Sprint's Losing Ways Linger

Back to the OP and skipping the bashing posts..

I think you may be interpreting this news as a perceived negative thing ? A management shakeup is likely a good thing and a move to consolidate their home base back to Kansas instead of having two headquarters is a money saving decision and will help to consolidate and unify the company.

 

The management shake-up and colsolidation part is probably good.

I just find it odd that they would choose Kansas as their HQ. Normally large companies like to HQ themselves near major cities and business hubs (I beleive AT&T and Verizon have their main facilities close or in NYC, and T-Mobile on the West Coast.)

There's alot of good reasons for that. When you're located in/near a major city you have more/better contact with other companies, plus there's a better chance to get and retain overall better qualified employees (really, how many people would want to go live in Kansas?)

What reasons would Sprint have for choosing Kansas? Maybe cheaper rent and cost of living? They threw a dart at the map? Like iDen, it sounded like a good idea at the time?

 

Sprint has a huge facility (the "campus") in Overland Park just outside of Kansas City - and that was their headquarters before the merger. They're just consolidating everything back there again. - sheureka

 

Yeah your right I was going to look into this but dont need to now

 

I sell both SPRINT and AT&T I still say SPRINT has the best best aircard on the market. Just wish they would train thier tech dept and thier cs alot better. It seems that they do most of the bashing. I get customers coming in all the time trying to tell me to swap out thier aircard cause Sprints tech dept said we sold them a bad card.

I constantly have to explain to the customers that no one, not even a complete comp geek can make that determination via the phone as well as relying on info from a less informed (computer educated)customer.

After finally regaining thier trust I am then given access to thier comp where within anywhere from 30 minutes to a few hours... I have the aircard (the one the tech dept said was bad)operable and the customer happy.

To just say a card is bad , blame it on the sales rep that sold it, and to tell then to just return it just because you can't figure out the problem only makes these customers have even less respect for Sprint's employees. The sad part is.. just because we sell sprint as one of our products we get treated the same at times.

 

I've always believed that Customer Service is the key to keeping current customers. There are so many people out there, and I would say the vast majority of wireless users that don't think a lot about wireless phones (unlike most of us on here). As long as it works, and they don't have a problem with customer service, they'll continue to stay with their company to keep from paying a new activation fee, losing their phone number (many people still think they will), etc.

But having poor cs in a store or over the phone puts the notion in most people's head that they ought to take their business elsewhere. Of course this isn't true for everybody that switches, a lot of people do research to find the best calling plan, get m2m with other family members, etc. but losses at this level from Sprint, at least to me definitely indicate a Customer service issue.

As strange as it sounds too, I'm not so sure that renaming Nextel Cup racing the Sprint cup was a good move. To many people I talked to about this, it seems like they've inferred this as Sprint immediately doing away with Nextel, and Nextel subscribers having to find a new provider when their contract comes up with no real incentive to give Sprint the first thought. I'm not saying this accounts for everything, but bad decision after bad decision seems to make things worse for Sprint and the perception is that Nextel is dead.

 

Why is it everyone seems to have a beef with Sprint. I understand that they are losing customers but you know they have done so much for the industry. It is to bad that they got in this situation but you know things can turn around. I have had sprint many many years so I dont need to be told how they work. But I know for a fact the synergy sites have added so much for this company and in my area it just rocks.

Sure you have to roam alot when on sprint in alot of areas if you travel but it is nice to have that option.

Well all I have to say is SPRINT ROCKS and all you haters out there are just jealous because we offer cheaper plans and can have truely unlimited data.

 

I though Sprint put daily caps on how much you can use with your aircard?

 

I can honestly say I dont know about this cause I dont have experience with it but smart phones no sir.

 

No cap on data cards - except for the 40MB plan that nobody in their right mind would get. - sheureka

 

I sell five different carriers (US Cellular, Sprint, Nextel (as an affialite market, they are still seperate here) Verizon, and T-Mobile) and in my area (Central Illinois) Verizon definately has the best broadband coverage. The speed is twice that of Sprint, the only drawback is the 5GB download limit. It has not been an issue for any of my customers, but I still am not a fan of the policy.

As far as Sprint goes, they have a lot of problems, especially in this area. As an IPCS affaliate market, Sprint and Nextel are seperate services. We frequently run into the issue of Sprint telesales selling existing Sprint and Nextel customers IDEN/CDMA phones that will not work in this area. I would think they could use some kind of zip code filter to stop this easily. IPCS also does not offer roaming off of other carriers networks. They just today launced an option to add a "roaming package" for an additional $5 a month. This is a step in the right direction, though I don't think it will be available in all IPCS markets.

