Sprint Dumps One Thousand Customers

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Apparently Sprint doesn’t like people that complain, the company has told one thousand customers to find a different provider because they complain too much. Thanks to Spazilton for the link.

Sprint Nextel, which ranked at the top of MSN Money's Customer Service Hall of Shame in April, apparently didn't appreciate when people called their customer-service lines to voice complaints, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday. So the company told those unhappy customers to hit the road.
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Welcome the the Kind world of Sprint, where even the corporate customers have to threaten with lawsuits due to the way that they act. 30 mins on hold and they still charge you for the minutes when it was a service call from them.
 
Actually, being kicked from a service contract that you're complaining about is a gift. Probably the best customer service feature I've seen.
 
Don't they know its the present. Your not supposed to get what you pay for, silly consumers.
 
I guess that is one way to solve your customer service problems. Get rid of anyone that has a problem. Pretty soon you are down to about 100 customers with no problems and can claim 100% satitisfaction amoung your customers.
 
Southwest airlines did this years ago and told problem customers to fly a different airline.

But this is stupid. I don't like my Sprint service so if I start calling customer service every thirty minutes asking what the time and temperature are will they drop me? That'd be awesome. I have Verizon so I'll have to try it.
 
am i the only one who immedietly thought of this?

apathy.jpg
 
So basically what they are saying is that if you want to get out of your sprint contract, call and bitch as much as you can? ;) Excellent!
 
Sprint was the worst cellular phone service I've ever had. I've had Nextel (pre-Sprint), VoiceStream, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and now Cingular/AT&T. Sprint was, by far, the absolute worst. I think they are doing their customer's a favor.
 
I dumped Nextel over 3 years ago, and never looked back. After multiple / ongoing dropped calls, regardless of the fact that I live 4 miles from a tower, and their lack of care to that issue, I payed the 200+ bucks to void the contract.

Thank God. Go Verizon!
 
article doesn't give all the details so is misleading.

"A Sprint representative said the average customer calls customer service less than once a month, but the 1,200 clients getting the boot call 40-50 times as often."

when you take into account that a live cust. serv. call cost a company an average of $25 then it defintely makes sense.
 
Holy crap 40-50 times as often... thats more than once a day.... damn!
 
Anyone who has worked in support knows that there are some times it is better for both parties to just go different ways. I remember having customers that were never satisfied even when the service was working the way it was supposed to. Kind of like someone who keeps going to the doctor for problems they think they are having when they aren't having any real medical problems. These aren't people who called up once and have issues, they are chronic abusers of support.
 
I don't use Sprint but I will say this: there are forums out there with threads on how to B&M and get out of your contract w/o paying any fees, threads about how to B&M to get various credits, etc. There are chronic abusers of tech support out there who complain about literally anything and everything. Most places try to cut that "fat" off of the meat, so to speak.
 
Sprint is a business, and sometimes businesses need to drop customers who are more trouble than they are worth, much like a brick and mortar store will ask a customer who is making a scene without real justification to leave. There is no reason anyone should be surprised or upset by this, except maybe the one or two customers among that 1000 who actually had valid problems that were entirely Sprints fault.
 
I refuse to justify sprints action in this matter.

And primarily for one reason.

Xbox360... at first I was justifying the what I thought was a low failure rate... then more and more threads... then finally I went down too... THEN they extended the warranty... only time will tell if this will cut into there sales.

Anyway back on topic. Sprint deserves a critical eye. I had them several years ago through my company then. And they were ok service but what made me switch was to expirence what they called customer service.
 
If they topped the list in MSN's Customer Service Hall of Shame, why automatically assume the the customers are at fault?Some of these providers are still living in the past,thinking they're the only game in town like Ma Bell.If I were their competitors,I'd be playing up this story for all it's worth.
 
saranya said:
"A Sprint representative said the average customer calls customer service less than once a month, but the 1,200 clients getting the boot call 40-50 times as often."
QUOTE]

Wow... an average Sprint customer has to call in once a month to customer service. I've been with ATT/Cingular since 1998 + might have called in 10-15 times total during that 9 year period.... Sprint must be doing something wrong to have customers calling in once a month.
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danm lack of edit... I figured I'd point out that the Edit button is missing from this category... it hasn't been mentioned 15 times in this particular thread yet.
 
Wow, interesting...

I should ask my roommate to see if they booted him from Nextel. He is constantly fighting with them about the quality of their phones (I believe he is on phone #8 in the past year from them).
 
Not surprising. This type of action happens in computer service land as well.

I personally have dropped about 40 customers over the last couple of years because nothing I did seemed to satisfy them. I went to one guys business, handed him a check for the amount of the computer he purchased from me and took it back. He kept on calling me several times during the week bitching me out for one thing or another that did not have anything to do with what I sold him. I later re-sold the system, at a discount, to another business and they haven't had one single problem.

As far as Sprint is concerned, I have had a contract with them for over 3 years now and have only had to call them once for a problem which they fixed immediately.
 
I've never had a problem with my Sprint service.

