Sprint may cancel your service if you call customer service too often
Sprint has recently sent out some letters letting customers know that their service will be terminated effective July 30, 2007. Sprint is ending some contracts because customers are calling customer service. Based on the letter it is because they have “received frequent calls from you regarding your billing or other general account information” and based on the number of calls they have determined that they are “unable to meet your current wireless needs”.
They are however “nice enough” to take care of you for your inconvenience. Sprint will bring your account balance to zero, they are giving you almost a months notice, they are allowing your number to be ported to another carrier and also not requiring you to pay an early termination fee. Bringing my account balance to zero is nice but why would anyone pay an early termination fee when they are not the one canceling?
Either Sprint has some really bad customers that just call to often or maybe they should take a look into just why so many calls were needed in the first place. According to a Sprint representative these letters were sent to only a “small minority” of customers. I suppose it would take a while before you could get canceled in this manner, but just maybe this could be a new way to cancel your contract and avoid that dreaded termination fee.
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This, although a bit of an extreme even for Sprint, is not so uncommon. In my own work experience with the other big CDMA provider have seen it happen before. Usually due to “harrassing” customer service and then a ETF was still charged.
on July 6, 2007 at 09:37 PM - LINKI think i need to start calling customer service. im locked into my contact and would kill to get out with out the early termnation fee. ha
on July 7, 2007 at 03:42 AM - LINKThey have the worst customer service on the planet. I’m not surprised they came up with this ridiculous idea.
The people who are calling to complain is because their billing system is filled with bugs and customer service representatives promise things will be corrected.
Too bad they’re lying.
Sprint is headed down the tubes.
on July 7, 2007 at 04:16 AM - LINKI don’t work for Sprint, but speaking as a CSR for another large company. There are quite a few people who call in so often, and absolutley refuse to understand the simplest thing. And sometimes it gets to the point you know exactly who it is BEFORE they even introduce themselves. This takes away from other customers who are calling with legitimate problems. Yes, some companies have terrible customer service. But you really have to flip it and take a look at the other side of the coin.
on July 7, 2007 at 03:57 PM - LINKI love it…especially how at the bottom it says if you have any problems please call customer service…HAHAHAHH
on July 9, 2007 at 09:33 PM - LINKIt’s actually quite brilliant! The real trick to business is to make your customers so happy that they tell other people about how great you are. Concentrate your customer service on those people you can actually convert into such proponents of your business. Those frequent (more than 20 times a month) callers will never be happy, and would be much better off bad-mouthing your competitors!
on July 10, 2007 at 05:19 PM - LINKI also work in customer service, and this is a smart business move. For every high maintenance, abusive customer eating an hour of a CSR’s time, there are 6 good, nice 3 minute customers waiting to be helped. Unless you are a high maintenance jerk, this should be welcome news. You’ll get quicker better service from someone in a better mood now…
on July 10, 2007 at 09:23 PM - LINKI kind of understand what Sprint is doing here. I work for customer service with a regional wireless carrier, and there are some customers that you just can’t make happy. The average call to our customer service center has a talk time of about 180 seconds - each of those calls cost the call center a little over $2.50. This is, of course, based on the average hourly pay of a customer service rep and the talk time that the customer takes. (shorter calls cost less, longer, more) Now, if we are thinking a customer calls in 50 times in a month, that is costing the company in excess of $125.00 per month, which, for an account with just one line on it usually comes to be about $50 more than we are receiving in payment from the customer. And, this is assuming that the customer is paying the bills, which a lot of habitual callers (from my personal experience) are not necessarily doing; a lot of repeat calls are generated from denied requests for credit, or calling in several times in one day for the same issue hoping to get a different answer. Now, I’m not syaing that’s all it is. Sometimes customers are forced to call repeatedly because their issues are not being solved, or because their questions are not getting answered. In Sprint’s case, it seems as if the customers are calling that many times monthly over a 6 to 12 month period of time. If those 300 to 600 calls are all for legitamit issues, then it is probably time to go to a different provider anyway.
on July 10, 2007 at 10:29 PM - LINKSmart move by Sprint that will improve their call center morale and their bottom line. More sales professionals should do the same thing to at least one of their problem customers, as I mention in my blog post.
on July 11, 2007 at 01:13 AM - LINKGoes against the tenet of “Customer is always right”. But on the other hand if we consider that the customer-organization relationship is that of mutually beneficial partnership, then heck, why not fire “underperforming” customers? You wouldn’t take the right away from Sprint to fire underperforming staff, would you? As Casey so eloquently points out, if the Customer is costing you $50 a month, lose the underperformers.
on July 11, 2007 at 02:45 AM - LINKThough I must say, it requires a great deal of courage to fire customers in this “market share” oriented business.
