It's a shame, but it's been pretty obvious that even CPW didn't want their stores any more. When upgrade came around I got several calls from their call centre trying to get me to upgrade over the phone. It struck me as a little disloyal to the stores. When I've had problems the stores can't help me, beyond call the call centre on my behalf which I appreciate but it strikes me that they could give the stores access to the same system(s) to deal with returns/repairs. They the stores are intentionally being neutered to a position less effective than the call centre or website.
I have to say I've almost always had good experienced with CPW stores. I liked going in and fondling the handsets before buying one & the staff have always been helpful.
A cynic might imagine that - whilst this isn't directly caused by Covid-19 - this is hardly going to be the major news story it otherwise might have been right now. So the timing could be opportunistic. Which would be pretty shitty to be honest.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
