I have a been a Sprint PCS customer since 1997 or 1998. In 2007, after being absolutely pissed off at Sprint PCS’s piss-poor customer service, their unbelievably crappy phone selection, their death-grip contracts, and my Treo breaking so many times I lost count, I wrote a completely unhinged, totally adolescent, obnoxious letter to all the top executives at Sprint that ended like this:
“your company is bleeding customers and losing stock value an unprecedented rate because:
—your outsourced customer service is crap; the agents take days to respond to emails and the experience of being on the line with them is like falling into a vortex. bring it back to America for a few extra dollars.
—your phone selection is garbage.
—your website is a buggy piece of crap; it is often unviewable, with broken links, and failed several times during my recent attempt at inputting information for your security upgrade (thanks for that) to accept or save the information.”
I ended diplomatically: “Are you running a multibillion dollar corporation or a lemonade stand on the side of the road?
In the letter, I made childish demands: I wanted either a brand new phone of my choosing–the latest Blackberry or Treo—for nothing, and I wanted no changes or re-upping of my contract. If neither one of those things were met to my satisfaction, I informed these very big powerful people at the top of the food chain, they were going to let me out of my contract gratis, and buy me an iPhone or a Blackberry from one of their competitors.
I hit send and figured that I’d never hear from anyone and that I’d fulfilled my need to vent about the incompetence of the company to the ether.
Big surprise. The next day I received something like four or five phone calls from people who handled larger accounts at Sprint. It was somewhat overwhelming. I had a personal connection with someone in New York who got me a new Blackberry and set up my new account, and removed the two-year contract restrictions on my account. I had gotten everything I asked for. Whenever my phone died or broke, I had a rep who would helpfully replace it immediately.
Everything was going swimmingly until I moved to Santa Monica.
You know that Verizon commercial where the dude walks around to different areas of a room and asks, “Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?” That’s me, every time you call me on my cell phone. I literally drop every single call. Every. Single. Call. The rest of the beach area is completely spotty, as well. Text messages don’t always arrive. Important phone messages go straight to voice mail, and then I don’t notice them for hours. I’ve stopped bugging my personal connect at Sprint about how awful it is, because my year of being treated like a Very Important Person is over, and because asking Sprint to spend a few million dollars on towers in my neighborhood just because I have dropped calls, doesn’t seem very fair.
Sprint had a tough time after its merger with Nextel, and it’s doing the worst of all the cell carriers with new subscribers. On the bright side, the loss of six million customers will make the network easier and better to use. But it finally got a real CEO, Dan Hesse–after the last one quit when Sprint actually fired 1000 of its customers for complaining too much–and has been making strides in trying to fix its reputation. When I call customer service, I get clear-speaking Americans, people who can actually troubleshoot, rather than the outsourced employees from India, who read off a script and don’t really interact.
Sprint’s also gotten some better phones. They got the Blackberry Curve and Pearl, the Instinct and the Motorola Razr.
The biggest news, though, is that they are getting the Pre Treo.
This is the part that makes me very sad. I really liked my Treo when it was working. Except for the bulkiness of the phone, I liked the way it displayed text messages better than the Blackberry, I liked the emails, and I liked that you could touch the screen or use the hard keyboard. Options.
I have the Blackberry World phone now. It’s fine. It mostly does what it’s supposed to but the stupid ball gets stuck all the time, and takes forever to scroll. But it’s really loud, and I can hear everyone perfectly, and that’s mainly what I need when all is said and done. Everything else is bells and whistles. Except, it never works because the network never works.
But the Palm Treo looks like the best of the Blackberry and the iPhone. I know that everyone says that you get used to it eventually, but typing on the iPhone makes me want to throw it at a wall. The sweep and pinching thing is cute, but I’m bored by it. I like the Pre’s ability to have multiple apps open. I like it’s hard keyboard, and the fact that it’s not the iPhone. Too bad I won’t be getting it.
Because of the unbelievably sorry state of my cell phone reception via Sprint, I am literally forced to get another phone at a different company. Since I am not really interested in another Blackberry, I will likely just succumb to iPhone fever, which is on the ATT network, and I hear is marginally better than what I’ve got with Sprint.
Shockingly, I’m a little sad about leaving Sprint. It feels like letting go of an old friend.
Sprint, can you hear me now?
[From Sprint Predicts That the Pre Will Be Big - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com]
