Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) has taken a huge amount of heat in recent years for having some of the most inefficient customer service in any industry. In fact, there are many who have concluded that Sprint Nextel has had trouble retaining customers because of its customer service levels -- not so much about its prices and product selections.

When CEO Dan Hesse took the reigns over a year ago, he quickly initiated a series of marketing campaigns and redid pricing on much of Sprint Nextel's calling plan lineup. Ever seen those black and white television commercials? Oddly, they seem to be effective. Almost anything in black and white garners attention from the television viewer. Back to customer service -- Hesse also made a few statements stating that customer service would be back on track. It seems to be just that.

Pali Capital, a customer service measurement firm, ranked the third-largest wireless carrier in the U.S. at the top of its list for customer care. Sprint Nextel was able to answer 89% of calls to its customer service line in an average of 30 seconds, according to the measurement survey. By comparison, the largest wireless carrier in the U.S. -- AT&T, Inc. (NYSE: T) -- answered its customer service lines within 30 seconds only 43% of the time.

Though this is not exactly a measurement of customer service quality, it seems the long waits to speak to a Sprint Nextel customer service rep are gone. Perhaps there are not too many customers needing help these days? From looking at all the customers Sprint Nextel has lost recently, there may be an inkling of truth there. Still, it's the third-largest wireless company in the U.S. with more than 50 million customers.

Most of the time, I read the news because I want to be informed about the world. Looking through articles, I spend my time on the ones that affect my world, give me an idea about what to expect in the future, and generally make everything clearer. Once in a while, though, I read the news for the sweet taste of revenge.

Looking through the paper today, I noticed that Sprint seems to be in big trouble. Yesterday, their stock dropped more than 9% after they announced a loss of over $29 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007. While this loss was largely tied to Sprint's disastrous merger with Nextel, a fair bit can also be chalked up to Sprint's abysmal customer service.

I have a lot of experience with Sprint's customer service. When I first got a cell phone, almost ten years ago, my provider was a small regional company. While I could only call from a very constrained area, I was generally impressed with the level of customer care that my provider offered. Most of the time, my phone calls were answered by a person, not a machine, and the company was very nice about crediting my account in cases of incorrect billing. Unfortunately, I was only with them for a few months before they were bought out by Sprint.

Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) has been through the ringer in recent years. The merger between the two companies -- Sprint and Nextel -- didn't work out as planned and actually one could say it backfired. Customers are leaving by the hundreds of thousands and the company is integrating billing systems only this year. The merger was over three years ago, so what took so long? A lack of vision and problems from the start hexed just about any move Sprint Nextel wanted to make.

Nothing can kill your business, though, like not focusing on the customer. The only strategic advantage any company has when operating in a commodity environment is service. Yes, marketing folks can trumpet wireless handsets, data speeds, coverage areas and more. But at the end of the day, how you treat customers is paramount -- and Sprint's reputation is less than stellar.

Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) can't seem to climb out of its funk. The company continues to lose customers to the competition, it ousted its CEO a month ago, and the customer service rap the wireless carrier gets from just about all the media I see is atrocious. It's no wonder the third-largest wireless company gets smacked around more than a well-played racquetball.

To set the record straight, I am a Sprint customer. After having tried the other national wireless carriers, the one that just works best for my family is Sprint. Let me preface this by saying YMMV (your mileage may vary). The phone I use, the clarity of every voice conversation, the roaming capability I have nationwide and the data features I receive all work pretty flawlessly and have for some time. And the cost is very reasonable. When I've emailed Sprint customer service for questions and changes to anything on my account, responses typically take no more than 18 hours and aren't canned replies -- they are written to answer my questions, not pawn me off to a website for help.

So, it's interesting to see that Sprint receives such a bad rap these days. In my experience over a few years, the company's products, service and support are top-notch. I cannot say that about my experience with T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) or Cingular, now AT&T (NYSE: T). Dropped calls with those providers were normal, and the value was just not there for what Sprint supplies. Things may have changed since 2005, of course.

Sprint Nextel(NYSE:S) is bleeding customers every quarter, is canceling service on other customers that use customer service resources too much, and is now hanging up service on customers who roam off its network excessively. Is this wireless carrier cleaning house or heading down some kind of path of public relations destruction? To make things worse, the roaming customer cancellations were dropped on U.S. soldiers, of all people.

