Comments on: Sprint loses another 1.3 million customers

Wireless provider is struggling to get back on track as it shares a mix of good and bad news in its fourth-quarter results.

[Beobe]

Sprint is a terrible company. They kept me locked in with poor service for 7 years. Reception and coverage never improved. They told me every lie imaginable to keep me under contract. I finally agreed to pay their early termination penalty to get away. I should have done it years ago. If you have Sprint, don't take another phone. Don't take a credit. Don't even answer your phone when they call. Find out when your contract expires and wait for the day!

[hdtrikelady]

My feeling EXACTLY!

[ethan_v]

7 years? You signed a 7 year contract? For a cell phone? Is that even possible?

[markdoiron]

Ethan_v: I don't think he had a seven year contract. Rather, when he changed the plan, changed phone, or a variety of other changes, some wireless providers automatically renew the contract for you. I suspect he was trapped because he needed changes, and he eventually ended that at seven years by paying a termination fee. I don't believe that this is limited to Sprint, BTW. LTBB. --mark d.

[TS2912]

My feelings exactly. They gave me a bunch of horrible phones, I could not return them and am locked until October 2009. I will be leaving the day my contract ends

[commsoft]

Sprint reps expressly took the position with me on the phone that they can deliberately put false information on their coverage maps (i.e., show areas as covered that they are aware have no coverage), misleading you into a contract, but that you are nonetheless bound by the contract even when they defrauded you.

This is not only false as a matter of law, but completely immoral and repugnant. Their attitude is basically "Screw you, sue us." I paid their early termination fee once because it wasn't enough money to be worth taking them to court, but will never again spend one time with Sprint or allow any business I work with to enter into a contract of any type with them if I have any choice in the matter.

Sprint's corporate culture is fundamentally one of dishonesty and screwing the customer out of every dime, and I cannot imagine anyone who has experienced their so-called "customer service" choosing to do business with them again.

"But CEO Hesse said the company will not lose workers who deal directly with customers as he is determined to improve the company's customer service."

That statement is a bald-faced lie. My daughter was working as a tech support person for Sprint, and she was just layed off with several other people at their Oklahoma City Call Center.

[kingtrae79]

." The company's strategy right now seems to be to compete on value. Last year, it started offering a $99 Simply Everything plan, which includes national calling, unlimited SMS/MMS, data, text, e-mail, and Web-surfing. And just this week, it announced it was adding laptop 3G data service to the plan for an extra $50 a month."

If this is what sprint considers value in these hard financial times, then they can stand to loose another 20 million customers- 150 bucks a month for what should be a 50 dollar, 70 dollar max service is appalling. cell companies are part of the stagnation of this country financially and technologically. while they fumble around trying to glean every dollar out of tech from six years ago, the consumer pays a premium for sub standard voice service and laughable data rates. Their greed has caused us to be (a) generation(s) behind in the cellular technology. This same MO is responsible for the destruction of many industries in this country. what a shame

[pmfjoe]

You can get their data service for about $50 just by itself anyway, where is the savings?

[germ-v]

I have had an excellent experience in terms of coverage and service with Sprint for about six years. From a hardware perspective, on the other hand, Sprint has always lagged behind the AT&T and Verizon and offered a lackluster lineup of products. I welcome a better value in terms of costs, but Sprint needs to raise their profile on the hardware end as well. They've attempted to do so with some of their newer offerings, but they fail to generate much excitement. There may be some hope with the upcoming Palm Pre, but hitching their wagon to an ailing company (Palm) is not going to generate too much momentum. Sprint is trying to tackle new problems with old solutions.

[mjconver]

The only reason I still have my Sprint phone is a lock-in contract. Coverage is spotty (I have to walk outside both at home and at work to do anything), and the phone's software does stupid stuff, like not hanging up when I close the lid. The rest of the family has Verizon, and they're happy.

[StupidPeople23]

Maybe because you have a defected phone or kept it on speaker/headset mode. Never had that issue, and I have had three phones with them (2 with closing lids and a treo)

[AppleSuxLeo]

Sprint has great coverage (Orange County , Calif.) and has THE BEST 3G according to independent testing , with like 4x more coverage than ATT. And as Cnet did not point out , their stock jumped 14% on the "terrible" news.
Bring on the Palm Pre !!!

[Perry_Clease]

It had pretty good coverage here in San Diego and most every major metro city that I visited. Not so much in rural areas unless it was along a busy Interstate Hwy.

Customer service in the brick and mortar stores was not so great.

