SprintNextel drops in Customer Satisfaction Survey

[Fire14]

Sprint Nextel Drops in Customer Satisfaction Survey

Customer satisfaction with the goods and services that Americans buy continues to improve, but at a slower rate, according to a report released by the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). The ACSI is up 0.4% to an overall score of 75.2 on the ACSI's 100-point scale, the highest quarterly national average in the ACSI's 14-year history.

However, although customer satisfaction growth in the aggregate continues, the rate has slowed and many individual companies measured this quarter are falling behind. Of the companies measured in the first quarter of 2007, the ACSI saw more drops than gains in satisfaction.

"In addition to the large number of decliners, the rate of improvement in satisfaction has slowed," said Professor Claes Fornell, director of the University of Michigan's National Quality Research Center, which compiles and analyzes the ACSI data. "Companies don't have much pricing power unless there is shrinking supply or higher customer satisfaction. There are no signs of the former in most industries, so the latter becomes more critical. Companies may begin to see narrowing profit margins unless there is further improvement in customer satisfaction."

ACSI has consistently predicted future consumer spending and is an indicator of financial performance at both the company and industry level. The latest ACSI data suggest that depending on the impact of consumer debt burden, consumer spending growth will be in the range of 3.1% to 3.9% in the second quarter of 2007.

In the first quarter of every year, the ACSI measures customer satisfaction with the quality of products and services in energy utilities, airlines, express delivery, U.S. Postal Service, hospitals, hotels, fast food restaurants, cable & satellite TV and telecommunications services.

Telecommunications: Cable and Satellite TV Remain Low, Wireless Continues to Improve

The telecommunications sector as measured by the ACSI is made up for four industries: fixed-line service, wireless service, cable and satellite television, and cell phones.

The fixed-line telephone providers maintain a consistent industry score of 70. Qwest and Verizon see slight increases to 72, but Cox drops six points to 70 and AT&T (70) and Comcast (67) drop as well. Embarq improves two points to 66 but remains last in the category.

A second year of improvement in the wireless industry puts it at an all-time high: up 3% to a score of 68. However, even with this year's gain, wireless service remains one of the five lowest scoring industries in ACSI. AT&T Mobility, the new incarnation of Cingular Wireless, makes a big jump, up 8% to 68, while Verizon Wireless (71) and T-Mobile (70) show gains of 3% and 1%, respectively.

But not all wireless providers are on the way up. Satisfaction with Sprint Nextel is falling well behind competition (seven points behind the nearest competitor), and now stands at 61, a 3% drop from a year ago.

The perennially low-scoring cable and satellite TV industry drops 2% to 62, the lowest level of customer satisfaction among all industries covered by ACSI. None of the providers has improved on customer satisfaction this year. Comcast (down 7% to 56), DirecTV (down 6% to 67) and Time Warner Cable (down 5% to 58) all tumble.

In cell phones, Motorola and Nokia both advance to 72, but Samsung falls three points to 70.


www.cellular-news.com/story/23757.php

[AnthroMatt]

No surprise there. What I would be interested to see is whether Sprint can rebound. Whenever you merge two companies, let alone when one of them already has a lousy CS track record, there are going to be problems.

[danny boi]

A lot of polls, independant or otherwise, seem to give Sprint low marks on many fronts. Not just JD Powers anymore.

If there is any lesson to be learned, it's that you won't win over consumer satisfaction on price alone. Other metrics including postsale support is crucial.

Sprint has the best deals in town. If high end Nextel subscribers are knowingly paying more money to go elsewhere as opposed to migrating over to Sprint branded CDMA, that tells you what kind of impression they have of the company.

I'm not a Sprint CDMA customer. But I do know they weren't known for stellar pre or postsale suport on the CDMA side either a couple of years back and they were forced to rely heavily on retention style offers to keep customers from defecting. I'm sure it's gotten better, but they haven't been able to get this point across.

