AT&T Store — Local services in Norwich

I have never written a review online before, but this really got to me after several bad experiences with AT&T and being their customer for almost 30 years. I went to the Norwich AT&T store yesterday. The representative was helping the only customer in the store with changing her IMEI number with at&t phone support. He said to me right away what brings you in today. I told him to pay off my phone, take off insurance on my sons, and unlock my husband's. He said to call 611 to unlock the phone, but the other 2 things he will be with me shortly. I said thank you and started roaming around the store. He went back to the call with the at&t representative. He was getting more and more agitated with the representative saying there is no way this should take this long, and the process shouldn't be this hard. Also saying he apologized for being mad, but it was not directed at the person on the phone. Meanwhile, another customer walks in, and he greated her the same way. She wanted a new screen protector. He told her he would help her first, then me because her fix would be quicker, still going back and forth with the representative on the phone. And yet another person walked in. Same greating-I think she wanted to pay her bill. He handed the phone representative off to the original customer and was now helping the person after me with her screen and yelling at representative this is a ridiculous system and it should not take an hour and I have six people waiting in the store.(not true) He told the screen protector woman the price. She asked why it wasn't free? He said they used to override the system to give them for free, but he couldn't do that anymore. She asked if she could get an upgrade instead? He told her not until she paid off about $50 dollars more on the phone. In the meantime, another customer walks in, so there are now 5 customers. When she found out it wasn't free and she couldn't get a new phone yet she left without a screen cover. So now he called a second person who came in after me. I then said, "Excuse me, but I was here first, and you already helped one person who came in after me." He said "They won't take long, and you will take like 20 minutes." I said, "I was still here first." He then said, "So I am just telling you, I am the manager, and this is how I am doing things, and if you don't like it, you can leave." So I did leave after being there almost 40 minutes for nothing. If I could rate my experience a zero,...

So I'm giving this store a 1 star rating for the following experience:

I decided to switch carriers after my previous carrier's bill kept increasing. Initially, I wanted to go on my husband's plan. Since he has First Net, it wasn't allowed. No big deal, my employer offers a discount for at&t services.

The employee who was in (Joshua L) greeted us, I informed him that I wanted to move from iPhone back to android. He pointed out the S20 FE, and informed me it would be free with my trade in. AWESOME! I didn't think my 6s plus was worth that much, as I ran quotes on the website but I figured he may know more about local promotions.

So I signed up for the samsung s20 fe. I am happy with the phone. I'm not happy at the fact that I had mentioned to Joshua that my employer offered the discount as he insisted my account needed to be set up first. What I was hoping to be a smooth experience turned into a nightmare. I added my husband as an authorized user, and for whatever reason- couldn't port my phone number over. After being locked out of my previous carrier's account, I was not allowed to use the store computer to reset my password. My old phone already had a factory reset.

Long story short, I'm stuck with a phone number I didn't want, had my old phone number for 14 years that my entire life is tied to, and I'll have to pay a fee to change my phone number in 30 days from when my account was opened. Also, my new phone wasn't free. I learned that after a visit to the Lisbon store.

I do not recommend this location!

01/05/2021 EDIT: So I took AT&T up on their offer to send an email and I received a call from the District Manager for the Northeast within 2 hours of sending the email. He invited me back to the store and I was taken care of!! He changed my number back free of charge, made sure my employer was on my account, and I had to go in store (security purposes) to add my husband as an authorized party. My main concerns were handled in a professional way. I was even more impressed when after my visit the district manager called me to make sure my visit was satisfactory. Although my initial experience was poor, I'm very satisfied with how the leadership took control and rectified my concerns. I am a very happy...

This is an updated review.

I received a call from a district manager after seeing how other customers were impacted either indirectly or directly by my first review. He not only listened, but apologized (which I valued most) which gave my family and I reassurance that my concerns matter to leadership. He confirmed that the situation was handled and that there is a plan in place for the employee to work on improving in the area of customer service and has reiterated that he has seen a change in the performance overall since our previous interaction.

I updated this review to be fair to the rest of the team and because I feel like this issue was addressed and hoping it will never happen again to anyone.

Below is the original review from 3 months ago for reference.

"Sadly, this is quite bewildering. My daughter and I came in to inquiry about an upgrade and at first all seemed well. The associate acknowledged us and then when our turn came, she saw another black young woman enter store as she starts to talk to us she stops to say, “oh are you together?” So I addressed how it’s problematic to make assumptions especially because we were in the store about 3 mins prior to this woman coming in. Instead of attempting to understand the ignorance behind her assumption she proceeds to say, “I’m not intolerant and my uncle…” which displays just how ignorant she was. She then proceeds to act like a victim because someone actually called her out and gave her a fair understanding of the issue in assumptions. She continued with her excuses and I mostly certain doubt she will see any fault even though we were very calm and simply ask her to think before speaking. Either way, she continued her victimhood and said if I had a problem then someone else could help me tomorrow. I told her it’s not that deep, but clearly she is new to customer service and lacks accountability. Sadly we use to use this store when we lived in Montville, but what started as a simple browse turned into lack...