U.S. Cellular

Unmotivated reps! I wanted to upgrade my phone last year and the rep talked me out of it! Dropped my phone a few weeks ago, ended up with a green screen. Rep said he could not retrieve any of my information! Took it to another US Cellular location… that actually WANTED my business and they were able to retrieve everything, plus set up my Outlook Express for me.

We were in the us cellular store the other day and had a great experience. Kevin took care of us and he is on of the nicest guys you will ever meet!
He was very knowledgable and helped us in every way he could. He even saved us 10 dollars to get 5 more gb of data per month. It’s a little but irritating that when the company makes changes they don’t notify all of there current customers, however we were very pleased to be informed.
We have been to other stores in the past but didn’t have a great experience. If you live anywhere in Madison I highly recommend going to the east side us cellular store and requesting to work with Kevin!
Ps: this guy deserves a raise

Being an excellent companion, I agreed to accompany my boyfriend to the US Cellular store bright and early on a Saturday so that he could upgrade his phone. We arrived well before the doors opened, and there was a line. A long one. Count this as one of the dumbest things I’ve ever waited in line for.
Due to the line and prior horror stories told to me by my gent, I was expecting a one-​star experience. It ended up not being nearly as bad as I thought.
When you come in, the manager/​concierge Patrick takes your name and asks you what brings you in. He adds you to a list on a tablet and encourages you to browse or to take a seat, whichever you prefer. Gratefully the store was well-​staffed, so the list moved along fairly quickly. People who were paying their bills or buying accessories were able to get into a separate line at the counter.
Our name was finally called, and Robert brought us over to his desk. My boyfriend knew what he wanted, so there wasn’t a lot of back and forth. He wanted a popular phone that was reasonably priced. Of course, the store didn’t have any in stock. On a Saturday morning. At the end of the month when people can redeem rewards points before they expire. They did, of course, have two phones that were twice the price in stock. Capitalism!
I asked if they were able to order the phone and how long that would take. After some clickety-​clacking Robert saw they did have it in stock at the warehouse, and they could send it to my boyfriend’s apartment. All he’d have to do is call in to activate it. My boyfriend was fine with that, so Robert called in to place the order. He shared with us that there was a 26-​minute hold. At this point, we’d been there for about 45 minutes. Not terrible, but still pretty long for what should be an easy switchover process.
After waiting (and waiting), my boyfriend asked if they had another brand in stock that was essentially the same phone as the one he wanted. They did. He said he’d take that instead. We then found out we still had to wait for Robert to get through so he could authorize the line transfer. Bummer, but at least the man would leave with a phone. After about forty-​five minutes of being on hold, the authorization was made and the phone was set up fairly quickly.
My boyfriend asked Robert to transfer the contacts/​photos/​etc. from his old phone to the new one, but of course none of the transfer machines were working. That’d just be silly! Luckily, Robert knew to just set up a Bluetooth transfer (which I’d have recommended if he hadn’t), which took forever but allowed us to be on our way.
We finally got out of there, and while it ate up our entire morning, we at least dealt with competent, friendly employees.

Service still sucks. Wsit forever but staff just sitting in their cubicles. Manager doing the same thing. No sense of urgency.

Get ready to wait. On a recent trip on a Thursday at 5:30 I was number 3 on the list. However, I left after an hour of waiting. I have no idea what friggin takes the same customer’s over an hour at a cell store or what kind of unmotivated employees were working that day but the wait is unacceptable. I counted at least 2 employees stocking endcaps instead of helping customers. At least 2 workers left customers sitting alone at their terminals for 20 minutes to go do god knows what. And it appeared that one employee, who was helping a couple, left the floor immediately after he spent over an hour with them. To be fair I have had a few good experiences at this location, but overall I must say avoid it.

THE BAD NEWS — 2 stars
I’ve been to this store a few times and like most US Cellular stores, it is an unbelievable pain in the butt. You have to wait forever to speak to someone and when you finally get someone, they don’t know what they’re talking about. I’ve never had anything but a negative experience with a US Cellular store or with US Cellular for that matter. (No, I’m not a customer. My wife is and cell phones fall under my marital duties. The ONLY reason she is still with US Cellular is because she needs coverage in rural WI.)
THE GOOD NEWS — 5 stars
The good news is actually great news and it has nothing to do with this particular store but rather the US Cellular kiosk just a short walk away in East Towne Mall. (I was not able to locate the East Towne Mall location in Unilocal so I’m writing my ditty here.) I typically try to avoid the mall but I was willing to do anything to avoid a walk-​in US Cellular store. I had always heard that the mall stores weren’t able to provide all the service of a typical walk-​in store. This is false. You can do anything at the kiosk (no phone repair) that can be done at a walk-​in store. There was no line. Just two employees who greeted us with gigantic smiles on their faces. Tory and Katie at the East Towne Mall US Cellular store do a fantastic job. Really fantastic. They were extremely friendly and professional and genuinely seemed to care about their job (unlike anyone at any other US Cellular store that I have ever encountered). They actually knew what they were talking about and for the first time ever we walked away with a positive US Cellular experience. My advice is to forgo the nearby US Cellular stores and hit the kiosk at East Towne Mall. Ask for Tory or Katie. They are extremely helpful. I implore the manager of this store to give these two a healthy raise.

Be ready to wait when you come Madison East USCC. Often have to wait 45 – 60 minutes. When you finally get to see an agent, they are always very helpful, pleasant, and patient. The employees seem very well trained. One downfall they have, and I have experienced this many times, is that the agent cannot take care of everything at their computer terminal. For some reason they always need to «call-​in» some issues to the central office for some far-​away person to perform a task for them. That itself wouldn’t be bad, except that they are always put on hold for a long uncomfortable period of time.
Us. cellular desperately needs to find some efficiencies in their customer service