When Bad Customer Service Is The Business Model



In honor of Evil Week, we're switching up the Hive Five a bit. Once you realize this, you're not as sharp, apprehensive with the next customer, and can focus your energy where it's appreciated and needed more than wasting time with someone who wants you to pay for the privilege of working for them rather than earn an honest living.

Earlier that day, the couple had visited the Sprint store on Northeast Douglas Road in Lee's Summit to fix a Wi-Fi problem on Almitra's phone. Great phones and smiling customer support are only so good until you can't actually use your phone. This is not a personal vendetta being aired because I had to spend 4 hours on the phone with Verizon customer service or something like that.

So then I have the choice to make: 1) take my phone back to the store and demand that they give me a refund and put me back on my old plan with my beat up old phone, 2) fight Sprint on their failure to honor statements made by their representatives, or 3) just live with it.

If you're looking to consolidate your phone and cable bills, AT&T has more to offer than Sprint, though it'll come at a higher monthly cost. Fast forward to today-Monday, August 27-and I called customer service first thing in the morning because my money still had not arrived.

For the first quarter of 2007, it reported a loss of 220,000 post-paid monthly subscribers-customers who pay monthly. Upgrade your network, offer more services, and decrease my hold time for the rare occasions when I do call. Sprint PR called me this morning to clarify their stance on the customer forced cancellations story.

Customer service told us there was no issue they could find, and if we wanted to buy a phone we should just buy it from Sprint instead - except they won't offer the same sale price as Best Buy. Sprint has hired enough people to answer 80 percent of the calls in 30 seconds.

On June 29, 2007, Sprint sent letters notifying some customers that their service would be canceled by the end of July due to excessive calls to customer service. Email correspondence with Sprint shows that the Buzans ultimately attempted to accept Sprint's final offer but were told the incident — and thus the final offer itself — had been placed under review by Sprint's legal team.

And despite early success with the new Instinct smartphone, Sprint's challenger to the iPhone , the company still lags behind its peers. Either of Sprint's unlimited plans would be a good pick — you can save some money and have one (or two) less bills to worry about.

I probably didn't hit the 90 calls in six months mark, but if it weren't for the incredible good fortune of finally getting connected to a customer service rep and manager who would actually agree to credit my account, then I might still be calling customer service.

First, Sprint the decision set off a firestorm of mostly bad publicity, a time when the carrier was struggling to compete with other major wireless carriers (AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon). In Canada, there are only three major wireless carriers—Bell, Rogers and Telus—and their plans are priced basically the same due to the reduced level of competition , according to mobile news website iMore.

Sprint has sent out an initial batch of letters notifying them about the transaction but Gleason said Sprint will soon follow up, detailing the timing of the network shutdown and the discount offers Sprint is making to draw those customers under the Sprint umbrella.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *