An open letter to Sprint/Nextel corporate executives

From the desk of Roy Furr, Friday, June 20th, 2008

It seems like whenever Wall Street gets priority over Main Street, customer service screw-ups abound.

Here’s yet another tale of horrible customer service. Below is the full text of a letter I was able to send to 12 Sprint/Nextel executives, thanks to The Consumerist’s helpful post here with their contact information. I know the contact information is probably outdated with their constant turnover in the upper ranks, but hopefully at least one email gets through.

If you’re subscribed (see right), I’ll let you know what comes of it.

Here’s my letter:

An open letter to Sprint/Nextel corporate executives:

My Sprint customer experience over the past two months has bordered on molestation — and if it weren’t for the $200 fee per line of abandoning my contract (further abuse), I’d be gone already.

Makes me understand 100% why this is the media coverage you get:

“One of the biggest problems Sprint has faced is retaining customers. Quarter after quarter Sprint has seen customers, especially those from the old Nextel network, leave its service.” (from http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9850282-7.html)

Perhaps it’s my fault, because I opted for the free phone with a two-year contract — instead of spending money on a decent cell phone. But my experience with Sprint since my wife and I renewed our contract has been dismal, to say the least.

First, the new phones we got. They’re far worse than our previous phones. They are annoying to use. And as I’ve learned over the past month, they die inexplicably from normal use.

The phone — the Samsung SPH-M300 — should be removed from your product line immediately.

Just take what customers think:

• Average user rating on Cnet: 3.3 out of 10, based on 21 reviews (verify for yourself at http://reviews.cnet.com/cell-phones/samsung-sph-m300-red/4505-6454_7-32450651.html).
• Average user rating on BuzzAboutWireless: 3.5 out of 10, based on 529 reviews (again, verify for yourself at http://www.buzzaboutwireless.com/cms/phones/m300-by-samsung.html).

I really wish I’d seen these reviews before I got the phone. I’d certainly have made another decision.

Of course, Sprint had an opportunity to make well.

A couple months after we renewed our contract, we got a call from a Sprint associate on a friendly follow-up call.

I told him how much I disliked the phone, and after stumbling and bumbling for a minute (I guess he wasn’t used to an honest customer) he composed himself and started to look through my account. Turned out he couldn’t do anything about my dissatisfaction. His last-ditch solution was to wait until one year into my contract when I could get a partial credit toward a new phone, or two years when I could get full credit.

Whooptee. I knew that already. Thanks for the customer “service” phone call.

Then this Mother’s Day things went downhill quick.

After talking to my mom for a while, my phone got hot — real hot. And shortly afterward it blacked out, dead.

After buying a replacement battery from Batteries Plus (apparently the Sprint store doesn’t keep them in stock for sale to the public) I quickly realized the problem was the phone and not the battery. So
luckily Batteries Plus was friendly enough to offer me a full refund on the battery — no questions asked — when I realized I had no use for a new battery.

Then I took my phone to the Sprint store and under the guise of “service” they were willing to replace it for $40. (No, I don’t have insurance, I’ll get to that.)

Fine, replace the phone (even though I don’t like it). Here’s $40 — just get me a working phone.

I wait a few days and get the new phone in. Good enough. The woman at the store worked to at least transfer my contacts to my new phone — despite the fact that she had to work a little bit to get the
broken phone to work long enough to do so.

I wasn’t satisfied, but I was accepting of the situation. At least I had a working phone.

Until Father’s Day. (No clue why it would happen on two similar holidays… coincidence, I guess.)

Less than 30 days after I’d gotten my replacement phone, I pull out this new phone to call my dad… and… guess what?… Black. Dead. “Bricked” as my geek friends would call it.

And I suspect you’re thinking at this point that I must abuse my phones… Well, I didn’t even have this new phone long enough to drop it! There wasn’t a scratch on it.

This was natural death.

And the cause of death? Shoddy craftsmanship and cheap parts, best I could tell. (My guess is that this is systemic, and stems from a corporate culture of preferring cost cutting and short-term profits
over customer satisfaction — the latter of which leads to business sustainability and long-term profits… This all-too-common move appeases whiny investors, I’m sure, but it also leads to you reading
long ranting letters like this one and suffering from a horrible image on Main Street — the only true “Street” that matters in business success).

Anyways… back to the phone and my next trip to the local Sprint store.

I walk in and realize that there’s an everyday problem in this particular store. Although there are four or five employees there at any given time, there’s usually only one or two working the counter,
and a line of three to six unacknowledged customers out the door. (No “hi, we’ll be with you soon” from an employee or manager. Not even a friendly glance!)