[rnaoncfixd]

Oh wow... I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I agree with you. I love Sprint in my office area where AT&T barely has signal and Verizon and T-Mobile don't even exist.

[jfrits13]

14%? YIPEEE!!

This just in...Sprint just lost 1.3 million customers in the 4th qtr ALONE! Meanwhile at&t and Verizon added 3.5 million combined. That's not good.

[MacSmiley]

Sprint's customer service went downhill when they shoved that department to the Nextel part of the company. Making payment arrangements during a difficult time became almost impossible in comparison to past experience.

Verizon has better coverage, but if AT&T had a presence in South Dakota, I'd defect and buy an iPhone in a heartbeat.

[Regulator7]

Beobe, how did you get locked into service for 7 years when the standard commitment contract is 2 years? If you had to have a new phone ever other year, that was your choice.

kingtrae79, exactly.

If Sprint wants to earn back some customers, they need to undercut their competition on price and they need to offer better phones. Heck, maybe even get rid of the 2 year agreements and knock them back to just 1 year. Give me a $99 'Everything' plan that INCLUDES unlimited laptop tethering (or some very high limit, like 20GB/month), and something that works as simply and cleanly as an iPhone (compared to every other PDA/Phone on the market), and you'll win back this AT&T customer.

And another thing... Why not offer discounts to long-standing customers? Every other cell phone provider treats their existing customers poorly. It's the *new* customers that get free phones, better rate plans, etc. Sprint could really start something if they offered a 'loyalty' program where good customers would qualify for discounts on service or new phones. And advertise it. Make it a policy. You'd make your existing customer base much happier (less churn), and you'd get new customers. Customers who would be eager to 'join the club'.

I actually will give Sprint's CEO some credit on the commercials. I think they are tastefully done and I appreciate the honesty that they seem to convey. But what matters to consumers is cost.

[karpenterskids]

Indeed...I love the commercials, but that's about it. lol

[jmc015]

In response to "Sprint could really start something if they offered a 'loyalty' program where good customers would qualify for discounts on service or new phones." Sprint did just re-launch their Sprint Premiere program where customers who spend 60/mo. on individual accounts and 100/mo. on family accounts. These rewards include "just because" credits, one year upgrades, NASCAR or NFL tickets, 25% off accessoris...etc.

And for everyone who complains about Sprint's customer service, yes it WAS bad. Recent studies have shown that Sprint's customer service is #1 over Tmobile, ATT and Verizon. The problem is that customer service of the past has put a stain on Sprint and its going to take time to reverse that.

[troyrader]

12 years on Sprint. No major issues. Great coverage where I work, live, and play. I've always enjoyed their superior data service speeds and their rates seem to be lower than others each time I check.

[hdtrikelady]

Probably because their customer service leaves a LOT to be desired.

[markxpii]

Since Hess became CEO my bill UNDER CONTRACT has gone up 50% - no changes to service were made in that time. The perception of poor customer service is reality and Hess does not understand that. To the person whose daughter was laid-off . . . she probably has excellent morals, something Sprint is not comfortable with.

[mistert22]

I have been with Sprint for 10 years. They were the only ones with digital coverage in my area. Then they had the palm phone. I have had multiple treos. I have been tethering my cell phone from the beginning. I even did dial-up through cellular. I have had terrible customer support issues, but they were the only ones with a decent data rate.

Is the Palm Pre ever going to show up, or should I just get an iPhone. I think the iPhone will do everything that I use my laptop for on the road. If they legally tether iPhones, I am leaving Sprint.

With my discount, I have two phones, data, and unlimited texting. I spend between $100-110 month with fees. What do other people spend?

[supoman]

Not to mention that WiMax is going to be the Sega Dreamcast of 4G. No one is going to support it. Vendors are going to be reluctant to create phones and devices for it. They are doomed. Cut your losses now.

[TKE49]

What are you talking about? You obviously aren't aware that SAMSUNG, MOTOROLA, INTEL, COMCAST, TIME WARNER, BRIGHT HOUSE and GOOGLE are investors in SPRINT's 4G Clearwire project, right?

No, you probably didn't know that. There's going to be a Clearwire 4G chip in every laptop with Intel in it.

[Knightro2]

I spend $0. I got rid of Sprint a few months after they started charging for every Customer Support call and they started switching off duplicate towers. But I guess they switched off the wrong ones because my coverage went from excellent to crap. The only thing I liked about Sprint was my phone. That was back in the Motorola Star-tac days. Still my favorite phone of all time.

