To whom it may concern,
I am writing this letter not in hopes to fix my situation, because the dozen or so representatives that I spoke to already made it loud and clear that that wasn’t happening. My hope is to give your company an understanding of what a loyal customer went through trying to give your company my money and my business. First a brief explanation of my situation:
I’m trying to upgrade my phone because the amount of memory I use doesn’t even allow me to utilize my phones options or make any software updates; I must delete photos, videos and/or apps in order to utilize the basic functions of my phone. I contacted Sprint on June 28th, via the *2 feature on my phone, and was told I was eligible for an early upgrade… I was reassured of this offer while I was at a Sprint store and a Best Buy looking at new phones the same day. Now, being the savvy shopper I am, I went home and researched the phones and plans I wanted and went back in 3 days later to purchase my new phone and switch my plan to the Framily plan. I was told at the local Best Buy that I wasn’t available for an upgrade. Thinking this was an error I called *2 again and was told again, that I am not available for an upgrade. After questioning the validity of the representative’s statement to no avail, since she acted like she didn’t want anything to do with my problem, I went to the Sprint store where I was also previously told I’m available for an upgrade. It is at this point, many hours later, that I am told that the “early upgrade promotion” had ended the previous day. Just to clarify… It is at this point that I was told for the FIRST time that my availability for an early upgrade was “a promotion” and “had an expiration date”… And it just so happened that it expired the previous day. Just so we are all on the same page, there is documentation of me calling in on the 28th of June as well as the many times I have called in during the days following.
Like most, I have had a cell phone for the better part of 14 years. I started with Nextel and when Sprint purchased them I have been exclusively with Sprint since. Like most American consumers out there I am very brand loyal; I only drink Coke, only drive Fords and rarely go outside of the Nike brand… That loyalty usually stops with service based companies because of competitive pricing, proprietary products and coverage areas. Sprint is not the only game in town. It is not the best game in town. And after my experience, their customer service team is far more worried about getting satisfactory marks on a survey then getting results.
I had one simple request during the many times I spoke with the customer service department: I need a new phone. Instead of coming up with a solution, I was blatantly told no… many, many times over. There is an old service industry adage referred to as “The customer that never returns”. It outlines that most people who have a bad experience never say and word and just simply don’t come back. The act of spending their money with a competitor and never giving you a chance to rectify a situation is more devastating than the customer who demands a refund or makes a fuss… Most times a company won’t even know that “the customer that never returns” had an issue that needs fixing in the first place. Enough of these customers will have a huge impact on the company in the long run. In my situation, I expressed my displeasures as an opportunity for your company to rectify the issue. Your company not only chose not act, but became completely apathetic. My situation was “escalated”, meaning brought to a supervisors attention, 3 TIMES… each of those 3 times I was told I would “receive a call back because the supervisor was in a meeting”. Those meetings must still be going on because I still have yet to receive a phone call back from any of the 3 supervisors. I hope the 2 week long meeting is about how to better the customer service department at Sprint.
At the end of the day I wanted to give Sprint my money to buy a new phone. I offered to send my phone into them (after one rep told me that my current phone wasn’t “paid off”, that’s why I can’t get a new phone… whatever that means) AND I would pay them for a new phone. I offered to purchase a refurbished phone. All the while not one representative could come up with a creative thought as to what we can do in my situation. I wanted to stay with Sprint as I defended them on numerous occasions to my friends who tease me about the lack of coverage, the many times they have service in areas that I don’t and the gimmicky “Framily Plan” they had to devised in order to recruit clients on a ultra-discounted, multi-level marketing approach to a cell phone plan. Instead, I made myself very clear to each representative I spoke to. Its math and very easy to understand:
Buying a brand new 64g Iphone 5s at full price from Sprint- $849+ tax
Or
Breaking my contract with Sprint- $225
Buying a new 64g iphone 5s at a discount with a new 2-year activation from Verizon- $199.00
Sell my iphone 5s 16g on e-bay +$400
I spend $24 and have the brand new phone I wanted with Verizon or $849+ tax for a phone with Sprint. Guess which one I picked?
At the end of the day, I wasn’t asking for anything for free. I wasn’t asking for any discount. All I wanted was what was promised to me… A 64g iphone for $35.21 per month on easy pay. The crazy thing is, if they granted what was originally offered to me, I would have paid full retail price over the 2 years.
So Sprint said no to me PAYING them full price for a new phone. Sprint said no to me CONTINUING my service with them. Sprint forced me to leave them. With such a large organization, it’s baffling to me as to how the simplest business 101 rule was over looked… It’s cheaper and easier to keep a current client than to go out and find new ones. I wonder if CEO Dan Hesse answered my call and I proposed my offer of giving him my money and staying with Sprint… If he would have allowed me to leave Sprint… I guess we’ll never know.
Sincerely,
Keith Strotz
Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE iPhone
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