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Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S), the national wireless carrier that can't stop hemorrhaging customers quarter after quarter, may close up to 20 of its customer call centers starting in 2009 as it moves to aggressively cuts costs.Sprint Chief Service Officer Bob Johnson said the cuts were caused by declining customer calls and fewer billing and service questions. This makes sense: Sprint Nextel has lost millions of customers in the last 18 months. It seems pretty natural to not need all those call center representatives if the call volume is dropping.
But that's not all. Not enough Spring employees have signed up for recently-announced buyout packages, which is forcing Sprint Nextel's hand at more layoffs beyond the 4,000 employees pink slips it gave at the start of this year. Sprint Nextel has improved its customer service -- which was the bane of its existence -- but those improvements came as the U.S. economy took a nosedive and competitor AT&T, Inc. (NYSE: T) sold the heck out of the iPhone 3G at Sprint's expense.
The only thing Sprint can do is to become a leader in something, and customer service would be a great area to really make a difference in. Wireless has been and still is a commodity service, even with calling plans, coverage and data speeds being slightly different between all national carriers. The one thing that could be a big differentiator is customer service. Trying to get corporations to hear that call seems like a futile exercise in most cases, which is unfortunate.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-11-2008 @ 12:03PM
James Fisher said...
Sprint Responds: You've missed the point. Yes, we've lost customers, and we've made improvements in the network, customer care and our marketing to address that. But the reason we need fewer vendor customer service agents is a good one: Our customer problems are being eliminated from the start. When you go into a store, our systems and service are now improved to ensure you get the right phone and plan for you, and that your records are correct. Then we use our "Ready Now" program to set up your phone the way you want it and teach you how to use it. Then, shortly after you leave the store, we call you and go over your service and plan to make sure it's what you are expecting. But wait, there's more: We also offer you a "Simply Everything" plan that gives you unlimited service for both data and voice -- at one price, so you never get a surprise in your bill. All of these things mean customers don't need to call us later to fix something. But if you do call us, our agents are better trained, we answer and handle your call quicker, and our computer systems are better able to support you. That's why our customer service is now great and getting better every month.
4-25-2009 @ 2:05PM
Tammy said...
Now, if they could just get a wider selection of phones and oh.....good phones (not like the cheap piece of **** LG phones that they are selling). What happened to Sanyo phones at Sprint?