What I would do is can the PowerUp campaign. Nobody really believes that stuff anyways and is as credible in the public eye as the "fewest dropped calls," campaign.

They need to advertise and push what matters to their existing customer base and to whom they wish to attract.

Sprint seems to have the polar opposites in their base which makes things difficult. They have the high end corporate Nextel sub and arguably one of the highest ratio of deadbeat customers. Heavily pushing the new Boost Unlimited Plan may help short term profits in the interim, but will only increase the number of low value customers and hurt the industry (not necessarily the consumer) in the long run by pushing the consumer to over-focus on price (I'll save that for another thread).

With AT&T and Verizon now able to offer quadruple services under one roof, I seriously believe we are getting closer to another round of consolidation with Sprint being the purchasee this time around.

[Steve B]

Originally Posted by YourDaddy

A lot of polls, independant or otherwise, seem to give Sprint low marks on many fronts. Not just JD Powers anymore.

If there is any lesson to be learned, it's that you won't win over consumer satisfaction on price alone. Other metrics including postsale support is crucial.

Sprint has the best deals in town. If high end Nextel subscribers are knowingly paying more money to go elsewhere as opposed to migrating over to Sprint branded CDMA, that tells you what kind of impression they have of the company.

I'm not a Sprint CDMA customer. But I do know they weren't known for stellar pre or postsale suport on the CDMA side either a couple of years back and they were forced to rely heavily on retention style offers to keep customers from defecting. I'm sure it's gotten better, but they haven't been able to get this point across.

What I would do is can the PowerUp campaign. Nobody really believes that stuff anyways and is as credible in the public eye as the "fewest dropped calls," campaign.

They need to advertise and push what matters to their existing customer base and to whom they wish to attract.

Sprint seems to have the polar opposites in their base which makes things difficult. They have the high end corporate Nextel sub and arguably one of the highest ratio of deadbeat customers. Heavily pushing the new Boost Unlimited Plan may help short term profits in the interim, but will only increase the number of low value customers and hurt the industry (not necessarily the consumer) in the long run by pushing the consumer to over-focus on price (I'll save that for another thread).

With AT&T and Verizon now able to offer quadruple services under one roof, I seriously believe we are getting closer to another round of consolidation with Sprint being the purchasee this time around.

Like I mentioned in the other thread, I forsee Sprint shooting themselves in the foot with the latest grabs for customers. You are correct too in saying that post-sale support is crucial and Sprint doesn't do that really well and did and still does rely heavily on retention offers to keep customers from porting out.

[AnthroMatt]

They are making me angry by calling my phone to try and get me to add lines. I already have 4 of them. I think I know how to add them if I need them at this point. I would come to you Sprint, if and when it is time for number 5!

[larry]

Originally Posted by AnthroMatt

They are making me angry by calling my phone to try and get me to add lines. I already have 4 of them. I think I know how to add them if I need them at this point. I would come to you Sprint, if and when it is time for number 5!

Hmm. I've never got any calls from them about that. I wonder why they call some people and not others?

[larry]

To me Sprint CDMA is doing better than ever right now. I can't understand why they are having a hard time getting other people to feel that way. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. At this point I don't think there's really anything they can change to do better. I really thought that the greatly improved coverage as a result of the merger (1,100 new cell sites in CA & AZ alone by the end of this year) would have satisfied a lot of people but apparently it hasn't.

[clock3687]

People also have that bad 1st impression. My parents had sprint from '97-'99. The coverage wasnt the best in the boston area. Since switching, they never want to go back to sprint. Regardless of how good the network is now, a lot of people refuse to go back b/c of previous experiences.

[AnthroMatt]

Very true. And I can't say I blame them. If Sprint (or any other company) was bad for you 5 years ago and your new provider is good now, why risk giving up a good thing?