Unfortunately I went from Sprint to Nextel. I loved Nextel because my friends had it so the direct talk was great. But then the merge came along and my coverage went from excellent to crap. I love my T-Mobile now. No complaints at all! Although I am going to Verizon in a few months due to a discount I get through my employer.

[Knightro2]

Sorry, I got interrupted while typing this comment and confused myself and probably everyone else. It should have read,

"I spend $0. I got rid of Sprint a few months after they started charging for every Customer Support call . The only thing I liked about Sprint was my phone. That was back in the Motorola Star-tac days. Still my favorite phone of all time.

Unfortunately I went from Sprint to Nextel. I loved Nextel because my friends had it so the direct talk was great. But then the merge came along and my coverage went from excellent to crap. I love my T-Mobile now. No complaints at all! Although I am going to Verizon in a few months due to a discount I get through my employer.

[scottthesculptor]

"But it takes time for perceptions about our customer care and financial stability to catch up to the reality."

uhm yeah, that's why their customers are leaving now.
Absolutely the worst customer service, greed driven.
Commercials don't sway people, service does.
Or maybe the disjoint from reality - they say it's better, it's not - so time to leave.

[arshield]

I got a promotion mailing about a "Primier" level of service to celebrate my 10 years with sprint. Not only do I not get a premier level of service, but no one knows what that is. I spent 45 mins on the phone with a customer service person this week to try to get the annual upgrade that the mailing specifies and finally the guy said, "I know you are premier, and that is our white glove service, but my computers won't let me give you a new phone. The system is not able to process it yet. Try our website or call back in a couple weeks and hopefully it will be worked out by then." I got the mailing at the begining of January and they still don't have things worked out. The website says I am a premier customer and I have all of these benefits, but when you click through the links none of the discounts show up. This is a prime example of their customer service. I have stayed with them because of price. And right now for what I have they are a good $40 to 50 less than verizon a month and way cheaper than Att.

[mdb1024]

I have been with Sprint for 10 years, and have been happy. It boils my blood to see people complain about being "Locked in for 7 years". You were the D-bag who kept buying new phones.

[Knightro2]

Agreed. I worked for AT&T Wireless (before the Cingular merge) at a call center. People would call in to change rate plans or upgrade phones and I'd explain to them about the contract renewal and they agreed. Sometimes I would get the same caller that I upgraded months later complaining that they didn't renew their contract. blah blah blah.

I liked AT&T Wireless back in those days. But with the release of the first gen iPhone I didn't like. Here is why.
It takes a wireless carrier an average of 13 months to begin to make a profit off a new customer. This is because of the discount in the phone, activation process, and marketing costs. This is why the require a 2 year contract. But with the iPhone 1st gen you were paying the full price of the phone...not discount...yet they still required a 2 year contract. I just think that was BS bigtime.

[clynx]

I have an unlimited data plan contract. And found that they now limit me to a penitence 5gb. This is a rip off at$60 a month and horrible way to treat a good paying customer. I am going to dump them for this act. I was about to boast how great they where to not collude with AT&T and Verizon to all my neighbors, not now. Stay clear of all these price fixing companies.

[jmc015]

Just so you know all companies have a cap, whether they say it or not. Ill also let you know that there is no penalty for going over 5G.

[rbDenver]

"Subscriber losses and revenue declines are still unacceptably high," he said. "But it takes time for perceptions about our customer care and financial stability to catch up to the reality."

Just yesterday, I walk into one of the Denver Sprint stores (2nd and Milwaukee in Cherry Creek North) to get some information about my account. There are two Sprint reps standing outside smoking. No other customer is in the store, which is walled with glass, and thus the two smoking reps could easily to see that I was the only one in the store. I stood there, and stood there, while the two reps leisurely puffed away to the end of their smokes. I hope they enjoyed their smoke sticks.

[globalist_agenda]

Who's doing the work of the 8,000? Let me get this straight. Sprint is axing 8,000 workers but customer service won't be affected? What WILL be affected? Engineering? Sales? Are the remaining workers going to puick up the slack? Will customer service have to work extra hours? Hesse's plan sounds as credible as Mao's Cultural Revolution. Furthermore, does he think that in this economy people can afford to spend $150 a month ($1800 / year + taxes)?

[jmc015]

For unlimited minutes, messaging, picture mail, email, web surfing etc on your phone + an internet aircard for 150/mo.? Who will pay that much? Anyone who wants the cheapest price. Try finding that deal with ATT or Verizon.