Mystery Shopper: Guildford

Mystery Shopper wants to know what features are available on modern smartphones for those with sight problems. What do the sales staff know about accessibility and can they demonstrate it?

=5: Vodafone

Product range – 2/5
Product knowledge – 1/5
Airtime knowledge – 2/5
Questioning ability – 1/5
Sales ability – 1/5
Shop appearance – 4/5
Total – 11/30

=5: Three

Product range – 1/5
Product knowledge – 2/5
Airtime knowledge – 3/5
Questioning ability – 2/5
Sales ability – 2/5
Shop appearance – 2/5
Total – 12/30

3: EE

Product range – 1/5
Product knowledge – 3/5
Airtime knowledge – 4/5
Questioning ability – 4/5
Sales ability – 3/5
Shop appearance – 3/5
Total – 18/30

2: Carphone Warehouse

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

1: O2

Product range – 4/5
Product knowledge – 4/5
Airtime knowledge – 5/5
Questioning ability – 5/5
Sales ability – 5/5
Shop appearance – 4/5
Total – 27/30

Summary

As more blind or partially sighted people need smartphones, the ability to demonstrate accessibility features becomes vital.

To demonstrate them salespeople have to know about them, and I’m not sure whether Jon at Vodafone or Nick at Three were unaware of accessibility or didn’t care about helping.

Rachel at EE definitely wasn’t aware of it but she had the good sense to ask her colleague to help. He didn’t know either, but at least they Googled it.

Erico at Carphone knew where the features were and was happy to demonstrate them. That’s where it all fell down though as he couldn’t get them to work properly.

Sean at O2 was the only person to give a successful demo of accessibility features and that sealed him the win.

Full article in Mobile News issue 581 (February 2, 2015).

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