[TNDan21]

Originally Posted by larry

To me Sprint CDMA is doing better than ever right now. I can't understand why they are having a hard time getting other people to feel that way. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. At this point I don't think there's really anything they can change to do better. I really thought that the greatly improved coverage as a result of the merger (1,100 new cell sites in CA & AZ alone by the end of this year) would have satisfied a lot of people but apparently it hasn't.

Sprint does have pretty good coverage and has improved so much from how it was years ago in many aspects. However Sprint still has one chink in its armor that I think is sill hurting them and will continue to do so. Customer service is very important to a customer and Sprint still has lousy CS. Hold times are on average 10-15 minutes and when you do talk to a rep typically you get some poorly trained american that doesn't know anything or you get some outsourced person in god knows where and neither of you can understand each other.

Sprint is making improvements though. Email customer support is quite good and the new discussion forums from Sprint are a nice addition. However they still need to work on improving customer service via the phone. The phone is Sprint's main line of customer service and it's pretty bad right now compared to Cingular, Verizon, and T-Mobile.

[Fire14]

Originally Posted by TNDan21

Sprint does have pretty good coverage and has improved so much from how it was years ago in many aspects. However Sprint still has one chink in its armor that I think is sill hurting them and will continue to do so. Customer service is very important to a customer and Sprint still has lousy CS. Hold times are on average 10-15 minutes and when you do talk to a rep typically you get some poorly trained american that doesn't know anything or you get some outsourced person in god knows where and neither of you can understand each other.

Sprint is making improvements though. Email customer support is quite good and the new discussion forums from Sprint are a nice addition. However they still need to work on improving customer service via the phone. The phone is Sprint's main line of customer service and it's pretty bad right now compared to Cingular, Verizon, and T-Mobile.

I think this is their # 1 problem, and if they get over this hurdle, they can possibly win back the customers from years ago that had them & suffered from lousy coverage. I still don't know how they are with the 850/1900 phones, but so far their 1900 coverage around here is pretty good.
I know the County isn't happy with them & their CS with some people having to swap out the ic502 due to problems & they are getting the ic402 in place of it and are dealing with issues with CS.
I think that is one of the reasons i won't switch, too many CS horror stories & still worried about coverage.

I am going to Emmitsburg MD tomorrow afternoon for the weekend (going to the National fire acadamy for classes) & plan to see how the Buzz works, my Cingular & my T-Mobile out there.
I think I will see some issues with the Buzz once off the main highway, but may be suprised.

[larry]

But guys who has to call customer service and why? I surely don't have that need. I can go 6 months without calling them. To me the customer service thing has never been an issue. On the rare times I have called I haven't run into any problems or long wait times. I can't be the only one.

Also no matter how many articles come out in the news about Sprint dropping in customer satisfaction or Sprint not adding as many new customers, this has no bearing on my service whatsoever.

[danny boi]

Originally Posted by Fire14

I think this is their # 1 problem, and if they get over this hurdle, they can possibly win back the customers from years ago that had them & suffered from lousy coverage. I still don't know how they are with the 850/1900 phones, but so far their 1900 coverage around here is pretty good.
I know the County isn't happy with them & their CS with some people having to swap out the ic502 due to problems & they are getting the ic402 in place of it and are dealing with issues with CS.
I think that is one of the reasons i won't switch, too many CS horror stories & still worried about coverage.

I am going to Emmitsburg MD tomorrow afternoon for the weekend (going to the National fire acadamy for classes) & plan to see how the Buzz works, my Cingular & my T-Mobile out there.
I think I will see some issues with the Buzz once off the main highway, but may be suprised.

Sprint has decent coverage around here. The problem we had with our organization was mainly business care support. Our execs pulled the entire Sprint line down even going as far as willingly paying the ETF's for hundreds of employees to leave Sprint. They didn't differentiate between iDEN or CDMA handsets. They just canned everything including aircards. Really sad.

[TNDan21]

Originally Posted by larry

But guys who has to call customer service and why? I surely don't have that need. I can go 6 months without calling them. To me the customer service thing has never been an issue. On the rare times I have called I haven't run into any problems or long wait times. I can't be the only one.

