Community, Education
March 9, 2021

Get to Know the RepairQ and WISE Scholarship Recipients

Chances are, if you’re a cell phone repair shop owner or technician you’re already familiar with WISE™ Certification. The Wireless Industry Service Excellence certification gives retailers and technicians a way to earn customer trust through an accreditation established by industry leaders and experts. In order to become certified, stores and technicians must complete training and education courses on smartphone features, characteristics, safety best practices, data security and more. All of this knowledge culminates in businesses and staff that are more capable of handling both the technical and customer service aspects of repair. 

 

With this in mind, RepairQ® partnered with CTIA®, the organization responsible for creating the WISE certification, to offer a scholarship program allowing retailers and technicians to become WISE certified free of cost. Scholarships were awarded for single store, multi store and technician applicants based on their responses to a series of essay questions which were reviewed by a group of industry leaders who made the final selections.

 

With that, we are excited to introduce the first RepairQ and WISE scholarship recipients!

WISE scholarship recipient Kyle MacLeod

We begin with the technician winning entry, Kyle MacLeod, from New Waterford Nova Scotia. Kyle has been repairing mobile devices professionally for 7 years and over the course of nearly a decade has repaired more than 2,500 individual devices. Kyle cited his ever present curiosity for the inner workings of technology as the reason he became a repair tech. When asked to name the biggest contributing factor to his success as a technician, Kyle gave a somewhat unconventional but inspiring answer “Coming to realize that you will never be able to know everything leaves you with so much opportunity to expand and train your skillset and diversify into the unknown. With this you always feel like you have something new to do, and when you find that new niche it’s like a scientific breakthrough…”

The winner of the single store entry was Derek Nunes from PhoneSmart in Sonora, California. When asked why building trust with customers was important to him, Derek said “it’s the foundation of a long-term working relationship.” He went on to say that “in smaller towns like mine, a reputation means a lot more than price for long term success.” Derek serves his community by creating a judgement and cost-free establishment for those who may struggle with basic questions or services like transferring SIM cards or phones stuck in accessibility mode. 

WISE Scholarship Recipient Derek Nunes
WISE Scholarship Recipient Joshua Muir

Finally, our multi-store winner, Joshua Muir, wrote in from Experimax in sunny West Palm Beach, Florida. Joshua pointed to the credibility and customer confidence that accompanies WISE certification when asked why building trust is important. “While there are so many stores out there that give the repair industry a great reputation, there are many out there that damage it. We want to push the repair industry to the next level, and there’s no way we can get there without our customers trusting us – period.” Joshua went on to detail the philosophy on developing technicians at his store. He said, “there is no sink or swim mentality. With the right amount of effort and attention, any technician can become proficient.”

RepairQ and WISE would like to offer a tremendous “congratulations” to our winners and an equally tremendous “thank you” to all of our applicants. Many were worthy and selecting just three was no small task. Keep your eyes peeled for future scholarship opportunities. You never know when something like this may roll back around! If you’re interested in becoming WISE certified or want to learn more, visit the WISE website to get started!

Derek Aleman

Derek is a digital marketing coordinator, focused on implementing and optimizing SEO and SEM strategies in addition to assisting with marketing initiatives across all digital media. Outside of the office Derek is an avid motorsports enthusiast and enjoys backpacking as well as spending time with his Australian Shepard, Ripley.

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