Sprint's "Limited Vision"

what exactly did Sprint do wrong? I can't quite make out from your post. Although I agree that current customers should be treated like new when it come to rebates and such.

 

I just got a sprint vision Sanyo 4900 and the futuredial setup software/cable. I'm surfing away for free with my laptop. My wife surfed the web as we were driving to California it was great. I have been on ATT for 3 years now and I went to best buy and started to talk to the sprint rep there. He told me about the cable and were to get it at futuredial.com. He told me If I got the vision phone I could use this cable to surf with my laptop. I wasn't sure so I called Sprint when I got home they were strongly saying it doesn't work. That I would only get 14400 connection and would take minutes off my voice plan. I started asking about cables they told me to get a air card and pay 100 a month for unlimited. When I went back to Best buy the guy was there I told him what they said he said they have been told to tell people that because they have no way to tell if you are using your phone to surf or your a laptop. Sprint is pissed about it. It goes about twice the speed as my dial up modem.

 

first off when sprint launched the $10 unlimited vision plans they stated in the terms and conditions that this was not for unlimited use with a laptop. again anyone who thinks this is unreasonable wants too much for too little. i take the side of the consumer on many issues but people who are complaining that they should get unlimited internet access for $10 a month from a wireless carrier are in my eyes being unreasonable- you can barely get decent dial up landline access for that much.

second there was no concerted effort by sprint to tell their reps to say the data cables never existed for vision phones. i would know- i am a sales rep and keep in touch with many. we were never told by anyone directly or indirectly or in any manner to inform people of this misinformation. any rep that does this is doing of their own accord and is wrong for doing so and i disagree with their methods- but this was not a company wide effort. unless they just decided to tell the reps of every market save their biggest one- the ny metro market.

also any sales rep that tells people to go ahead and do it is also wrong- they are just trying to close a sale by promising more than they have been authorized to do so by the company.

 

I am first time Sprint user and so far so good - nothing out of ordinary. The only time I had a problem when over-limit minutes showed up on my account because (so i thought) i had a non-vision phone sharing minutes with a vision phone. I was assured by Sprint tech that Sprint does not charge minutes for web use (any web) just kilobytes anyway, so i am waiting for my bill to see where those minutes came from.

I always knew that the $10 unlimites vision applied to phone use only. Yea, I'm sure people would love to surf the internet at 144kbs on the desktop/laptop for $10/month unlimited. It owuld put other ISPs out of business.

 

As far as the comments about treating existing customer the same with rebates and such...that does not make business since...the average phone is subsidized by at least $100 dollars.

If you get a phone for $99.00 and receive a $99.00 rebate. Your wireless carrier is now $200 in the hole.
If you choose to go on a $50.00 rate plan, it will take at least four months for the carrier to break even on the sale, (Not including any network cost, overhead or commissions paid for this sale.)

It would not make since to offer these types of rebates to existing customers...In my opinion the wireless industry never should have begun subsidizing the phones in the first place, there is no way to stop it now.

It's basically like EXXON buying their customers cars so that they will in turn buy more gas...

 

I was trying to figure out what commverge was (the company attributed to the article) so I visited their web site....

Asia......WOW SPRINT PCS is expanding to Asia....great!!!

 

Everything you are saying is true, BUT if existing customers are incented to CHURN then Sprint should respond accordingly.

With current policies, a Sprint customer that is out of contract is actually incented to cancel their account and either start a new one or switch carriers. Of course this requires a new phone number, but they will get a MUCH better deal because they will get a rebate or service credit as a "new" subscriber. Carriers today rely on the hope that customers do not want to change phone numbers - but with number portability just down the road, they will really have to rethink things. The competitive market is about to change!

Regardless, I really believe that Sprint would actually make more money in the long run if they incented their customers to stay. When a customer contract expires, there should be options/incentives to renew the contract at better rates or update the equipment at a discounted rate.

