Effective July 6th, you will need to go to a retail store to get a Palm Pre from Sprint. Oh what a tangled web you weave, Sprint Telesales. First, at launch and for quite awhile after that, low inventory levels meant that the Palm Pre wasn't available over the phone or on Sprint.com. Then on June 24th, you relented (presumably due to better stock) and turned the telesales spigot on.
Now a tipster lets us know that Sprint's internal system is alerting everybody that the Pre is being pulled from telesales, effective July 6th. Is it due to stock levels? Hard to say, all we know is that "Company direction has changed."
If it is due to stock levels, the silver lining here is that this move means that Pre sales are continuing to be strong.
Thanks Anonymous!
Comments
Posted the memo on SprintGurus here - http://www.sprintgurus.com/forum/general-sprint-discussion/1408-memo-tel...
Like they are moving backwards. seriously if they don't sort out their inventory levels soon so i can use my referral i'll just have to buy another phone.
Maybe they want everyone to know how to use web os. Wasn't that a big sprint advantage or something. They walk you through the operating system- something you can't do as efficiently over the phone, or when you received it through the mail.
I agree. Looking @ the forums a lot of the complaints are very stupid and are giving the phone a bad rep. During the initial launch doing the one on one was difficult and time consuming. Many stores (my Radio Shack included) nixed the Ready Now session and folks walked out with a Pre and little knowledge how to use it. My coworkers keeps asking me dumb questions like how do you copy and paste, and it took 20 mins to explain that. They just sent out an email offering ppl to schedule in-store help. If you never had a smartphone and you struggle to find the off button on your computer I suggest you sit down for the one on one.
have them read the instructions. Windows is more complicated and theysell that over the phone. it's a phone. it's not the fricken space shuttle.
The idea that they would forgo an easy sell over the phone so they can force someone to drive hours an have an employee explain a simple OS makes no sense. I heard the explaination of webOS. It took less then one minute. There are a lot of people that won't or can't do that. These are two companies hurting for profits. They aren't trying to intentionally make it hard to get the phone. Telesales are either stressing their inventory or their telesales people suck so bad that they can't deliver the service properly. like the fact that they've been sending out dead phones through the service.
Well if you go through the phone with an employee this will ensure that any issues that arise can be fixed on the spot, rather than waiting for the phone in the mail only to find dead pixels or other problems and still have to drive all the way to a sprint store. They are hurting for profits and I'm sure returns aren't helping their case and neither are complaints about the phone.
dead pixel won't be solved by activating in person. that same phone is going to go out eventually if it's new. and i may be wrong but you can still just go back into a store and get one. and it's not like all the stores have tons laying around for exchange. if they have ten then are spoken for. you're still likely to have to wait for a replacement. besides i'm not sure how many people outside the blogishpere phone world even notices a bad pixel.
Wow, makes me glad I ordered one before this. Otherwise I would have had to drive 2.5 hours to the nearest Sprint store.
I saw the Telesales thing as another step closer to employees/those on agent plans to be able to get a Pre, but I guess the wait will be longer now.
Ditto. if they make me go buy a damn blackberry or and iphone man i'll be pissed. mostly cause i could have gotten one of those a long time ago.
From the look of it they are taking it out now. The sprint site went back to saying you can only find it at the stores on the store page by the Pre.
I kinda in agreement with adobephile. Except I don't give them that much credit. My bet is that people started calling back with lots of questions about how to use it after they got the phone. And as adobe says, not easy to do over the phone in many cases. You need to have a basic understanding before you can communicate effectively about your issues. Getting that basic foundation is a visual kind of thing.
WebOS may not translate well into Philippine. And I doubt they have CDMA signals to help learn the phone.
Dude, your page has some sketchy banners. Every time I've tried going to it today, Chrome has stopped and complained about eyewonder.com - look into it.
I am using Chrome also and I'me getting the same warning. Has not happened before today though.
Get IE 8 and you will not see the banners at all! :-)
The problem will go away when you order a Google G1 phone.
I gotta love these alternate lifestyle browsers. Why is it always the site's fault when the Brand B browser's fail. Sure you're not hooked into Dieter's wifi?
IE8 is running cleanly.
Well, for one, Chrome is based off of WebKit (the same engine that the WebOS uses) so if it doesn't render properly in Chrome it probably won't render properly on the Pre (or the iPhone or G1 - which all use webkit based browsers).
Shut up.
Has anyone considered that this might be due to the poor build quality that some people have been encountering (cracked screens, wobbly sliders, etc.)? This could be the first sign of them acknowledging a problem. They pull it from telesales because they don't want too many bad units to get out there. Going into a store and seeing it in the store before purchasing it could be a reason, it could make the likelihood of a return lower. If you get a bad one out of the box in the store, just do the swap immediately instead of causing dissatisfaction over the course of many returns. I have to imagine the people returning their Pre 3+ times is a huge burden on their customer support. Just a thought.
The multi-returns are in the far minority.
I don't think so. I'm already on my third.
Hehe. I could care less now. I went in today to the store to get my phone. They had the phone in stock in generous quantities I'm guessing, since two people were getting theirs activated.
All in all it took me about fifteen minutes and about five of those were related to transferring my contacts. I do have to mention I was upgrading the phone so my account was all set up.
I love the phone :D
It could also mean that inventory has completely been exhausted by exchanges.
Agree with Ardoreal
I've already exchanged mine once.
Hmmm, 26 more days.
I got mine a few days ago from telesales .... took 6 freaking hours to order it, but it has a bad pixel so they are replacing it. So could be bad inventory, or the fact that half the employees i spoke with had no idea you could order the pre through telesales. There are some SERIOUS issues with sprint when you have to talk to anyone on the phone.
It maybe that Palm is finally realizing the fixed memory sucks and are coming out with a 16 and 32 internal memory. They should get a clue and have a removeable mini. Also, the e-mail sync isnt working....
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