Dear Sprint customers,

Looking to get out of your contract so you can get an iPhone? Here's how...

Brilliant. However, they've just advertised a way for people to get out of their contracts early.

Sucks to be them.

so all I have to do to get out of my Sprint contract is call them all the time? Count me in.

Hahahaha! My company uses Sprint. And I call them every live-long day for one thing or another. It really is them and not me. I'd like to see them try this with a corporation.

Damn, AND they'll zero your balance out? So they're almost paying you to leave CD crazy.

Hmmm, seems a bit bogus to me. Show me more than one person who's gotten this "form" letter and I'll believe it.

Not that they need to make sense, but it makes more sense for Sprint/Nextel to just provide the same level of service they have been offering, and let the subscriber "die off" from attrition.

Again, I don't think this is a real letter.

Absolutely hate sprint after my current ordeal. I ordered the mogul from the sprint sero site on sunday at a price of 399. Today the phone is 288.99. I tried to get them to price adjust my mogul from 399 to 288 and they absolutely refused to do it. I'm canceling this contract and when my other account is up I will not renew. They've completely soured me on their service. I don't need what they offer that bad.

I know for a fact that other people were able to get a price adjustment for the same phone, so they outright lied to me about not being able to price adjust. I first heard that people were getting the phone at 288.99 on monday and continued calling about the matter and then it shows up on the website at that price. It infuriated me. They've lied to me too many times. I'm done with them.

Translation: We hate you because your constant use of our customer service representatives costs us more than you spend.

Wow, bitchslapped by a telco.

@1STAGE: Sprint has confirmed the story with CNET. It's real. She doesn't love you anymore.

there's your OUT folks just be needy

Yup. Here's a CNET link...

[news.com.com]

My bad.

omfg that is hilarious!!!!! If it's real, then I can certainly understand it - a business is there to get positive revenue from their customers, is it a big deal that they find it necessary to dump the slow swimmers? after all, offshored customer service centers aren't *that* cheap.

It's happening to other people.

[www.sprintusers.com]

[news.com.com]
[news.com.com]
[digg.com]

[consumerist.com]
[digg.com]

[www.dslreports.com]

[www.planetfeedback.com]

This is FANTASTIC.

Most major companies put dollar valuations on customer service calls, and in Sprint's case, if that dollar amount exceeds the revenue they gain from having a particular subscriber, they cut off the subscriber in order to plug the money leak.

Way to miss the big picture, though, because as other commenters have already mentioned, this is the perfect method for other unhappy (but less whiny) customers to exploit in order to get the telco to break the contract and cut them free.

Sprint is pretty cool....They allowed me to get a 55 minute workout in and a 10 minute bite to eat at Subway before I actually was permitted to speak to a supervisor...Then they gave me a begrudgeoned credit of a couple of dollars on a $600+ bill when I was misquoted international roaming rates by an operator and additionally charged for the inability to connect to my voice mail. Sprint "Our way or the highway"....

Likely they're just doing this to a few of the customer who call constantly. Many companies do this to the very small percentage of customers who cost way more than they spend.

It makes good business sense.

I work in tech support so I can identify with the need to let go of the "slow swimmers" as justforfun pointed out. Too bad I'm not allowed to terminate the tards I encounter on a daily basis.

I love how they sent a letter basically telling the customer that they call too much, yet they provide a help number to call at the end of the letter! "You cost us too much with your incessant nagging; please call us to nag some more before the umbilical is snipped"

Looks like a win-win situation for all parties.

Hey, At least this guy got a letter. Try getting hold of someone and see how long you wait for customer service. 15-20 minutes during the day? And see my previous comment about having to wait over an hour for an attiude ridden supervisor. Please, oh please give me a similar letter...

I was with sprint for a short while, then I canceled and had to pay the "stoopid-for-signing-up" tax disconnection fee. But the funniest thing when I canceled was the operators last words:

"thank you for choosing Sprint..... oh.."

We kick P.I.T.A.s out of our dental office all the time. While I won't pretend to fully understand Sprint's own justification, I can't say I blame them.

