Moving into Mobile

Posted by Professional Writing Services

June 28, 2011

My mobile journey began a month ago. I thought I would share my experience and decisions with you and share some astounding statistics.

84% of the US population expects mobile version access
90% of US population uses mobile
98% of mobile search is via Google Mobile

Even though it isn’t the 4th of July yet, if that doesn’t make fireworks go off in your head, I don’t know what will!

Last year I had a big, “Oh no!” moment when I realized that it was time for me to get with it and join the mobile phone world.

The “Oh no!” comes from the fact that I live in the woods–in a rural area that has large expanses of no service and only a couple of cell phone providers that provide coverage.

My neighbor, and fellow business owner, who is always looking for an angle, did everyone a favor here by allowing Sprint to errect a tower just down the street from me.

It looks like a tree but doesn’t fool anyone around there parts.

Now my pals, who think of me as the tech gal (aka geek grrrl), were highly amused as I moved down this road to selecting a mobile phone and plan.

The big entertaining moment occured when my pal handed me her Droid and asked me to do something with it.

To her amusement I think I stammered something like, “uh….uh…” and was really out of sorts–and so started my learning curve.

Part of the issue is that my work online has changed my vision so I need “cheaters” to see anything on the small phones. So, when she handed me the phone I didn’t have them on.

Happily, by the next time she handed me the phone, I was navigating on it and exploring with more comfort…because I am really fascinated by technology.

My Mobile Phone Experience
I remember some of the first cell phones I used back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They were pretty clunky but nice to have around.

Up here my business had live operators and pages that had voice messaging. However, I left the mountain for a bit and that is when I made some changes.

For instance, I was gifted with personal cell phone in 2004 when I was on book tour.

We signed up with Verizon since I was going to be on the road so much. At that time you could get a specific amount of minutes and they would roll over until you used them.

Believe it or not I still have this prepaid Verizon phone! LOL

However, my experience with Verizon went from good to “OMG are you kidding me?!”

First, I moved back to the mountains where coverage was super limited.

Then they changed my plan without notifying me (a couple of times).

When I finally called to organize a different plan, they changed my account phone number to one out of the area. This doesn’t matter to a lot of people but my region is snobby about doing business with locals–and so, although this slowly changing, they are more likely to call a local than someone out of the area.

My Verizon experience found them to be lacking on the customer friendly end and more interested in selling me what they want rather than what I need.

Anyway, they finally pissed me off enough that I jumped over to Virgin Mobile.

But now that I am looking at options…and Android, I had to go explore and so found myself in a V company store. The guy seemed like he was going to be helpful but quickly failed in that respect.

The first thing I told him was that I currently spend about $80 per year (yep, per YEAR) on my mobile phone.

That is mostly because I only use it for travel since I work from home and so use Skype, Google and an actual landline for conversations.

I didn’t really want a contract that locked me in either–and that is what I explained. In addition, I also told him I was going into mobile with my business and so needed something that would allow me to be cutting edge and competitive.

He pulled out three phones and then only showed me one. Then he only told me about the 2 year contract option. Period.

FAIL!

Hint to Verizon sales people–LISTEN to the customer and meet their needs not yours or your sales quota.

Also, after his coworkers arrived he quickly began chatting with them and ignored me.

Since I know a friendly Verizon store in Yucca Valley and if I decided on Verizon, I’d have headed over there to buy instead of giving these locals my commissions.

Next…Mobile Exploration at The Shack

Photo Credit: Floating Eyeball