Regarding customer service. Nextel has had awful customer service for years. They thought they had the construction/industrial market wrapped up with the Direct Connect feature. For a long time they were right, Nextel had some of the highest per line profits of all the carriers. This was one of the things that attracted Sprint to make the purchase. Over the past few years many, many businesses have figured out that they can get along just fine without the Direct Connect if they have mobile to mobile, better service and lower bills. The effect snowballed as fewer people had the DC, it became much less important. A few years back you could not be a contractor without Nextel. That was how you contacted all of your suppliers. That has changed.

At least on the dealer support side, Sprints customer service has improved a great deal in recent months. The call center is in Denver, everyone speaks english, the first thing they tell you when you get on the phone is their employee ID, so there is some accountability, and most importantly, THEY REALLY SEEM TO CARE!!! In the past I've been bounced around to so many different departments before I get an answer or a problem solved. Now if the rep can not help you they will transfer you to the correct department, and hold with you until they personally hand it off. If Sprint is putting the same effort into their CONSUMER customer service side, they will really be on the right track.

 

Yes, some people have beefs with Sprint. I don't have their service, so I have nothing against them.

It seems as if all of Sprint's problems are being magnified lately. If Sprint works for you, awesome! Verizon is my primary carrier, and believe me, it takes very little effort for people to bash them as well.

It's been said before and it should be said again...NO carrier is perfect, they're all great, they all suck, they work here, they don't work there. We have our opinions. Let's try and keep this topic from becoming a flame war.

 

I'll take a HTC product over Motorola anyday.....

 

Yeah, everyone should get a Moto whose interface is so backward that even a MIT student would have problems operating one unless they had an afternoon to study the manual for anything other than making a simple phone call.

 

I agree with fast roll-outs when VZW was rolling out Myrtle Beach and Eastern NC, they had a need to get into downtown Wilmington fast... (having a call center with empoyees on employee plans using Alltel coverage was a pretty major disaster for awhile.)

They rushed Myrtle Beach, and pushed hard on Eastern NC.... while at the same time ignoring other areas of the SC, NC and TN markets that should have been worked on.

Sprint ... well Airgate did the same thing in the Beaufort, SC area... they offer great coverage on Fripp Island and horrible in Bluffton and Hilton Head... They put up the extra capacity on Fripp due to corporate big wigs with vacation homes... while ignoring the other half of the county... which happens to be one of the fastest growing areas in the state/region.

Many carriers will make decisions based on political reasons, or executives egos. I've seen it happen many times in both small regional carriers and major carriers. Most Executives take very little input from the sales or network divisions of their companies... i guess they know more thant the people on the front line...

 

LOL yeah they do :thumbsdow

 

The iPCS store up here in Northern Michigan has billboards up and sign on the front of there store that says Free Roaming.

 

I completely agree. Sprint could cure cancer and folks would still be bashing them! I am quite sick of hearing the Sprint bashing that is not based upon facts! Sprint has a very poor customer service department, but they are improving. There was recently an article in Consumer Reports that rated Sprint as last followed by ATT. ATT responded and stated that they don't have any problems and also stated that the Consumer Reports study was flawed. On the other hand, I give kudos to Sprint for admitting that they have severe problems in the area of "customer service". At least Sprint is attempting to rectify the problem. Many folks that bash Sprint on this forum haven't tried Sprint within the past several years. Sprint has the best roaming agreements of any carrier and therefore their national coverage is on a par with or superior to Verizon. From now on, if you are going to bash Sprint, please site "real evidence" with Sprint experience within the past year. Sprint has been very aggressively adding cell sites in many markets throughout the country. Therefore, you Sprint experience two years ago is not relevant. If you want to do something useful, why don't you undertake your comparison study of cell phone services like the MIS department of the company that I work for did. The results were that Verizon and Sprint came out on top, with a very slight edge to Verizon. Isn't that interesting!

