Sprint Dropping Customers and Cutting Off Roaming GIs-Updated

Sprint has walked into a minefield and things are exploding all around the web and blogosphere.

In what could go down as the start of likely a customer backlash, law suits and even action by the various states consumer protection groups, Sprint is severing customers for roaming too much and calling customer service too often.

Granted one call a day to Customer Service may be excessive, but as a person whom in the past had to contact Sprint half a dozen times to update credit card information when a bank card expired, and who had to fax in the same form six times and finally call the PR department for help, I'm not convinced the customers issues are unfounded.

So here's a business that should spring up. The Sprint Customer Service Barter Site. If you don't call Sprint in any month offer up your unused call(s) to them for barter to someone else. Think about it, for the 1000 or so people who were affected there are likely millions who never were. So if they can bater off calls to Customer Service, where's the harm as those who haven't called never will.

Seriously, for those who need support, and for those who don't receive any satisfaction, the next call they make will likely be to their Public Utility Commission. As for Sprint cutting of American GI Heroes, I don't see that going over too well with someone in Department of Defense purchasing, especially if the purchasing agent ends up being a military veteran. That incident has bad PR all over it.

Updated--It seems the Captain of Crunch, Mike Arrington agrees.

This is unfortunately becoming the rule, not the exception. A month or so ago my 86 year old mother found calls to Mexico and Jamaica on her local phone bill's long distance portion totaling over 100 dollars. Calls to the customer service number yielded only "pay the bill." I intervened and called some sharp folks at the telco's PR department. Fortunately, they don't outsource PR and after a short chat with one person in New York City, a call with his counterpart in Philadelphia and then a call the next morning with someone in Pittsburgh all was cleared up with nothing but professionalism, courtesy and yes, an apology, with a request that if any issues like this arose, to contact the person directly in the future.

Why did the person in Pittsburgh accomplish what regular customer service didn't? Beats me? As she said on the phone "your mother calls only one person long distance and has for years. That's you." The issue is empowerment, or lack of it.

Too much is outsourced and too much is offshored. I'm all for streamlining operations, but there needs to be accountability and ownership. That starts with empowerment. Too much "service" has been taken out of the equation. Instead of "servicing" the customer, the entire process is built around defending the company's asset, money already paid.

In the case of the Sprint matter, what's ironic here is most times you prepay in advance and then settle up and pre-pay the next month on your cell bill in the USA.

As for all the calls to customer service? Sometime people just need someone to talk to, I guess.