Now that this is out in the public watch what happens in the next 6-12 months. First, other carriers will do the same, then by the end of the 6-12 months so many people will learn that they do not have to pay a termination fee if they bitch a lot, so carriers will get rid of the extortionist $175 early cancel fee. Just watch, this is going to change things...

I know Sprint customers that would LOVE to get out of their contract, and this is the way. Giz needs to interview one of the people who got this letter to find out what they did, how long it took, etc, so others can start doing it too.

This is a great way to reduce complaint percentages :).

wow.. tht doesnt sound too good for that person..my family complains to cingular a lot (i complain because of the fact ive had 6 faulty phones even after they gave me a totally different phone..) i guess its ok because our account is usually over 300 bucks a month.. so i guess they tollerate us..

Man, I hope this happens to me. ;)

I wish Cingular had done this to me so I didn't have to pay an ETF after being constantly overcharged and also having them turn our phones off due to a retracted credit given to us for one of those overcharges.

Yeah, I would think this is a pretty common practice in many businesses. Sometimes you have customers that cause enough issues and drain enough manpower that you start to lose money on them. Dump them fast.

Another simple way to get a cellphone company to terminate your contract is to roam. Alot. In the country, so you don't get charged roaming fees.

The company will drop you like a hot potato.

Having worked in several call centers, this makes some sense. The places that I worked placed the average cost of a customer calling and talking to an associate at between $9 and $13 per call. That's why every time you call customer support they try their hardest to get you to use the automated system. It's also why some make it so hard to talk to a real person.

Sprint's customer service, is indeed lacking - but many other companies are the same.

I feel bad for those who have had bad customer service, and that's the only reason they call so much - because they didn't get help the first time.

This has got to be bad PR for Sprint. "Feel free to call with any questions... just not too often please, or we'll cancel your account."

Back in the day, when I had a Sprint landline (local and long-distance service), I'd get calls from them at least once a month, sometimes more often, to talk about upgrading the services on my account. My general response was "NO! Stop calling me!" and I'd hang up. One day, I got fed up, reamed the caller a new ass, then demanded to speak to a supervisor and demanded to know why they keep calling me when I am continually telling them to not call me. She says "Well did you tell them to put you on the Do Not Call List?" I said "No... is there anything vague about 'Stop Calling Me'?" She then said that I have to use the exact words "Do Not Call List", or they can't put me on the list. I then reamed her a new ass and told her to close my account promptly since I'm not about to do business with a company that wants to play friggin' mind games with me. Then I got a cell phone (my first) and never looked back.

Man, this rocks! Sprint assumes they've got a solid product and it must be the customer's fault, fantastic! How many other industries would love to take this approach every time a customer has a problem with poor service area or whatever else would prompt calls to customer support. Lmao. Pathetic.

sweet!

like others said, it's a get out of contract free card.

I'm pretty sure their call centers are going to be getting much more calls instead of less...

OMG! What a wonderful way to get out of my contract! Wonder if it would work up North...

I hope Verizon Wireless follows suit. I'd love to get out of that contract. Granted, it was my mistake to enter into it to begin with, but I've now spent many hours on the phone with VW trying to fix my Crapberry (now on my third one; I keep telling them it is a network problem but they keep insisting on sending me new hardware).

If I could just walk away right now, even having paid several hundred dollars for the piece of crap, without having to worry about the contract I would.

There was a Consumerist post a while ago about the Lifetime Value customer rating program that Cingular was implementing...well, the same company that makes that software for Cingular makes it for Sprint as well, except that so far, Cingular uses it to reward and Sprint uses it to punish. It can go either way.

Wow, seriously though how long before other carriers seriously consider adapting this as well. I shudder at the thought, poor Consumer Joe will be passed around like the bad kid at sports in middle school, "you take him, no you take him, your team's not even, that's ok". I almost feel bad for the losers..Almost.

I always hated Sprint when I was under a contract with them, I'm glad I don't use them anymore, and their customer support was absolutely awful.

Since major corporations have shared databases on everything else, do you think there will be one for number of support calls for each customer?

