Sprint is hemorrhaging both money and customers as it searches for a way to stop the financial bleeding. The company lost $505 million in the first quarter alone, and watched helplessly as over a million of its customers defected to other wireless carriers.
“As expected, our wireless business delivered weak financial results,” Sprint Chief Executive Officer Dan Hesse said. “While the business will continue to face challenges in the short term, we are making progress in methodically attacking the sources of our performance issues.”
The Kansas City Business Journal says that of the 1.09 million departing customers, 1.07 of them were traditional “post-paid” accounts and 543,000 were prepaid users.
Ouch.
Sprint claims to be revamping its notoriously broken customer service, but is it too little too late?
Sprint Nextel loses $505M on lower revenue [Bizjournals]
(Photo: meghannmarco )
More From Consumerist
-
SEC Investigates Sprint Over Allegations It Failed To Properly Collect Sales Tax
-
What Sprint’s New Ownership Could Mean For Consumers
-
Sprint Isn’t Sure Whether They Can Unlock My iPhone Or Not
-
Sprint Salesman Offers 25% Off To Get Me To Switch, Forgets To Mention I’m Not Eligible
-
Sprint Fires Customer For Excessive Roaming, Won't Unlock His iPhone
They are sprinting towards insolvency.
The way I would suggest is to not suck.
Improve customer service, improve infrastructure, give discounts to long-time customers…
I could do this whole CEO thing, swaerz!
Too late. I have heard too many customer horror stories. I had to deal with Sprint as our carrier for work cellular phones a few years ago. The signal was spotty and the few attempts to get things handled with phones for work was frustrating.
Unless something drastically changed with Sprint they are not even an option. If the other major carriers were to get to that level of inept and annoying I would just switch to Virgin pay as you go phones or something like that were your even less tied to the company.
The worst coverage (in my area) and the worst customer service. Yup, 1.09 million lost customers sounds about right.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
A bunch of professional businessmen and women must be stressed out, trying to figure out, “How did we get here?”
A) Offering lines of “credit” (phones and such) to people you knew couldn’t pay.
B) Why did you have to do that? Oh, you treated customers like dirt and they left (simply to be treated slightly better than dirt) to another company.
CONGRATULATIONS ON RUNNING A BUSINESS INTO THE GROUND THAT IS INFINITELY PROFITABLE. BE PROUD OF YOURSELVES.
The whole PTT thing has run it’s course. After that Sprint didn’t have much to offer except bad customer service and dropped calls.
At this rate, NASCAR is going to have to go back to the Winston Cup.
/possibly seriously
Oh crap, pretty much my entire family except me switched to sprint over the weekend!
Being that this year Sprint is the main sponsor of Nascar I think some Suits made a lot of bad business decisions. Maybe they could use an old Nascar trick – DUCT TAPE to stop the leaks.
So does anyone think this is a good time to email Customer Service so they can lower my monthly charge…I’ve been a customer for about 6 years now…
I think it’s only going to get worse. I think the rumor mill is that T-Mobile is thinking about buying Sprint.
Hate to be the odd one out, but I’ve had Sprint for over 6 years and I’ve had a great experience with them. They screwed up with billing once, but when they fixed the error, they also bumped us on to the nights & weekends at 7pm for free. I also have service everywhere I go with the exception of some elevators in big buildings and basements without windows.
@WingZero987: Amen. You wouldn’t believe what the profit margins can be if you run a telecom company properly. Really all you have to do is offer a base line of phones and pay-go plans. That’s why there are like 8 million trak-phone-esque companies popping up.
I mean really, the infrastructure phase of cell phones is over and done with for the basic plans, thus making them pure profit as long as they own the network.
Step one: Offer majority of americans that have no desire for a blackberry or need for 1000 text messages/month a cheap plan.
Step two: ?????
Step three: PROFIT!
Add one more to that tally as we’ll be leaving when our contract is up at the end of this month. The customer service is a joke and the pricing is just beyond asinine. My only dilemma is do I want to get screwed by AT&T or T-Mobile? That and can I really save enough to get an N95.
@HRHKingFriday: Step two should include an add on option for Text Messaging of $2.00 for an unlimited number. Seriously…how expensive can it really be to send that message? 1/1000 of a cent? 1/100 of one? Even still you’re making a profit and you’d get every family with teenagers begging to switch over.
I’ve been with them for 2 years (contract’s up next month). My 24% discount from my employer is going to make it tough to leave. I get a signal everywhere, they don’t screw up my bills, so I don’t have to interact with customer service. Wife needs a new phone, though, so we’ll have to see how they handle that.
Sprint is based in KC, IE the kc business journal did the investigating. As someone who lives in Kansas City, everyone here knows, EVERYONE, that sprint has terrible reception in their home city. I mean you can be down town, with 0 bars. I switched a long time ago. The audacity…
Something strange happened to me with Sprint:
A few months ago, my fiancee and I both got new phones and combined our plans to a family plan. That went off without a hitch- no strange fees or outrageous bills- all smooth.
