AT&T has been transitioning corporate-owned, union-staffed stores to third-party authorized retailers
to significantly reduce operational costs, increase profitability, and streamline its retail footprint. This strategy, accelerated by shareholder pressure to cut billions in expenses, allows AT&T to maintain a branded retail presence while passing the overhead, staffing, and training costs to authorized dealers. However, the customer experiences at these Authorized Retailers has been sub par at best. Because of different sales systems, it is possible that a phone purchased at an authorized retailer can not be returned to a corporate store or another authorized retailer. But because the stores are often set up to look similar, some customers don’t know they are talking to another company’s employee.
AT&T Corporate Stores are union employee’s. They are vested experiences sales experts that have many years of experience. They have a better understanding of incentives and bundles that AT&T have to offer and they have the customers best interred in mind. So the next time you enter a AT&T Store, ask if the sales representatives are AT&T employees, and if they are union. If they are, your in good hands.