Boy, this is great. "Don't like our crappy service? Don't like the way we don't fix the problem no matter how often you call us about it? OK, have we got a solution for YOU!" *BOOT*

Like that Russian comedian used to say, America, what a country.

I've had Sprint wireless for 10+ years and have maybe called their customer service 3 times...

Wirless service from any provider seems fairly straightforward. What happens that requires people to contact them so often?

The few times I did contact Sprint, it was a very unpleasant experience. My problem was solved, but it required a lot of waiting and generally speaking slowly to the rep on the phone. I don't consider this a huge problem primarily because I'm not convinced that any other wireless provider can provide better customer service.

Where Sprint really sucks IMO is when you have to enter one of their stupid Sprint Stores. One time I picked up a new phone and I was told it would take 1 hour for them to download the contacts from my old phone to my new phone.

hmm I'm torn on this. If its true and the reason for all the calls is because of Sprints screw ups then I think this is BS,. But another part of me passionately hates needy people that would just assume call CS to ask how you change a ringtone than look it up in the manual. Its the same people who come into forums and ask things like "just wondering, can you use the iphone on Sprint"

Facts:

Churn Rates:
Sprint 2.7
Verizon .5
Cingular 1.0
TMobile 1.2

Before Apple was forced to join forces with Cingular, they turned to Sprint for their broadband network. It was proven faster than the "Edge" network they are now using. Certain company officials personally turned down Apple. There was interesting facts revealed in private company information that favored the already available Windows Mobile devices.

@infmom: I think that "comedian" would also say...

"In Soviet Russia, you service company."

...wut? I never said he was funny.

Here's Sprint's new slogan.

Spring ahead...to T-mobile

Might I suggest they get this domain....
www.sprint.com/ahead_t-mobile

I haven't had too bad of an overall experience when I was with Sprint for just over two years, but there were a few things that irked me that I was never able to get resolved.

One, the fact that the retail stores are designed for nothing but selling new equipment and contracts. Not only will the employees not help answer simple questions about your current account, but they're RUDE about it; they don't even get through the whole "You need to call customer care" sentence before turning their backs on you.

The second was the telemarketing calls from them. I haven't read everything about the do not call list and how it pertains to cellular lines, but out of the blue I'd get 2-3 calls a day from an 800 number. I usually ignored the calls after the first round since they were trying to sell me more phones / lines of service (and couldn't understand why one person didn't need more than a single phone). Calling the 800 number back got me to a "mailbox is full" prompt, and after 4 calls and over 2.5 hours of wasted time holding for / talking to customer care I still got calls.

Since I canceled my service three months ago, I've been getting the standard "we miss you" post cards about every two weeks. Give it up, guys. Just provide decent service and don't harass the customers.

I'm sure that this letter is going out to less than 1% of their customers. I am sure that among them are a few with legitimate complaints, but most of them are chronic complainers. Good riddance, if that keeps prices for the rest of us (I'm a Sprint customer.) under control.

Personally for me, it has been a 50/50 experience with CS. I have been high-dollar account holder with Sprint for a while. I have a loyalty discount + several free perks (FIMF, 6PM Nights, discounted unlimited text, discounted PV).

Chiming in... (YMMV):

Sprint wireless = good for me (better than every other carrier I have tried in my area, with my usage habits)

Sprint Customer Service = bad to me (phones should ship with free jar Kentucky Jelly)

This has to be the one company (which I have put plenty of toll-free mileage on myself) that might actually benefit from transferring their call center(s) over to India to be handled by trainees with thick accents too intelligible to pass for anything more than ear-torture.

Eat Gumby and die, all ye who hold us hostage for the sake of decent speed and coverage.

[macbigot.blogspot.com]

Don't buy it. Being a Sprint customer since '97 I can tell you that any time they reference their customer service number to Sprint customers, the give it as ( #2 from your Sprint PCS/Nextel phone)

Additional point. Did you know that your place in the call queue is determined by your initial credit ranking and account payment history? Trouble customers are automatically pushed to the back of the call queue anyways.