T-Mobile store employees are getting hit in their wallets for not pushing customers to use the carrier’s T-Life app enough. Some reps have lost their entire monthly cash bonus because they failed to meet the company’s aggressive app usage targets.
According to a report by PhoneArena, a T-Mobile District Manager revealed on Reddit that his entire district lost their monthly bonus payments for July. The reason? Their stores weren’t forcing customers to use the T-Life app for the required percentage of transactions, which ranges from 60% to 90% depending on the region.
This policy is creating real problems for customers. Some people with broken or stolen phones have been unable to get replacement devices because they can’t access the T-Life app on their damaged phones. T-Mobile recently had to change its process, now giving customers unsealed replacement phones so they can immediately download the app and complete their transaction – just to meet the usage quota.
The situation has gotten so bad that some employees are talking about organizing walkouts. One rep suggested that if 70% of workers participated, it would force T-Mobile to restore their pay within 48 hours.
A longtime T-Mobile employee with 15 years at the company expressed his disappointment with how things have changed since the John Legere era. “I used to be super proud to work for T-Mobile, and I’d advocate for them inside and outside of work,” he wrote. “T-Life should not be a metric until it’s fully functional, period.”
The push for T-Life usage appears to be part of T-Mobile’s broader strategy to reduce reliance on in-store staff. Many employees believe the company is planning to close retail locations and lay off workers, with the app handling most customer interactions instead. The company has said it wants complete T-Life adoption by 2027.
T-Mobile is also taking a proactive approach by sending text messages to customers asking them to authorize account access through the T-Life app before visiting stores. As we reported earlier this month, these texts are designed to cut down wait times, but they’re really another way to force T-Life usage since store employees often can’t help customers who haven’t set up the required app authorizations.
For customers, this means potentially longer waits and more pressure to use an app that doesn’t always work properly, especially when you need help with complex account changes or technical issues that require human assistance.
Source: PhoneArena