Sprint Drops Clients Over Excessive Inquiries

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

Sprint Drops Clients Over Excessive Inquiries
By SAMAR SRIVASTAVA
July 7, 2007; Page A3

Sprint Nextel Corp. has taken the unusual step of disconnecting customers who call customer service excessively. The country's third-largest wireless provider, with more than 53 million subscribers, has sent letters to about 1,000 subscribers terminating their contracts, according to Roni Singleton, a company spokeswoman.

"The number of inquiries you have made to us ... has led us to determine that we are unable to meet your current wireless needs," the letter, dated June 29, states.

The terminated subscribers called an average of 25 times a month, a rate 40 times higher than average customers, Ms. Singleton said. Sprint, which has been losing market share to the other carriers, has been trying to add more high-spending customers while keeping a lid on costs. The company also has been imposing stricter credit requirements on new customers. Like other carriers, Sprint disconnects customers who fail to pay their bills. But this marks the first time the Reston, Va., company has cut off subscribers because they call customer service too much.

A spokesman for AT&T Inc., which operates the country's largest wireless network, says it doesn't take such actions. A spokesman for Verizon Wireless, the second largest and a venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC, couldn't be reached.

(snip)


URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118376389957059668.html


(Hey, I am using prepaid Tracfone.. no cameras, no videos, no internet connection only... a phone)

[Faux pas]

1. Let's see 53,000,000 minus 1,000 doesn't hurt too much. I imagine

that those 1,000 customers called so much b/c they couldn't understand what the outsourced cust serv reps were saying.

[youngdem]

6. This is a shot across the bow to those who dare to complain about overcharges

bogus charges and so forth. Don't doubt that for a second.

This is a warning to those (like my family) who go through their bill each month, then call and demand the overcharges (which appear EVERY month) off.

I expect we will get our warning letter soon, since our family representative is particularly good at getting our monthly refunds due us.

This is just more corporate bullying of citizens who dare complain about the screwing they get. More conditioning of the flock.

This 1,000 is a tiny little number, but is the smallest number that sounds large, in order to create a fear that you are next, so just eat it when they fuck you.

I sure wish the Dem Congress would start addressing usurious interest rates, crazy NSF and bank fees and the bullshit junk charges that fill your phone, the absurd treatment you have to endure when flying, and insurance rate manipulation.

I am sick of getting nickel and dimed to death, and I am sick of being victimized by uniform ill treatment by ALL of the major companies in a given market, be it all major airlines sucking, all major cell phone companies being fucking crooks, or all banks having the same junk fees to screw the average Joe - all the while being told that capitalism and market forces will correct this ever worsening problem.

[Faux pas]

12. Sorry, I don't have a cell phone. If you're getting screwed then

of course you should complain. But then again, why keep a service that is doing you wrong month after month?

[Eurobabe]

2. fuck sprint anyhow, best day of my life was when I

dropped their shitty land line service (they were the only game in town, and ripping me off $50+ per month for basic service). That was in 2003. I certainly would never get their mobile service.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

3. Sprint is one of the WORST cell phone companies

They're expensive, their communication drops constantly, and you can't reach a customer service person to save your life. The only time I got any help was when I wrote their CEO and board of directors.

[marlakay]

4. you could use it to break contract and get iphone

i guess, just start calling customer service day and night!! I have sprint because my kids do and free minutes and all. I switched over at christmas time. Doesn't come in as well as At&t did here. They charge more for extras than the other...I have to make sure I don't do anything except call. I have pic phone but have to turn on internet to use it and thats $15 more per month...I am on the net at home and work and thats enough for me.

[Dr.Phool]

5. What an easy way to get out of your wireless contract.

Why pay a $200 per line penalty, when all you have to do is bug customer service a few times?

[LaurenG]

10. That's what I thought of too. nt

[KittyWampus]

7. NO Customer service for YOU! Somehow this seems sort of comical in a sick way.

[IntravenousDemilo]

8. For a while I had Sprint (Canada) for LD.

After a few months, I switched to a long-distance plan with another company, wherein I'd pay a certain amount through telephone banking up front and get X number of minutes. I liked that because I wouldn't be greeted with a monthly bill later on: it'd all been taken care of. Well, because I'd switched over, I never thought to open the monthly statements I was still getting from Sprint Canada, and during that time they instituted a monthly user fee of $1.75. One day I did open one of the monthly statements, as I'd started to wonder why I was getting them when I wasn't using their service, and saw that I owed them several months' worth of monthly user fees plus late charges.

I called them up and said that since I hadn't been using their service in almost a year, and since I hadn't seen any notification that they were going to commence charging me for nothing in particular, I had no intention of paying their bill. If they wanted the (by then) $18, they could whistle for it, for all I cared. They must have realized they weren't getting anywhere with me, because I stopped receiving bills from them.

As to the refusal of customer service, that's not restricted to Sprint by any means. Many years ago, I drove this old clunker -- a 66 Chev Bel Air -- with some major problems (it leaked oil, whatever battery I put in wouldn't hold a charge, etc), and I had to get it boosted regularly especially during winter. Eventually the CAA told me they weren't going to be doing that anymore.

And good luck trying to find a floor person at your average, usually understaffed department store! I am now of the conviction that the concept of customer service is well and truly dead. Complain to managers about shoddy service till you're blue in the face, and you still can't get no satisfaction.

Which is too bad, really -- bad for us and bad for the companies as well; I read a survey recently that said customers would be willing to spend a little more (not a lot, mind you, but enough) if that meant they'd get better customer service. That's right, the people who took the survey actually said that service was more important than price. Are we going to be listened to, though? Of course not, because deep down in their little black hearts, the suits who run corporations have internalized one fundamental and inescapable axiom -- that CUSTOMERS DO NOT MATTER!

[TreasonousBastard]

9. Hooray for Sprint! Didja notice that...

they're dropping people who call just about EVERY DAY? Or more-- 20 a month is the average.

Sprint sucks as much as any other large company cutting costs and screwing up service, but a lot of customers suck, too. Anyone who calls to complain several times a day is someone I'm gonna throw out, too.

Or refer to a mental health professional.

[question everything]

11. And I just started liking their commercial

which is on almost constantly - your service fees at work - with a nice waltz that is playing in my head.

Oh well..

[Stinky The Clown]

13. I'm sorry. I have no quarrel with firing bad clients.

I've done it, too.

They have no *right* to buy what I'm selling. I have no obligation to serve everyone. In the more than 15 years our company has been in existence, we have fired three clients.

One of the three was a man who refused to deal with my partners (both women). I found him obnoxious and didn't want to deal with him, either. When he insisted a meeting start with the people holding hands and praying, that was it.

We fired him. He wrote *me* a letter saying I was still welcome to take his business if ever I left my partners. (Yeah, sure, asshole.)

We bought him some sort of 'lifetime' membership to N.O.W. as our parting gift.

[nolabels]

14. Perhaps they, like many would want to pretend to be able to do it all.

This is a result of overzealous salesmen and marketing gone amok. The obnoxious clients have been trained by many other companies from before. Those other companies served them and they got away with the rudeness. Often it goes the other way with customer service or others being rude and uncaring. But anybody that has served the general public knows there are those type of abusive people but where do they draw the line is the question :shrug: