Sprint Ditches Customers Who Complain Too Much

[beck]

 here is the link-http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=3359400

[mr_doc]

Since your link is not clickable:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sprint Nextel Corp , which recently launched an advertising campaign to attract new customers, is disconnecting more than 1,000 subscribers for calling its customer service lines too often and making what the company called unreasonable requests.

The No. 3 U.S. wireless provider with 53 million customers said on Monday it started sending service termination letters on June 25. Sprint said the cancellations involved 1,000 to 1,200 customers who had called the company about 40,000 times a month in total.
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"These customers were calling to a degree that we felt was excessive," said Sprint spokeswoman Roni Singleton, adding the company needed to cull its customer base to improve services.

"In some cases they were calling customer care hundreds of times a month for a period of six to 12 months on the same issues even after we felt those issues had been resolved," she said.

Singleton, noting that mass cancellation letters were not routine, said this call volume was 40 to 50 times more than average customer monthly calls. She would not say how often customers can call before being deemed too demanding.

The company also declined to say what percentage of monthly service calls the 40,000 figure represented.

Singleton said some of the cancellations involved customers who repeatedly asked for information about other people's accounts.

Sprint waived final balances on canceled accounts and gave customers 30 days to transfer their phone numbers to other wireless providers, she said.

"We're working very hard to improve customer service. That's our number one priority," Singleton said.

The termination letters started going out days before Sprint kicked off a nationwide "Sprint Ahead" ad campaign on July 1. Sprint's customer growth has disappointed investors for several quarters after its marketing message was criticized as being confusing and it had network problems after its 2005 purchase of Nextel.

Sprint Ditches Customers Who Complain Too Much

[rbcp]

Woo, another way to get out of your contract!

If I were Sprint, I would set it up so that the system recognized phone numbers that called in frequently.  And it would put those numbers in a separate queue.  This queue could either put them on hold for an hour before finally connecting them to somebody.  Or it could say something like, "Quit complaining, you big complainer!" and hang up on them.  Maybe it could refer them to another carrier and Sprint could get referral fees. 

Calling them a complainer and hanging up on them is a perfect solution, though.  The customer will either get pissed off and leave Sprint or they'll realize that they complain way too much and they'll stop.  I wish Sprint would consult me about these things before making important decisions.

[becki1974]

Thanks Mr Doc for copying that story.I didnt realize that my link wasnt clickable.