[Foreverstargirl]

I just picked up a Blackberry 7250 offered through US Cellular. Call me the company guinea pig. Mgmt has been trying to talk our CEO into getting Blackberries for the Sales department. He agreed to think about it -- if someone with no prior knowledge or training would test the equipment out first and make a recommendation. I have two weeks to get comfortable with the basics and two more weeks to learn more advanced features and shortcuts. I'll devote my evenings and week-ends to the project. Is this enough time?

I'm just an average user of a palm pilot, have a work e-mail account and a personal hotmail account, and use the Microsoft Office suite. I found this forum and am hoping I can get some help. After a couple of hours of trying to figure out where ti start, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. I sure don't feel like I've accomplished much this evening.

First question -- US Cellular offers two models for sale. Am I okay with the 7250 model? The only difference with the other model sold is that the 7250 offers a full keyboard.

Second, I've been through an overview of what the equipment can do. I can figure out the phone stuff fairly easily. The rest I'm not sure about. I think I have to tackle this in small pieces. Can someone direct me to a good source for understanding how my work, personal and Blackberry e-mail accounts can be set up to pass messages back and forth? I get error messages when I try to do it.

Besides getting to keep the Blackberry and having the monthly fee paid for, I'll have the Sales organization's undying appreciation if I can honestly tell the CEO that this is equipment our company can't be without.

Thanks to anyone who can start me down the right path.

[sparky_dfw_tx]

Welcome to the forum.

While there are many of us that can answer your questions, your best bet first off would be to use the search function of this forum to find the answers you are looking for as your questions have been answered time and time again. Also, there are several "sticky" threads on the forum that can give you the information you are looking for.

If all else fails and you are still searching for answers, I would suggest posting your questions in the appropriate subject areas of this forum, not the New Members area.

Hope this helps.

[coreyg510]

Welcome to the forum. We hope that your stay is enjoyable.


The Gecko

[serenityproject]

Hello Star Girl~

You have made a great decision going with U.S. Cllular to get your Black Berry.. And having the monthly fee paid for is nice....

I would recommend the Blackberry 7130 to you.. The 7250 is a very nice phone and will do all the great functions most customers need. The 7130 is just the updated model. So here are a couple of the differences:

The 7130 as a high resolution color display as opposed to the 7250 with no color..This function further enables the 7130 to send and recieve picture messaging where as the 7250 cannot.

The 7130 has 64mb of memory as opposed to the 7250 with 32mb.

The 7130 also has a speaker phone, both a send and end button, and wider ringtone capabilites..

The only thing I like better about the 7250 is the bigger keyboard as you mentioned.

As for your second question. The data protion of your account has to be activated in order to work properly. U.S. Cellular has outstanding customer service and will be glad to help you out setting up your e-mail to make your business life easy and organized. Call U.S. Cellular Customer Support 1-888-944-9400.. Easy as that.. They will also be glad to talk to your company about setting up a business account with great benefits.

Hope this helps you

[K-Mack]

Welcome

[Foreverstargirl]

Thanks, everyone. The US Cellular sales person admitted that he knew nothing about the Blackberry -- he even asked me to stop back in and show him what I had learned! He didn't give me all the reasons to choose a 7130 -- he thought the only difference was the keyboard size. I'm going to stop back tomorrow and exchange my 7250 for the new model. I spent some time playing around today. It's not as scary as I thought!

[serenityproject]

One more Quick note for ya.... When making changes with U.S. Celluar make sure you go to an actual retail U.S. Cellular location. Do not go to an agent location which means a store that sells different cellular providers. The ratail locations are actually owned by US Cellular and not franchised out. Therefore, their bottom line is customer satisfaction not taking your money and sending you out the door with a product you do not know how to use.
Good luck to ya!!!

[serenityproject]

Remember US Celluar offers a 30 day guarentee on their products.. So if you don't like the 7250 you have 30 calender days to return in for the other.. This is probably a good idea for your boss to do a test run with their service to see if he likes it... If not, in the first thirty days he can get his money back no strings attached.. I had to use this option with my last phone and I upgraded to the Razor.

[coreyg510]

Originally Posted by serenityproject

One more Quick note for ya.... When making changes with U.S. Celluar make sure you go to an actual retail U.S. Cellular location. Do not go to an agent location which means a store that sells different cellular providers. The ratail locations are actually owned by US Cellular and not franchised out. Therefore, their bottom line is customer satisfaction not taking your money and sending you out the door with a product you do not know how to use.
Good luck to ya!!!

First of all, let's not make assumptions. I work for a 3rd party Premier Agent for Cingular Wireless. I would assume that I know my stuff. In actuality, most premier agents know more than corporate stores...and they care about their customers MORE. Corporate stores do sooo many activations or upgrades, that they really dont care as much as they should. Why? because they have 10-15 people in line behind you looking to be serviced next. If you go to a premier agent, then the chances are that you will get to spend more time with the agent sales rep and find out the ins and outs of the product. Why? becuase chances are, he/she does not do as many activations or upgrades as a corporate location and therefore is going to try harder to convince you to purchase a product from them. While it is sales, they are not going to try and push you in to a particular product, because honestly it probably doesnt matter. They want the commission. So if they show you a phone and all the features that this phone does, and you like it, then they still make money. Granted not every premier agent is perfect, but most are pretty darn good.

I cannot begin to tell you how many customers have told me that they are never going to go back to a corporate location again. They would rather do business with me. But dont believe me...see for yourself.

The Gecko

[serenityproject]

i am not sure that this blog was the best place to have this conversation.. Those points should not of been when dealing with a customer.. But again you are an agent. I also work for US Cellular... I am corporate though and have been with the company for many years in different locations. My point was not to slam agents but to simply state she will have less hassles as acoproate location, especially if doing a 30 day exchange or wanting to particpate in our thirty day guarentee. Agents do not repair phones, they send customers to Coprorate stores. We have technicians in our stores and if we cant fix them we will send them off and give the customer a loaner phone in which the agents hardly ever will do. Furthermore, agents make customers sign two different contracts with two different break fees. If you want to come to my us cellular employee blog at uscellularemployees.blogspot.com we can really discuss the differences.