But in the long run it will surely work out well for Sprint to promote quality of customers over sheer quantity.
I am trying to be an honest Sprint customer and take care of an issue in their favor. I have been on the phone going on an hour and a half and I can only hope that since they can’t seem to find someone to help me that they will cancel my account as well. The first customer care reps advice is that they give me a new account and if I don’t want a new account then Sprint can charge me back and I called to let them know my bill printed for less than it should within hours of it printing. All I can say is there is 1000 lucky people out there
on July 11, 2007 at 03:23 AM - LINKHaving worked in customer service for almost a year, I can certainly appreciate what Sprint is doing here. It’s amazing how much time one person (calling over and over just to bitch and moan) can eat up. This completely detracts from the time I could be spending helping out a customer who actually wants to be helped, such as Bee from the comments above. I think it’s completely ridiculous to try to please the un-pleasable. If people hate doing business with you, it makes sense to invite them to discontinue doing so.
on July 11, 2007 at 04:05 PM - LINKWhoa! Thanks for the heads up, I am soon to cancel Sprint as my wireless provider.
on July 11, 2007 at 04:36 PM - LINKThis topic has caused many spirited debates here at our small company. Interestingly enough, the customer service staff on the “front lines” that deal with phone calls and emails all day agree with Sprint’s position - customers that call an average of 25 per day (as these did http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/06/AR2007070602131.html)
are a drain on resources and really stress out customer service. But “management,“ who doesn’t answer the phones is horrified about the lack of customer service and the like.
on July 11, 2007 at 10:47 PM - LINKI work for Sprint Cust serv. and trust me when I say that we have A LOT of customers who call all the time just because they have had a bad day…..Now don’t get me wrong I have talked to mainly good, or even great customers, and I myself try to give the best service that I can and I will admit that I do have some co-workers who are not so willing to help!!.. I am just trying to give a different perspective to this situation having worked in a sprint call center for 2 1/2 years. What some customers don’t realize sometimes is that everytime you call in, you’re account is noted with the fact that you call, so the records are accurate as to how many times you so call./ Now like I said I do work with Sprint and while I don’t fully support what Sprint has done, I am looking forward to not getting the repeat phone calls and verbal abuse that often comes from the repeat call customers.
on July 12, 2007 at 01:27 PM - LINKI retired in 2002 from Bellsouth after 30 years in customer service. If you’ve never worked in a job like that you can not comprehend the sheer volume of calls that come in repeatedly everyday from chronic complainers. I’ve spend so much time over the years tring to explain “why a bill is 1 penny more this month than last month”, or “why the envelope is a different color” or 1 of my personal favorites “why doesn’t the talking phone book (published by another company)talk? or something else so stupid normal people can’t believe it. THIS IS WHY YOU CAN’T REACH CUSTOMER SERVICE TO HELP YOU ANYWHERE.
on July 12, 2007 at 07:16 PM - LINKWell lets first define “customer service” easy to provide service for customers.I have worked in a IT dept for a internet company, and faced the same issues with people calling in many times for something that you as a person may think is silly and makes no sense,you are there to provide them with help.It is part of the job.What did you expect when you took the job with a call center. As a Sprint, customer I can very well say that I have not really had to call that often,however I did have a issue with billing that took a month to resolve.Why so much calling? Well I was told that a review would be done on the account.Check back in the week, Called back and spoke to the rep and guess what nothing in the notes. well start all over again. another week,different rep. (reply) I see where you called in but there in nothing in the notes. and was told a whole different story.Went from the supervisor, asked if the reps has access to the same information on there workstations.Was told yes they can see your account. Well okay then why does each rep I speak to have a different version of it? So in my opinion,perhaps if the customers service had more knowlage of what was going on they could reduce call volume.My end result.corporate handled it in 5min.
