Follow up on Sprint Nextel bad customer service: CEO Foresee quits.. Communities Dominate!

We promised to keep an eye on the Sprint Nextel customer service fiasco earlier this summer (firing 1,000 customers who complained too much, 300 customers who roamed too much, all while calling centre was saying nobody is going to be fired for calling them too many times, etc).

Our regular readers will remember that I wrote an Open Letter to Sprint Nextel management then pleading them to fix the problem while they still could. Obviously they failed to fix matters, rather Sprint Nextel drew attention to their disasterous customer service systems and records in our follow up pieces here and here in what became known as the Sprint 1,000 story. Certainly a black moment even for an industry with a bad reputation for calling centres and customer service.

The Financial Times over the weekend did an analysis of how poorly Sprint Nextel has been performing since then - underperforming against the USA based rivals in market share, highly increased costs - as we predicted due to all the bad customer experiences in the last quarter, and losing 18% of share value.

Now Monday CEO Gary Foresee has quit, effective immediately as reported for example by Telecoms.com. Good riddance! Now I hope they also fire those executives who brought the customer service fiasco to highlight this summer as well.

But most importantly, now please Sprint Nextel board, please, hire a competent customer-service oriented CEO to replace him. Aim for the high ground. Try to create the BEST cellular telecoms carrier in America, not the cheapest. Please restore the company to the high regard that in particular the Nextel brand was known for among its loyal customers a few years ago.

UPDATE Jan 21 2008 - Sprint Nextel exodus of customers gathers pace, stock price crashes to under half what it was before the Sprint 1,000 and the company fires thousands of employees and closes over a hundred stores as we report in "Nightmare Continues for America's Worst Company."

UPDATE Jan 24 2008 - The new CEO has fired Chief Marketing Officer Tim Kelly effective immediately. I've blogged about it at "Poetic Justice at Sprint Nextel"

Comments

[Jonathan Marks]

justice does come in the end! The whole business of a phone company is to get people talking! But not about bad customer service.

[Mario Vega and Debra Gonzalez]

To Mr. Bob Johnson, chief service officer at Sprint Nextel; we have been a Sprint PCS for almost a year and it has been for a lack of better terminology a nightmare. I am a DoD employee and was relocated to the state of PA from PR; in April we requested a change of address after making sure the last PR invoice was paid. We had the address change but also the account number, since May all following invoices have been including the old account number April’s amount as overdue. Monthly payment have include copies of canceled check for our banking institution, but still every month we find our self with the service suspended and charges for reactivation and late charges. We have not been able to find a way to make your financial department understand the above situation, they are good on treating us every time a statement is send to us. Our next step will be taking our business else were to any of your competition were they can appreciate our business.

[Olu Aiyegbusi]

I kept my sprint service for all of 10 DAYS. I ordered a family plan online and was double charged for it. Almost $650. Sprint then refused to return the over charge for three weeks. I subsequently canceled the service and returned both phones. Theyy acknowledged receiving both phones back but only gave me credit for one of them. Saying they would credit the other one on the next bill and I would receive a refund in 60 days or there abouts. Basically it looks like for my ten days of Sprint service it is going to take 90-120 days to get all my money back including the money they stole by double charging my credit card without my permission. Thanks Sprint. That is why I am now with T-Mobile where no of this crap goes on.

[Mark Cressman]

For two months now we have had to call to straighten out our bill (double and triple charged on text family plan, overcharges, etc.). Each time we call it is a nightmare. We get people in foreign countries who cannot speak englich or are jst plain stupid! We are leaving Sprint for Verizon. Good bye forever Sprint!!

[William C Mitchell]

I can't believe the poor customer service from Nextel with all the competition out there. I have been faithful to Nextel for 4 years and now I can stand next to the tower and get zero service. I live in the middle of Alpharetta, Ga. and have service about 30% of the time. I have tried to work with Nextel to get a discount or something to make up for the poor service but I get nothing in return but higher cost. I'm in customer relations and I understand how it works and you guys have no clue how to help customers or run a buisness. With this I have become fed up with Nextel treating me like I don't have a choice in the matter but let me say this to you, I will spend more on the new iphone JuLY 11TH AND GET SERVICE WITH NO DROPPED CALLS THAN TO BE TREATED LIKE I AM JUST A NEMBER NOT A CUSTOMER. I tried but enough is enough. Thanks for your time.