Sprint gives away "free nationwide roaming" to customers of most of its current wireless calling plans, but does not explicitly specify how much customers can roam off its network. Say, for example, you buy Sprint Nextel wireless service since a coverage map shows that there is service where you need it. You arrive at this place (home, office, summer home, military training, etc.) and find out that Sprint's coverage is not quite what is needed for a decent wireless phone conversation. You set your phone to "roam" and off you go, probably using the Verizon Wireless or Alltel (NYSE:AT)national networks since they both use the same technology as Sprint's.

A short time later, you receive a cancellation notice from Sprint. Wha? This is what appears to have happened to about 200 soldiers that recently returned from Iraq and were sent to training at West Point. In addition to these U.S. soldiers that had to roam to get service, other Sprint Nextel customers who apparently use more than 50% of their minutes off of Sprint's network are being dropped as well. Sprint is really giving itself a bad eye here, even though it has said that all these cancellations were "researched heavily." But with no prior notice given to these customers, it is putting its foot in its mouth. Again.

If this blog post is correct, then Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S) is possibly taking a large step backward in trying to woo new customers to the wireless carrier's service in the U.S. According to many customer reports and forum postings, wireless carrier Sprint Nextel is terminating service contracts with some customers due to excessive calls into the company regarding service or phone issues. On the surface, it appears that high-maintenance customers are being dropped by Sprint since the cost of providing after-sale service is too high. Solution: Sprint terminates service and zeroes out the customer bill.

This is the first time I have heard of a wireless carrier terminating service contracts from their end without penalty for customers who have accounts in good standing, but who require higher levels of service than other customers. That may be a little hard to grasp, as some customers are never pleased no matter what is done for them and complain about every single thing with repeated phone calls to a company's call center, tying up expensive resources in the process. Are some customers not worth having as customers? Sprint thinks so, and to a point, I agree with the company here.

However, sending a form letter announcing that "your service is being terminated" without any warning beforehand is not a good idea for increasing one's public image. In recent quarters, Sprint has lost hundreds of thousands of customers to the competition and has floundered with subscriber numbers as AT&T (NYSE:T) and Verizon Wireless have grown and grown.

Terminating paying subscribers is not the way to increase customer count. However, Sprint could have opened a dialog with these high-maintenance customers and came to some kind of understanding on why all these customer service calls were happening (billing mistakes? phone problems?) before summarily terminating service without any prior notice. That surely will not win Sprint additional customers, and as all things on the Internet, the word that this is happening will spread like wildfire.

I suspect that mobile powerhouses Sprint and Nextel merged into Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S) just to keep the combined customer count in line with larger competitors Verizon Wireless and AT&T (NYSE: T). When the two companies merged over two years ago in the face of those two larger companies, many industry analysts believed that combining Sprint and Nextel would derive cost savings and many other benefits -- as well are combining the entire customer count of both companies into one entity. But Sprint apparently did not get the memo.

The merger has been successful from one perspective, but has been disastrous from just about any other angle. Yes, the two companies did combine brands, marketing and customer counts. But former Nextel subscribers have left by the hundreds of thousands, Sprint has not grown its collective customer base anywhere near like its larger rivals and for some reason, the company has kept the Sprint and Nextel customer bases separate. Even calling the company for support can send you down the wrong path, as in "you're a Nextel customer, and this is Sprint support -- please call another number." Inspiring to a customer? Hardly. And it's been two years.

Perhaps the company is making strides, but looking at a few recent quarters, it sure would not seem so from the financial and customer results. Maybe Sprint has heard the message, as the company appears to be jettisoning the Nextel name from its branding efforts in almost every way that matters. While it will keep the brand for customers looking specifically for the famous Nextel "walkie talkie" feature, it's pretty bad to think that the Nextel name -- which fetched $35 billion from Sprint -- is being dropped from almost all marketing efforts by the Overland Park, Kansas, company. What was the benefit of the merger, then? Customer scale and efficiency -- but with two incompatible technical networks and a disastrous strategy of co-branding and Nextel customer service that prompted a huge gob of customers to leave. Now that's success. Not! Let's hope Sprint's re-branding efforts re-invent the company's bottom line as the Nextel name barely clings to life from this point on.