Luckily I've only had to call customer service a few times on Sprint. Just for some plan changes and once to ask a question about MTM. Sprint's poor CS reputation almost kept me from signing up for them though. I've heard so many horror stories, thats the biggest complain you hear about now is Sprint's poor customer service. What really annoyed me recently is when I called a rep asking if Boost Mobile calling was included as MTM. I was pretty sure it was but called to make sure since I couldn't find anything about Boost calling on the Sprint's website under the MTM FAQ. I was on hold for 10 minutes which isn't too bad. However ugh the woman I got had no clue what I was even asking, I don't think she had even heard of Boost Mobile. I repeated the question and she just straight said "No" without attempting to even try to find a answer for me. She just had no idea what I was talking about and just straight said no to me. I emailed customer service with the same question though and just a few hours later got an email back stating Sprint, Nextel, and Boost Mobile calling is included in MTM though. If customer service reps can't even answer a simple question like that on the phone you really have a problem with customer service and how reps are trained and informed.

On the coverage side Sprint has very good coverage in my area and they have much better rate plans and options than Cingular or Verizon. So overall I'm very happy with Sprint but I will admit I am disappointed in the CS. I however can deal with poor CS considering I have good coverage with Sprint and a good rate plan.

[larry]

Originally Posted by TNDan21

Luckily I've only had to call customer service a few times on Sprint. Just for some plan changes and once to ask a question about MTM. Sprint's poor CS reputation almost kept me from signing up for them though. I've heard so many horror stories, thats the biggest complain you hear about now is Sprint's poor customer service. What really annoyed me recently is when I called a rep asking if Boost Mobile calling was included as MTM. I was pretty sure it was but called to make sure since I couldn't find anything about Boost calling on the Sprint's website under the MTM FAQ. I was on hold for 10 minutes which isn't too bad. However ugh the woman I got had no clue what I was even asking, I don't think she had even heard of Boost Mobile. I repeated the question and she just straight said "No" without attempting to even try to find a answer for me. She just had no idea what I was talking about and just straight said no to me. I emailed customer service with the same question though and just a few hours later got an email back stating Sprint, Nextel, and Boost Mobile calling is included in MTM though. If customer service reps can't even answer a simple question like that on the phone you really have a problem with customer service and how reps are trained and informed.

On the coverage side Sprint has very good coverage in my area and they have much better rate plans and options than Cingular or Verizon. So overall I'm very happy with Sprint but I will admit I am disappointed in the CS. I however can deal with poor CS considering I have good coverage with Sprint and a good rate plan.

Dan,
You could have saved yourself that trouble and asked me that question. I've always known that Boost was included but Virgin Mobile is not.

[danny boi]

Originally Posted by larry

Dan,
You could have saved yourself that trouble and asked me that question. I've always known that Boost was included but Virgin Mobile is not.

True. I think Sprint should employee Wireless Advisor members like us for their customer service.

I'll do the promotional stuff and you do all the advanced technical stuff.

Bobolito and Fire could head the member care organization.

SBacklin could handle the new port in's from at&t and Andy could handle the new Verizon port-in's.

Jim could handle the local OC office because no real business is a real business unless they have an office in Irvine.

Dan could handle the English Accent dept. to handle all those south and east of Tenessee. LOL

Just an idea!

[larry]

Originally Posted by YourDaddy

True. I think Sprint should employee Wireless Advisor members like us for their customer service.

I'll do the promotional stuff and you do all the advanced technical stuff.

Bobolito and Fire could head the member care organization.

SBacklin could handle the new port in's from at&t and Andy could handle the new Verizon port-in's.

Jim could handle the local OC office because no real business is a real business unless they have an office in Irvine.

Dan could handle the English Accent dept. to handle all those south and east of Tenessee. LOL

Just an idea!

Ha ha that's brilliant!