Mystery Shopper: Derby

Mystery Shopper is looking for the best handset to upload pictures to Facebook without going through too many icons, and has £20-£25 a month to spend on a contract

5: Virgin Media

Product range – 3/5
Product knowledge – 2/5
Airtime knowledge – 4/5
Questioning ability – 3/5
Sales ability – 2/5
Shop appearance – 5/5 
Total – 19/30

4: Carphone Warehouse

Product range – 5/5
Product knowledge – 1/5
Airtime knowledge – 3/5
Questioning ability – 3/5
Sales ability – 3/5
Shop appearance – 5/5
Total – 20/30

3: Vodafone

Product range – 5/5
Product knowledge – 4/5
Airtime knowledge – 2/5
Questioning ability – 2/5
Sales ability – 3/5
Shop appearance – 5/5
Total – 21/30

2: O2

Product range – 5/5
Product knowledge – 3/5
Airtime knowledge – 4/5
Questioning ability – 3/5
Sales ability – 4/5
Shop appearance – 5/5
Total – 24/30

1: Three

Product range – 4/5
Product knowledge – 5/5
Airtime knowledge – 5/5
Questioning ability – 4/5
Sales ability – 5/5
Shop appearance – 5/5
Total – 28/30

Summary

Vicki in the Three store was a worthy winner: very knowledgeable and with good customer service skills, too.

O2 was also strong, but the tariff was not quite as good as Three’s offering.

In Vodafone the 555 was a good, cheaper alternative to the HTC ChaCha, but I was disappointed I could not try the phone out instore.

I understood why Carphone Warehouse made its recommendation, but there was a handset available that better met my needs, which Irfan failed to mention. Although Craig in the Virgin store was polite, I felt I needed to be a Virgin customer to get a decent deal.

Full review in Mobile News issue 499 (October 10, 2011).