After a month, I noticed that a loyalty discount I had been receiving on my individual line was gone. Remembering a Consumerist post about simply calling and asking for a discount, I decided to give it a shot. I called them up and basically said “We combined plans hoping to save a bit of money, and it’s actually more expensive: what can you do for me?” 10 minutes on the phone left me with a $40 reduction in my bill. (And yes, the discounts have actually been applied- got my new bill earlier this week.)
Maybe they really are getting things turned around. Maybe I’m in the lucky minority, but in 6 years, I’ve had no major problems with Sprint.
“As expected, our wireless business delivered weak financial results,” Sprint Chief Executive Officer Dan Hesse said. “While the business will continue to face challenges in the short term, we are making progress in methodically attacking the sources of our performance issues.”
I’m not dead! I feel fine.
@Bladefist: Exactly, it’s sad, that was once the company to work for in town. I wonder what will happen to their campus once they are inevitably sold to someone else.
“we are making progress in methodically attacking the sources of our performance issues.”
That would be the departing customers, wouldn’t it? Bring her about! Fire ETF’s at will!
@CubFan81: Get a 3G one and go AT&T. T-Mobile still doesn’t know what proper 3G is.
These problems didn’t happen overnight and the solutions being put in place won’t turn Sprint around overnight either.
Asinine moves like allowing Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile) acquire Sprint because of the weak dollar will only create even greater synergy issues beyond Sprint & Nextel that will only lead to Sprint’s ultimate demise.
oh man that is great.. I am glad they lost that many customers.
They just screwed me over and over wtih Nextel and their c.s was horrible. No way I would EVER go back to that company, even if they offered a free plan.
Just terrible.. Oh yeah and txt messaging doesn’t really work w/ Nextel. BORRRINGG..
Your technology is way behind..
Thanks for putting a smile on my face today sprint can diaf.
Please chect this post over guys. The math here is way, way off.
1.09 Million = 1,090,000 people that left. But you claim 1.07 Million, or 1,070,000 of them, where post-paid users, and 543,000 were pre-paid users.
Now I’m no math wiz, but those numbers add up to 1,613,000 – 1.613 Million users. That’s rather a different total from the supposed total of 1.09 Million.
Consumerist can has prufreedng plz?
Yes, I suck and made two obvious typos in that.
After 5+ years as a suffering Sprint customer, I moved to Verizon in December. Haven’t looked back. OMG, all our phones work, I get reception 99% of the time, and I can see my bill online. None of which happened with Sprint.
Getting rid of Sprint was like taking a wonderful dump after a long night of eating fast food and hard drinkin’. Felt like a new person.
Wow, I’ve been a Sprint customer for the past 3 years and (*fingers crossed*) have yet to encounter any bad customer service. Maybe I’m an anomaly… Before Sprint I had Cingular and they were no less than suck-tastic asshats.
Hmmm… buying Nextel not turning out to be all you thought it would? Good. Burn in hell Sprint. You ruined my Nextel for eternity. I loved Nextel until you put your greedy, filthy, nasty-ass hands all over it. Go die. I hate you.
@Sidecutter: Was just about to post that same point. It might be that the 500k was all prepaid, of whom 20k still had minutes left. Maybe. But I’d like a factcheck from consumerist here.
If only more companies went out of business that had bad customer service. I’m looking at you, “AT&T” (SBC). Oh wait, you’re a regional monopoly, never mind… carry on.
Close the offshore call centers, move all customer service to the USA, and customer service will improve 1000000% overnight.
On a separate note, whenever I call and get someone who is not in the USA, I just tell them to go to h***, then hang up and call again until I get someone in the USA. If everyone would do this, the overseas call centers would be shut down quickly.
^^ I guess that can be true to a certain extent, but I’ll have to disagree that it’ll help Sprint much.
Sprint’s woes are a manifestation of years of mismanagement that perpetuated a dysfunctional culture where the customer is regularly seen as the enemy.
I left Spring 4 years ago after being hung up on for the 3rd time.
Sprint is far from perfect, but in my experience each carrier has their screw-ups. Long story, but I left Sprint after not getting anywhere with their retentions dept. I’d been getting semi-regular surcharges for going over my time. The next plan up basically guaranteed me the same total cost. New plans elsewhere were cheaper, so I jumped ship at month 26.
Ha. A month later and I’m back with Sprint. The other company with good coverage for my areas is AT&T. I’d heard the horror stories but hadn’t ever used them. Two weeks of being jerked around was enough. Upsells, endless transfers and hangups were the norm every time I called. You’d think they’d have the smarts to treat us well until the ETF kicks in.