CHURN is expensive, and if Sprint just started putting some thought/creativity in the mix they could probably preserve their customer base and actually save money.

 

So existing customers are encouraged to look at what cool new phones Sprint's competitors offer, switch for a year (competitors subsidize phone too), and a year later switch to sprint again (to take advantage of new tech, subsidy and rebates of course).

So Sprint just lost a year of monthly payments. Business sense is for Sprint to keep that customer and have them keep paying bills for a year to Sprint rather than competitor.

 

Isn't it ridiculous!

Now, on the business side this is NOT the case - Sprint handles business accounts differently. Businesses that are participating in their volume discount program can actually renew their contract up to 6 months before it expires and receive a service credit towards every phone on the contract. There is a minimum requirement on the monthly recurring charge to qualify for the service credit - I think each phone needs to be on a plan that is at least $49.99 per month to qualify for the credit. This is really an incredible program and its amazing how many people don't know about it.

Now why can't they do something like this on the consumer side? They could easily offer a similar program to customers who's monthly recurring charge is maintained at a certain level. They could offer discounts, service credits, or equipment upgrades to qualifying customers. Recently in my area (not sure if this was done nationally or not) the Sprint stores offered new customer rebates to all customers that were at least 9 months with Sprint - an incentive to get existing customers into the stores and upgraded to Vision.

I do believe that this is the new president of Sprint PCS making significant changes to the way existing customers are treated. There are also significant changes in the quality of service and support in the works.

I think this will be an interesting industry to watch in the next 2 years. With number portability impacting customer retention, and technology advancing so quickly, customers are going to want more for less and the carriers are going to have to make changes in the way they conduct business.

 

My comments were directed at the entire Wireless Industry...most carriers do not give existing customers the same deals that new customers get. (as far as the cool phones...Sprint pretty much gets the bulk of the coolest phones...I have friends who work for other carriers who are still waiting to get their first color screen phones.)

If you want to look at a great retention program look to US Cellular (which has the lowest churn rate in the industry) they have a loyalty program that has been in place for about five years, basically they look at the overall value of the customer (Average revenue a customer brings to the company and how long they have been a customer) The higher the Value the better retention offers that customer gets.

And the Best thing about US Cellular retention program is that ANY sales or customer service rep can implement those deals when they renew your contract...you don't have to go to the special retention department.

 

Overall US Cellular is a good company but they are useless if you need data capability. I was with them for four years and just switched to Sprint last week after two years of US Cellular telling me that data services were six months down the road and now they are saying it will be January 2004!! If they are going to compete they will have to start offering data services before Sprint, Verizon, & Cingular suck up the entire market of data hungry consumers.

As a side note - Cingular is the worst wireless company on earth (I say this from business & family member experience)!!

 

On the topic of existing customers taking advantage of new customer rebates, the Instant Savings Sprint has been advertising area available to existing customers as well. I bought a Sanyo 4900 for $49 plus a $34.99 activation fee. (I had the option of a 2-year contract extension to void the fee, but 2 years is a long time in the cellular world.) So, for basically $85 I got a great new phone. I know this was not the case a few months ago, but it was happening yesterday. This offer is only available at Sprint PCS stores, I belive. So it may not work at resellers like Best Buy.

 

Your right USCC doesn't really have any data services to speak of...but the cold reality is that most consumers and businesses do not care. I've been in wireless sales, inside, outside, & management for many years and I could not live without wireless data, however for most people it is not a realized need yet, as much as we in the business would like it to be. So USCC is not on the cutting edge, they also still have a pretty decent stock price and a ton of loyal customers. They have recently signed contracts to upgrade their network to 3G so I imagine by the time that is ready the market will be closer to being ready for the service.

 

it's ok, when cars first came out most people didn't care. "Why would anyone need a car when we all have perfectly good horses. " , "I can just ride the horseback for fraction of the cost" they said things will change in wireless much sooner I think then they changed in automobile industry.