Tonight I heard an interesting story courtesy of the Situation Room show on CNN. A quick Google search brought me to this news story.
Sprint Nextel dumped 1,000 customers because they called Customer Service too often. At first, I was stunned because it’s RARE to hear of a large company turning customers AWAY from their business.
Sprint has never been know for wanting to talk with their customers. When they established their first website, the customer care phone number wasn’t listed on the site….. it wasn’t listed ANYWHERE!
As a former Sprint customer, I have had more than a few difficult customer calls with them. Part of me understands why it might be necessary for multiple calls to resolve an issue. However, Sprint tells us that these customers average 40-50 calls per month.
When I heard that statistic, it made me re-evaluate the situation. Maybe Sprint did need to set some boundaries and release their problem customers. If a customer is calling that often, you have huge operational issues or an impossible-to-please customer.
Sprint views this move as a way to improve their call center efficiency and profits. I suspect they are more interested in the profits than the service.
Of course, the postscript to the story is priceless…
At the end of the letter, it tells the customers that they have until July 30 to switch to a new carrier if they want to keep their phone number. Then it says, Should you have any questions regarding the transfer of your number to another wireless carrier or about the final adjustments to your account, please call our customer care department at (877) 527-8405. See for yourself – here’s the letter
I think they’d better add a few more staff to the customer care department phone lines.