New Cingular Dealer HELP !!!

[phonemanjohn]

Hello everyone, new to the forum here. By now everyone already knows that Cingular has officially started the merger with AT&T Wireless. I am the owner of two cell phone stores here in Albuquerque, NM and we have been open for about 2 1/2 years now. I am really excited about Cingular coming into our marketplace and in the end, competition is always good for the customers. I have a Cingular training upcoming on Tuesday, November 9th and I am really excited about the opportunity to sell Cingular. We currently carry Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, and Cricket. We used to carry NEXTEL and Sprint, but don't anymore for reasons that are too long to list. My question is for other Cingular dealers out there. What are the pros/cons of carrying Cingular ? How does their online activation program compare to WATSON or EROES ? How is their dealer care center, or will it just remain the same as AT&T Wireless ?? Also, we will be an indirect dealer, so if anybody out there can offer insight on handset availability issues, etc., that would be awesome. I have already read lots of info about Cingular's plans to convert customers over and their new 64K SIM card, and am familiar with the plans that they offer, I am just trying to be as prepared as I can be, since I have to train my employees on all this fun stuff. Thanks for any help out there and I'll watch the board, but if you would also like to email me, please do so at : john@phonzplus.biz . Thanks again !!!

[phylthy]

basically, cheaper than verizon because no analog. cingular rocks, it's easy to sell, pos.comII which is their online system, is pretty good... better than watson i think and i hate verizon so even when we had them i never sold it... um, and actually this is doing less for competition than anything, but at least we're getting closer to squashing verizon into NOTHING BUAHAHAHAHA. yeah. biggest problem i've found with cingular is keeping updated handsets. they'll take a brand new cool phone offer it for a few months and discontinue it. basically to sell cingular, you just have to tell people you get a few less minutes for a huge jump in reception to say t-mobile. cingular uses 1900 and 850, whereas t-mobile only uses 1900. 850 has better building penetraton, and a longer range. they are also the only carrier to be actively persuing WCDMA on a large scale in the states, thanks to att's pre orange ventures.