on July 13, 2007 at 12:39 AM - LINKOr better yet when a CSR or a CSR Supervisor refuses to be accomodating… do what I had to do to t mobile 2 times, file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Both times I got immediate results from the corporate headquarters of t mobile…
on July 13, 2007 at 02:05 AM - LINKGood move by Sprint or not, deserved by the customer or not, news like this is infuriating to the general public who are imbued with the cultural notion that the customer is always right. The letters violate the public sense of fair play.
Two things are now going to happen…(1) People who are not Sprint customers will make certain that they never will be. (2) Many current, non-probmatic Sprint customers will jump ship as soon as it’s convenient for them.
The great backfire for Sprint is that the letters went public… something that was not intended, or expected. I’m certain that the executive who dreamed up this goof is headed for demotion or even termination him/herself.
on July 13, 2007 at 05:03 AM - LINKI use to work for Sprint.. and they have terrible service.
on July 13, 2007 at 04:46 PM - LINKI agree with Eurastus. Fired customers are vindictive customers. Somewhere there are potential new customers who won’t risk signing up with Sprint after hearing these horror stories.
Most customers are reasonable. Of the small percentage that’s not, what even tinier percentage of that group would not eventually leave Sprint voluntarily? Is it really necessary to send them a pink slip?
I don’t buy the burden to the call center theory. Maybe you’re understaffed. Difficult customers shouldn’t necessarily increase the wait time for good customers, because the numbers are crunched in advance and they know exactly how many reps it takes to handle a day’s calls. A percentage of customers rarely call in at all.
Sprint firing customers is the height of hubris and an indication not only of the mega size of these companies, but the fact that they are bottom-lined, with CPA’s making the decisions. Somebody over there had the bright idea of shaving some time off the calls and increasing profits.
Being penny wise and pound foolish is not new. But there are clever individuals in management who make entire careers out of causing numbers to positively change in one column, while hiding the negative effect in another.
For anyone who’s observed a call center, it’s easy to see even small bad management decisions morph into monstrous employee problems and customer service nightmares. But if you’re stuck in middle management, how else are you going to get noticed unless you break and then re-invent the wheel?
In an efficiently run call center, difficult customers are easily escalated to the next level, and handled appropriately. But if, for exmaple, managers decided to cut back on the number of specialists in the escalation queue, and force the front line CSR to deal with the call themselves, then you’ve created frustration on the floor and contributed to burnout. This may increase turnover, which in turn creates a disproportiate number of new and inexperienced reps, which leads of course to mistakes and yet more frustrated, angry customers.
on July 14, 2007 at 09:50 PM - LINKPlease let this happen to me - I have been a Sprint customer since 1998 and this year has just been 100% horrific in every respect from bad service (from the phone) to absolutely horrific customer support.
I’ve even been hung up by Sprint customer service. I agree that the cliche of “fire your worst customers” is good but Sprint has become the worst service I have ever had…the termination fee is the only that is keeping me with them now.
on July 21, 2007 at 12:40 AM - LINKok enough is enough!! i happen to work for sprint and agree with what we are doing. so many people complain about our service because trufully those are the ones that should never get cellular service. not only do they create hold times beyond 20min but have either called about a issue that has already been resolved or so hard headed they dont want to take responsibilty for there usage. those that complain about sprint are the ones that have high usage, claim that they were not told about charges even though they are clearly marked on our bills and flyers. come on people lets get real here !!!
on July 21, 2007 at 03:16 AM - LINKI work as a Boost Mobile customer care rep, but we’re soon getting trained to handle Sprint customers. After hearing so much negative about Sprint, I’m worried…
on July 22, 2007 at 06:49 PM - LINKI can’t even read past the headline - to, too, two. C’mon, you have like 5 seconds to keep me reading, you lost me in less than 2. If anything, please take this as someone who cares enough to make you think next time, nothing more. It’s too often, as in too much.
on July 23, 2007 at 05:47 AM - LINK