So I wait, impatiently. Like the other customers in line. Until eventually one of the employees comes around to finally acknowledge my presence.

I explain to him my problem — that this is my second dead version of this phone in less than 30 days.

He admits that he “doesn’t love” the phone. He also admits through his body language and style of conversation he knows the phone sucks but can’t say so in the store.

I tell him that Sprint should have removed the phone from their lineup a long time ago, because there are so many customer complaints about it. His well-trained tongue tries to support the phone and the
company’s decision to keep selling it, but he can’t really disagree with what I’m saying.

Sprint still sells this phone.

So — here’s one bright spot in the whole experience — because it hadn’t been 30 days since my phone was replaced, I didn’t have to be bent over to have another $40 ripped out of my wallet.

But what he said next really stuck a thorn in me.

He said I should buy insurance at $7 per month (per line), because I know that the phone I was sold is shoddy, and I don’t want to have to keep paying $40 to Sprint to keep replacing it. Bullshit. That logic
blames me for Sprint selling a sub-par product.

Just thinking about it pisses me off.

What he was proposing was that I spend in excess of $168 through the end of my contract (I have more than a year left) — on top of my normal service charges — because I got suckered into accepting a
sub-par product.

That’s a solution? NO!

I told him so and then he basically told me that if I went through this annoying, draining, painful customer experience enough times I’d finally reach a threshold where someone in the store could do
something about it. But getting my phone replaced twice in 30 days wasn’t enough of pain in the arse to deserve any mercy.

If I can slip into a little sarcasm… Brilliant policy — certainly put in place to ensure customer satisfaction. Drag us through the mud until we give up, then maybe throw us a bone. Genius.

Maybe I should call customer retention, he suggested. Things might happen quicker. Otherwise I could expect my replacement phone in a few days.

So I accepted that the store would call me when my new replacement phone was in and left.

A little later, I called customer retention and the woman I spoke with made an agreement that I can have my phone replaced (giving me my choice of similar, poorly-rated phones) if I sign a new two-year
contract. I didn’t accept because I’m not sure I want to go through another two years of being stuck with a company that doesn’t put much priority on customer satisfaction. (Or at least if there’s priority
in the corporate offices, they don’t enable employees on the front lines to do anything about it when customers are dissatisfied.)

And on to picking up my latest replacement phone.

Another annoying wait in line without a hint of acknowledgment. The employees look right through you, until it’s your turn.

Then finally I get stuck with an employee whose every action tells me she doesn’t want to be there, she doesn’t want to deal with me, she doesn’t care, she just wants me out of there.

She takes my phone across the room, and just a few seconds later comes back and tells me she can’t transfer my contacts. I have to wrestle it out of her that she even tried a new battery. It’s obvious she
doesn’t care too much. And she isn’t willing to put too much effort into it, either.

I would just have to re-enter all my contacts into my phone (luckily I wrote them down after my last phone failure). No sympathy for the amount of time that takes.

Another brilliant solution from a Sprint employee.

Too tired to fight, I left with my newest sub-par phone in hand, and now find myself writing this letter.

What do I want you to do about this situation? I’m not sure.

At this point I think what would make me happiest is waiving the fee for ending my contract early, so I’m free to choose another carrier with better customer service practices.

Second choice in my book, that would still make Sprint look pretty good and continue your revenue stream from me, is replacing my phone without me having to renew my contract (I’ll abide by the terms of my current contract). You still have me for more than a year — that’s plenty of time to suck profits out of me. (Oh yeah, I do a pretty good job of paying my bills on time — maybe one has been late in the years I’ve been with you — I’m what would be considered a responsible customer.) And maybe in that time you can earn a contract renewal by providing improved service. (Despite Verizon’s advertisements, I think your network is great.)

Third choice is to let the offer from account retention stand. I get a new phone, with a new two-year contract. It’s not great, but maybe it’s manageable.

Fourth choice is leaving me with this dismal phone, waiting for it to break down again, but giving me free insurance on both lines so I’m covered when your hardware continuously fails on me. This would be a poor choice, but I’d be a little less down on Sprint because at least you did something.

Last choice would be to do nothing. It’s kind of what I expect, but I hope it doesn’t happen.

I feel helpless. I hope you can change that. And maybe… just maybe… I’d become a happy Sprint customer again.

I look forward to your reply.

Thanks,

Roy Furr

President
Fresh Look, Inc. Marketing Consulting
541-543-1438

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