Sprint: Power Down
Posted July 10th, 2007 by DavidTaking a break from the massive drafts about Live Earth to bring you this interesting post from a hometown blogger:
Sprint is sending break-up letters to some of its customers who are too, uh, needy.
TIME reports:
The nation’s third-largest wireless provider sent letters to about 1,000 subscribers June 29, saying the company’s records showed they had made frequent calls for help with questions about billing and other account information. “While we have worked to resolve your issues and questions to the best of our ability, the number of inquiries you have made to us during this time had led us to determine that we are unable to meet your current wireless needs,” the letters said.
See a copy of the letter at the break-up link above.
We’ve all heard the “It’s not you, it’s me,” line before … but from a company? What the hell are you doing in customer service if you’re not willing to service the customer?
Perhaps the most humorous part of this mess comes in the last line of the letter sent to customers:
Should you have any questions regarding the transfer of your number to another wireless carrier or about the final adjustments to your account, please call our customer care department at (877) 527-8405.
… Oh because you’re obviously so willing to take their calls now, Sprint.
July 16th, 2007 at 8:14 am
Sooo, will sprint pay the customer the termination fee then? Probably not.
July 16th, 2007 at 8:38 am
Let’s put this in perspective. 1,000 customers out of 250,000 is .4% of their customers. In all liklihood, these are customers that are such a PIA that they cost more to maintain than they are worth. Believe it or not, the customer is is not always right! Sometimes they are wrong and unreasonable.
Granted, it’s a very competitive space and it could have been handled better, for instance the letter could have said, “We have attempted to satisfy your issues, but have been unable to do so. Therefore we have suggest it is best for all concerned to allow you to cancel your contract without penalty so you might find a provider that better suits your needs.”
It seems to me that Sprint is simply firing customers that hurt the bottom line. If done tactfully, this is good business. Unfortunately, it appears Sprint didn’t do a very good job managing the PR.
July 16th, 2007 at 10:22 am
More customers for AT&T! At least other Sprint customers who hate their service (like I did) know how to get out of their contract for free, even make money. If I were them I’d start cranking up some 900# charges!
July 16th, 2007 at 10:44 am
This is the type of thing you can expect from Sprint if you decide to go with them. They cheated me out of my rewards points a few years ago after spending years with them as a loyal customer. I had close to $2,000 worth of rewards points and Sprint stopped the program BUT they didn’t tell anyone. If you want service and not be ripped off, do not trust Sprint. They will screw you in the end.
July 16th, 2007 at 11:25 am
Sprint’s break up completely represents exactly how they run their customer service side of their business. I’ve been a customer w/ them for about 4 years, and definitely not because of their coverage or customer service, but price.
When I moved, I went to an area where they had the worst coverage w/ every call dropping (still does today), whereas all other mobile companies provided good service. I was constantly “roaming” in my own neighborhood and knew if I answered a call, I would have to pay the roaming price. If there were any billing issues and didn’t call in to resolve, naturally they blamed me for not being responsible w/ my bill. When I did call in, it was like pulling teeth to get them to correct their mistakes.
I thought it may just be me, but anyone I knew that dealt w/ Sprint’s customer service felt the same way and experienced similar, horrible customer service.
I think of Sprint as the Blockbuster of the cell phone business, and AT&T and Verizon are the Netflix’s. It’s only a matter of time that the poor customer service and unfairness will catch up to them & they’ll have to deal w/ their karma.
July 16th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
That is awesome if you have sprint and want to get rid of it. I wish I could do the same with my verizon phone which has such lousy reception.
July 16th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
I read that these customers called in OVER ONCE PER DAY. Who has time and why would anyone need to call anyone that much? All this does is ruin service for everyone else. If you can free up the reps so they don’t have to deal with these 30K+ calls per month who are hogging up all the bandwidth, it means I am more likely to get through when I need service.
BTW, I hate Sprint and its customer service so I am not defending them but I think this move gives me hope that it could get better.
July 16th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
You would think with such a horrible customer service reputation already, Sprint could have found a more tactful way of doing this, if it really was a necessary way to potentially improve customer service in the future. I have also experienced the wrath of Sprints customer service (aka broken phone that no one was willing to help me fix and terrible service) and thought it was actually pretty hilarious that they did this. Kind of wish I’d known about all this and called 20 times a day to avoid the cancellation fee that I’m facing now.