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T-Mobile in-store bill payments are about to cost you. Not in any sort of figurative way either. They will quite literally cost you more money out of your pocket. This week T-Mobile announced it would be charging people more money (a $5 fee) if they wanted to make in-store bill payments.
That seems like an odd thing to do to customers who just want to hand over their money for services rendered, doesn’t it? Well, maybe. But not if you think about the potential reasons behind it. Sure, T-Mobile is a wireless service company. It charges you a monthly fee for that service and you need to pay that fee somehow, and the people who work in T-Mobile stores can certainly process in-store payments. They’ve been trained to do so, and have been completing that task for many years.
Here’s the thing. T-Mobile store employees are also sales reps. Where T-Mobile’s main job is to provide you with cell service, a T-Mobile store employee’s main job is to sell you things. Whether that’s new lines of service, phone upgrades, accessories or what have you. And if they’re tied up with a customer processing a bill payment, that means they aren’t actively selling. Especially if the bill processing request takes a long time. As some of them can. So T-Mobile’s answer to this is charging a $5 fee to customers who still prefer to walk into a store and pay their bill in person. In hopes they won’t want to come to the store unless it’s to buy stuff.
T-Mobile is hoping to curb in-store bill payments
It’s an interesting strategy that the company no doubt hopes will help boost sales for reps across the board. And thereby the company itself. A win-win for both sides of the company. But what about the customer? Well there are still ways to pay the bill without paying the $5 fee.
You just won’t be able to do that in stores anymore. The obvious answer (or at least it should be) is to set up autopay. Not only does this relieve you of having to actively complete the bill payment, but T-Mobile will even take money off your bill if you set it up.
Your other options, as Droid Life points out, are to pay the bill online in your T-Mobile account, or to pay in the T-Mobile app on your phone. All three methods work, and you don’t have to go anywhere. Plus, you aren’t stuck with an extra $5 charge.