I really wish I didn’t have to write this story. But what choice do I have? I want Sprint PCS to either improve how it does business, or get out of business. Anyway I was talking to a very good friend of mine who shared this story with me. My friend, lets call him “Richard”, he has been with Nextel ever since we were teenagers. We are now both 27. So that is a long time. Anyway he recently decided he wanted the Mogul that Sprint has and he was going to switch over to Sprint, naturally.
So this is where the boneheaded policy comes into play. Every cell phone company in America allows you to port or transfer your number when you switch to another company. Well these clowns at Sprint told “Richard” that he could not keep his old number! What the….????? How more retarded can you get than that?!?!?! How can this be? Eventually “Richard” did enventually end up getting the Mogul, but how stupid was it for them to tell him he had to get a different number.
Sometimes when I think how about that company and its backward way of doing business my head starts to hurt. I swear, it seems like Sprint is trying to purposely alienate new and current customers. Like I said here, Sprint, its time to wake up. Why piss off your customer base? Why make your used phones useless when the used cell phone market is booming.
I know, I make a handsome living reselling used cell phones. Of course I can’t sell used Sprint phones because they are useless once someone wises up and abandons the sinking Titanic. So Sprint, get your head out of your you know what and run your company like all good ones are ran, with common sense. I abandoned Sprint after one week and moved to Alltel and haven’t looked back since. I hope they get it together because you can only shoot yourself in the foot so many times, before you run out of feet! If you have any horror stories regarding Sprint or any other cell phone company, please leave a comment in the comment section below.
For over a month now the major cell phone carriers have been embarking on their unlimited calling for one price battle. AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Sprint all have unlimited voice plans for $99. Notice I did leave out Alltel. I don’t know what they are waiting on, they better get with the program, as I am an Alltel customer paying $111 a month with my smartphone plan. Hint, hint, hint!
Anyway Sprint, who I raked over the coals in a previous post, is trying to do some serious damage in this war by offering unlimited everything. That includes, voice, internet, messaging, and more for $99. Verizon rolled out their plan for $130. My question to Verizon wireless is, “Are you high?”.
My only guess is that since their closest rival, AT&T, only offers unlimited everything for $135, they are only trying to compete with them, and aren’t taking Sprint/Nextel very seriously. Well I got news for the big two, Sprint’s CEO is serious about trying to turn the company around. I haven’t seen any trickle down yet, but their pricing plan may be the first step. If they can get that horrendous customer service together they maybe able to make a comeback before they dump Nextel in 2012.
So my response to Verizon is, you’re going to have to come harder than that!
Being a cell phone dealer, I have the ability to get a lot of insight from your average everyday user on their likes and dislikes regarding various phones and various dealers. Well for the last four to six months there has been an growing anti-Sprint sentiment pulsating from their current and former customers. From what I hear, and from my brief experience with Sprint, it would almost seem like they are purposely trying to alienate their customer base. They have been losing so many customers they had to postpone their plan to phase out Nextel at the end of 2007 just to make sure they retained those customers.
The biggest complaint I hear by far is the horrible customer service. I must say that personally I have to agree. I had Sprint service for one week before I decided enough was enough. The hold time was always ridiculous no matter what time of the day I called. Also a few of the reps that I dealt with seemed unable or unwilling to help solve my issues with my phone. Which was a Motorola Q at the time. The rep who sold me the phone told me I could have Sprint TV which that phone wasn’t capable of having but it took me three customer service reps to tell me that the phone wasn’t suited for that. No problem with that, I could live that. I think watching TV on your cell phone isn’t necessarily a good idea anyway, unless you’re watching football!
Anyway I had another issue which escapes me at the moment but I had another 20 minute wait, another imcompetent rep and that was the final straw. I switched to Alltel the next day. Which I love by the way. So Sprint needs to fix its glaring problem beginning with Customer Service. Also they should relax their policy when it comes to activating used phones. They should make it easier for these new wanna be customers to come on board. But we shall see what happens.