Also, to set the record straight once and for all: On a digital Sprint phone you can force roaming even if you are standing right under a Sprint cell site! Yes, that is correct. I can stand under a Sprint tower here in Southern California and can force any digital Sprint phone to "roaming mode" and it will use Verizon's network. It will stay in roaming mode until I go into the menu and explicitly remove it from roaming mode. Sprint is the ONLY CELL PHONE CARRIER that provides this "force roaming" functionality and a lot of folks find it to be very useful. In Laguna Niguel California and Carlsbad California many of my work colleagues borrow my Sprint phone because they can't make a call from several of the labs in our high tech company. The Sprint phones get signal and the Verizon phones don't get a usable signal. Sprint is very well deployed in Southern California as well as other areas throughout the country. On the other hand, when I am in Hawaii, Verizon in king and therefore anytime I am out in the boonies on the Roan to Hana, I can force my phone to roam on Verizon and it works great. I have the best of both worlds. By the way, Verizon cannot roam on Sprint in Southern California and Verizon cannot "force roaming" anywhere that there is a Verizon signal, even if that signal is weak.

I could go on and on... So I would suggest that we get past the irrational Sprint rants that are based upon outdated information or hearsay. Get a Sprint phone and try it, or please keep your comments to yourself.

Respectfully,

-jim

 

Well, as I only left Sprint less than a month ago, my information isn't outdated and my experience is obviously first hand. I had Sprint for almost two years. Let me first start off saying that Sprint's service (phone calls, reception, etc) were mostly fine. I did notice however, more often than not text messaging lags. The customer service when I left was just has bad as when it was when I started using their service. Whenever I had an issue that did need to be resolved, it constantly turned out to be a multiple long extended call marathon. Even with all that, some of my issues were not resolved (such as my caller ID issue) when I left. 90% of the time, the reps were outsourced reps which made things worse by most of them not speaking good English or their English could be just fine but, they just didn't get the simplest of things hence the reason of CS calls turning into long extended call marathons. I was told by Sprint that they were improving their CS but, after several months, I had seen no improvement, if there was, it was at a snail's pace. This was the second time I had Sprint in the last 7 years. The first time I had them, their service was ok. Their CS actually got things done then but, they were just rude and didn't seem to have proper etiquette. The second time around with them, service had improved (coverage, etc) but, CS went through the floor.

I agree with some previous posters. Sprint should change its name. Too much time has passed where people equate Sprint with horrible service. The whole Nextel thing was just a bad move from the get go. If Sprint hadn't done the Nextel thing I believe they would've had more money to spend improving Sprint in all areas. Their entire Marketing department needs to be replaced. I never see actual Sprint commercials anymore. I only see that damned commercial for construction with the guys utilizing the Nextels. The whole "Sprint Ahead" theme to me is just ridiculous. To me it seems cheesy. Finally, to help themselves, they need to pick up the pace in improving their customer service because people already are and will be "sprinting ahead"....ahead of and past Sprint to another carrier.

Jim, I also wanted to respond to a few things you said. Irrational is relative. You just may have had the good fortune not to experience the crap that I and many others have had to. Just because you may have been lucky, it doesn't make the issues others have experienced any less important. The forced roaming thing is a neat extra to have access to but, on the same token, one shouldn't have to use it often or even at all. The fact you brought it up tells us you have to use it. What does that say about Sprint's service then? Lastly, it doesn't matter when someone last used Sprint's service when ranting about their service, if anything it points out that certain issues at Sprint have failed to have been remedied over the years. I personally would only ask they say when they had their service when they rant so people reading could get an idea and put into the proper perspective.

 

Again you are jumping to conclusions that are not based upon facts! You conclusions are a bad hypothesis at best. The reason that I brought-up the forced roaming mode is because it it very cool and no other cell service provider offers that option. I have only use the option once in the past several years in Big Bear California where the Sprint service was marginal in the cabin where I was staying for the weekend. In this case Verizon had better service than Sprint, so I used the Verizon service. On the other hand, on the next trip to Big Bear California, I stayed at a different cabin and the Sprint service was good while Verizon was unusable. My friends that had Verizon couldn't use their phones and they were borrowing my Sprint phone. Why? ... because their Verizon phone couldn't force roaming on Sprint and therefore their phones were useless in the cabin. What I have described is a real everyday issue that happens to all cell service providers. Three houses up the block one provider may be better than the other due to terrain issues. It is nice to have an option to force roaming for that reason rather than just being stuck with a phone that cannot place or hold a call. Many folks are drinking Verizon coolaid by the gallons rather than investigating the pros and cons of cell phone services from rational perspective.

 

Actually, I'm not jumping to conclusions that aren't based upon facts. My first hand experience with them are facts. It can't get any simpler than that. You can't just say people are jumping to conclusions that aren't based upon facts when many people have had Sprint and left because of the same issues. I will grant that there are people who bash Sprint only because they are repeating what others are saying without having that first hand experience as I and many others have had. On the forced roaming thing, I can now understand what you're saying but, then it comes to how many times you have to switch networks. Depending on the person, it would be good or bad. Anyway, I just got to work so I got to get busy. =)

 

That is so very true and is even evident on this forum sometimes. Also the ones who have had a less than stellar experieice are always the most vocal and repetitive. We rarely ever hear from people who are happy with their service. I've helped at least 50 people sign up with SERO and the vast majority of them tell me they love their service afterward but hardly ever come back to post about it. Calling people like Jim who's very happy with his service 'lucky' is not a fair statement to make. IMO.

But anyway like motohooligan said this forum is starting to look more like HOFO all the time and we don't want that. So hopefully we can get away with the carrier vs carrier crap which is all very subjective anyway and get back on track to the way WA is supposed to be.

 

Well, once 4G gets implemented and ATT, Verizon, TMO, and hopefully Alltel go LTE then most US customers will be using the same technology, and hopefully there will be good roaming agreements in place so all this carrier crap gets put aside and we can talk about the merits different model phones and plan options.

-Jay

 

I can see what you're saying but, if Jim and others haven't had issues, I still think its safe to say they're "lucky" because they just haven't had the issues the rest of us had. You are right too that we don't really hear from people who are happy but, like I mentioned, it doesn't mean they're not lucky.

I unfortunately was one of the "unlucky ones" while their service "call quality, etc" was mostly fine except for txt delays, my issues were with customer service and technical support which I explained in an earlier post. I gave them almost 2 years to get things right , it never really happened which is why I made the choice to leave Sprint. I wish I didn't have to but, Sprint wasn't working for me anymore for reasons that I explained which is what others have had too.

 

I understand that all view points here and very good ones at that. It is sad to see this go off topic a few times but hey natural sometimes this can happen. To me some might see some of this as bashing or what not but I think it is a healthy conversation and I will admit I get a good laugh out of some of you. But hey thats cool to me. I think as long as there is not a personal attack and it stays somewhat on the topic then why not you know??

I think we all just need to take a breather sometimes and if there is a thread on something that you dont like then by all means come into it with a good argument and go from there. I will be the first to admit that I say stupid things sometimes (right larry). But just like life you need to roll with the punches.

Either way lets just realize that the topic at hand sprint losing customers is what the topic is and not loss focus of that. As this has nothing to do with roaming coverage or handset selection.

 

I completely agree. I really don't think there's been any bashing at all going on in the thread. The truth is that Sprint/Nextel is losing a lot of customers and laying off employees. They're not doing too well in a time that all other providers are posting record gains, and I don't think it's bashing them at all to speculate why this is going on... even if naturally, most of the comments are negative. And besides ... this is a forum, that's what we do and this thread seems like the perfect place for it... (unlike HoFo where a bunch of people go around looking for threads to post bad info on Sprint or another carrier.)

They're a company of 53 million so I'm sure there are a ton of satisfied customers. Especially with the deal some people can get on a SERO ... but we all also know that a SERO PDA customer for Sprint isn't near as profitable as one for other providers because of the deals that Sprint gives. Every provider has its share of people that complain and people that come to its defense. It just seems like Sprint has a higher percentage of the former rather than the latter.

 

Let's leave the forum comparison discussion for another thread. Let's stay on topic, please.

 

So anyway, back to Sprint's losing ways lingering, yeah HLogger I completely agree with your statement. Reducing staff seems like a temporary, band-aid fix to a larger problem. In order to turn Sprint around, I would think the new CEO would have to do a few key things.
1. Better training and implementation of an easier to use system for Customer Service Reps.
2. New advertising campaigns that focus on Recent Coverage Improvements. A slogan like, "Sprint-Nextel, Two networks working to give you the best signal."
3. Elimination of current SERO promotion, and re-do it so that SERO is just a little cheaper, not a lot cheaper, than PDA's and data plans offered by other providers. There's just no way to know how many SERO users would be Sprint customers anyway without SERO, but I imagine it's a fairly high percentage because you do have to do a little background research on Sprint to discover the offer.

 

So what do you all think the new CEO will do to help this out do you think he is going to hurt or help the situation. Also I understand it cant be just one person who does this it is his team as well.

 

Well unfortunately he is instituting layoffs, which is NEVER a good thing. It would be nice if upper management would take pay cuts to avoid layoffs, but I know that's just wishful thinking on my part...

Also, I think Sprint has too many irons in the fire. Certain areas are bound to suffer from a lack of attention. IMO, shoring up customer service would be most important.