I think this is absolutely awesome (and hilarious). Stop wasting tons of resources on complainers that will never be happy and concentrate on other things.
 
I used to work in a call center for cingular. And what you must realize is some people are call because they get bored and have no one else to call or are drunk, or are simply abusive toward the customer service rep, these are the types of people sprint dropped. There is nothing wrong with it they have the right to refuse service to anyone. Cingular on occasion would do the same thing but not 1000 people at a time.
 
And those incompetent ass holes still can't figure out that I've paid the early termination fee to cancel their shitty service. I absolutely can't stand Sprint/Nextel.
 
Wow... an average Sprint customer has to call in once a month to customer service. I've been with ATT/Cingular since 1998 + might have called in 10-15 times total during that 9 year period.... Sprint must be doing something wrong to have customers calling in once a month.
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note they say less than 1. again, it's an average over their whole entire customer base. i'm sure all the other telcoms have similar numbers.

i'm with sprint and have never had issues. i hate cingular and they didn't treat me well and I had them for years. so really, to each and his own.
 
arentol said:
except maybe the one or two customers among that 1000 who actually had valid problems that were entirely Sprints fault.
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you've never used sprint have you? There were probably 2 out of the 1000 who didn't have problems that weren't actually sprints fault.




I used to sell phone several years ago. I absolutely hated having to deal with sprint. You'd be missing other sales while spint had you on hold for an hour just to activate new subscriptions. Then when customers had problems they often came back to the store complaining and we'd have to try to call sprint for them and go through the same hell they did.
 
for the one customer service job i ever worked (manager at a blockbuster video), i would have loved to tell the top 1% of bad customers to get the F out and punish another video chain with their bad attitude and unprofitable habits.
 
Bravo! I've worked customer service for 10 yrs, and customers abuse reps on a whim. I actually know a few people who do it, and get their way with Pizza resteraunts, and phone services. You can't say shit about it, until you've been on the other end of the phone. Bravo Sprint!! My hats off to you!
 
Been with them for over 6 years after dropping Verizon (service at least at that time sucked. 1-2bars no matter where I was in the city). Service couldn't be better for my area, otherwise I would have dropped them. Infact they just called up a couple weeks ago and gave me more minutes for less money. If the service does you right, and you are a good customer, you get rewarded. Exploit the system, well guess they just showed what happens. And who are all these people calling customer service, even the average 1 per month? I've made a single call in all 6 years.
 
JSClark said:
Wow, interesting...

I should ask my roommate to see if they booted him from Nextel. He is constantly fighting with them about the quality of their phones (I believe he is on phone #8 in the past year from them).
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This is exactly the person I think this is great for. I don't blame Sprint, you get donuts that go through 8 phones and somehow that is the providers fault. You're telling me this idiot actually got 8 bad phones? Doubtful. That is user error at its best if I've ever seen it.

People need to differentiate between bad service, and bad hardware. Spend 5 mintues reading reviews on CNET and buy a GOOD PHONE. Sprint doesn't make the phone, they have nothing to do with the quality of "their" phones.

Is the dealership that sold you the lemon the problem, or is it FORD. Its Ford, trust me.
 
I've yet to hear anything good about sprint, and no, I'm not referring to this forum. But anyone is business knows that sometimes, you're allowed to tell someone to just get the hell out of your store. Or off your phone. Or whatever. "The customer is always right" is a load of crap. The customer is always a source of money for you. It's YOUR job to determine at what point it's COSTING you more money to make them "happy" then you're bringing off their patronage. Some people will never, EVER be happy, no matter what you give them. And it's perfectly okay to tell them to shove off at that point.

And to the guy who worked at Blockbuster, why didn't you tell them to go fornicate themselves? Are they really gonna be able to deny you service or besmirch your company's rep? Doubtful, in most cases.
 
I'm surprised I'm not on the list of 1200 booted people. It seems that I've replaced my phone once a month since I've had sprint service (not sprints fault...mine).
 
Phelptwan said:
I'm surprised I'm not on the list of 1200 booted people. It seems that I've replaced my phone once a month since I've had sprint service (not sprints fault...mine).
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The list is, as I have read, is for those who call there customer support constantly about some problem. Sending in a new phone does not cost spring that much as they do not make the phones (unless they do...) so the might pay a slight fee to give you that phone, but the market-up on the one they just sold to Joe next door just paid for it.
 
I can't get a good enough signal to call CS on my Nextel phone. Signal strength sucks on Sprint/Nextel.
 
Obviously consumers havn't gotten the memo. It's been a common theme in business journal articles in the last few years to get rid of customers you don't need. The theory is that in most markets today there are so many potential buyers that the old addage about not pissing anyone off is out of date. If a select group of customers repeatedly waste your time and cost you money you should NOT try to satisfy them, rather refuse to do business with them or drive them off. Any damage they could do to your business through word of mouth or internet is almost certainly less than they already cost you in day to day problems. In short, "The customer is not always right".

I happen to agree with this. If you are rational kind person you won't understand how bad some customers can be. Some just defy classification and are either drugged, stupid, or have no concept of human decency.
 
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