problem with your bill. I'll happily spend two hours on the phone with the company trying to fix your bill without selling you a thing.

We had strict standards for process, and our paperwork would be reviewed by someone who did entirely executive stuff. Our stuff always had 'I's dotted and 'T's crossed. What I learned from this is that the company was regularly and routinely trying to scam agents. Every month we'd have to reconcile payments with the company and there would always be discrepancies.

Interestingly, we'd have you sign a separate contract with us instead of the company. If you cancelled service within six months (the charge back period), we would fine you up to $400 and require return of the equipment. This would cover any legitimate charge backs. We had a lawyer on retainer and would regularly sue people for breaching this contract and not paying the fine.

We kept a stock of loaner phones. If you broke your phone and couldn't immediately replace it for whatever reason, we'd loan you a phone for a few days.

Our customers were loyal, and we had a special relationship with the company.

This was back when the companies were paying agents well. Over time, the company got more and more greedy, and squeezed any decent business model out of the market. The execs who knew our situation loved it because we beat the hell out of any other places for customer service, and we had several large contracts with local companies.

Of course these execs who knew us were slowly replaced MBA penny pinchers who didn't know and didn't care about our unique circumstance.

One of the earliest squeezes was that the company confiscated accounts that had more than a hundred lines. Those would be now run by the company's B2B department instead of the agent(s) who landed the contract.

Oh, and another interesting tidbit. We'd often waive paperwork fees for one reason or another. We got a corporate email that said our competitor had higher fees and didn't waive them. So you can guess what we did. Raise the fees and stop waiving them. This is how competition works in the real world. Why would anyone go the other way?

I don't think our stores exist anymore, but they were pretty great while they lasted.