Now a new sprint phone, a kick-ass plan, and their CSRs haven’t been bad. The best part is their Blackberry CSR’s are in another class. Amazingly helpful. (don’t know if that’s unique to Sprint) Yea, their website is still screwy, but I don’t fear calling these guys so I’ll live.
Hahahahahahaha!
As a person who spent THIRTEEN months on the phone as a Customer Care rep at Sprint (Which is an insanely long time to be at a call center) let me just say Sprint had this coming to them.
Their sales minded, “don’t give a crap about customer service” attitude as well as there stupid and backwards policies were enough to drive me crazy. I’ve never worked a job that left me so stressed at the end of the day.
Sprint can go suck the big one as far as I’m concerned. I was SO HAPPY the day I finally walked out of that call center for good!
This reminds me to cancel my service with them.
@Sidecutter: Check the article out again. It says “OF THEM.”
if the SERO plan wasn’t stupidly awesome i’d probably be on another carrier, but $30/month for 500 anytime, unlimited night and weekend and unlimited data is just too damn good.
@Sidecutter: From the article:
“The company lost 1.09 million wireless subscribers, including 1.07 million post-paid subscribers and 543,000 traditional prepaid users. The losses were partially offset by gains of 343,000 Boost Unlimited and 183,000 wholesale and affiliate subscribers.”
Add up the ones lost and the ones gained, and I think you get about 1.09 Mil.
My work phone is through Spint do to the Nextel deal. I wonder what our options are going to be when Sprint finally tanks.
Not that I wouldn’t welcome the change, The network around here is so bad it’s pretty much worthless indoors…or is that how it is everywhere?
My personal cell is with AT&T, even though Sprint offers a huge corporate discount.
As if Sprint cares about it’s customers. I work for Sprint’s Number Porting department. We’re expected to harass our customers even after they request that we don’t call them. When I confronted my supervisor about it he just said “Well Sprint pays you to make the calls, so…”
Yeah. World class customer service my ass….
My contract was up in February with sprint, and since I had no problems decide to renew my contract and get 2 new phones with the discount. Sprint wants to charge me for the whole price for the phones NOW 3 months later, I can’t find anybody even at executive customer service that will help me. I did a chargeback on my credit card but know that they will charge me later for it. And on top of everything I can’t get a good signal in my house anymore.
@uberbucket: Agreed. SERO is an awesome deal. Additionally, I actually like Sprint. I have unlimited data, 500 minutes, 500 txt, and insurance for $40/mo.
I don’t ever use their Customer Service because I can do everything through their web portal. Hell, I just bought a new Mogul Smartphone and was able to switch the ESN right on the web page — no human interaction required! I’ll be sad if/when Sprint dies.
Does their call quality suck that bad? Maybe because I have in an urban area (Pittsburgh), I get better signals. I’ve never had an issue.
How bad does Sprint suck? They used to have a discount plan through USAA for members.
That was canceled and information went out that USAA only wishes to partner with reputable companies that provide a good return to members. Suddenly the Sprint cellular plan was gone. They never really said it in writing but you had to know.
I still dont know why USAA deals with FLEET but what can you do?
@sohmc: I’m not sure buying Sprint would make sense for T-Mobile. While T-Mobile does desperately need to improve their worst-in-the-nation coverage area, Sprint’s phones use CDMA, which is incompatible with T-Mobile’s GSM service.
I just renewed with Sprint. They actually do have some CS centers in the USA, and when you speak to them, you will do ok.
FWIW, I have had other companies, and they all suck.
I’ve learned that if you say the word cancel, you get immediately routed to the retention dept and they are in the US. They are also the ones best able to solve big problems, so I only pull that trigger when I absolutely HAVE to!
I actually ended up having a good experience over the weekend with Sprint. I do think their customer service is improving. It is a slow process. Hopefully it isn’t to late.
I’ve been with Sprint for the last 3.5 years. The first 2.5 years (started a new contract after about 1.5 years)were riddled with billing mistakes, CSR’s who said that they corrected the issues, only to see the same mistake in the next bill. It was frustrating for quite awhile, and the customer service levels were dissapointing, to say the least. Finally, though, the glitches were fixed and normalcy resumed (or started) for the last year or so.
I had my first taste of executive customer service earlier this year (thanks to Consumerist), and was duly impressed. Regular customer service has noticably improved, as well. Still, with my existing contract ending at the end of this month, I was all set to jump ship and go with AT&T. Sprint would have to offer a killer deal (and AT&T would have to completely drop the ball with their offer) to keep me. But, that’s exactly what happened.
I now have 3 lines with 1700 anytime minutes & nights and weekends starting at 7:00pm, 2 lines of which have unlimited internet access, 500 txtmsgs each, 1 of which is used as a phone-as-modem, all for just under $100/mo. including taxes and fees. AT&T’s offer for a similar package (800 rollover minutes) was over $180/mo.
@CubFan81: Hard of hearing people like me would love that too. $20/mo is a ripoff for something that some people depend on.