Sprinting into extinction?

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After my first encounter with Sprint Nextel Corporation, I get the feeling that the company is not long for this world, or at least this world as I would like to see it - one where companies really care about their customers and don't mouth off about it.

In work we bought several cell phones from Sprint partly on the basis that the phones would be free as Sprint would issue us a credit for them. There was no credit on our May invoice, so we called to inquire. The result after calling the salesperson and so-called Premium Customer Care was that the credit was in process. When the June invoice also failed to provide the credit and we received a shut-off notice, we called again. This time we were met by people claiming that they couldn't stop the shut-off notice and people also claiming that the credit was in process. These calls in both May and June were exercises in frustration - people not returning calls, waiting on hold for a half-hour or longer, calls disconnecting. For a telephone company, Sprint knows little about telephone courtesy.

Since the date for our shut-off was approaching, I sent a letter via Fedex to Dan Hesse, CEO of Sprint, asking him to review the situation. The letter was sent to the corporate address (Overland Park, Kansas) on Sprint's web site. Hearing nothing after a couple of days, I called Mr. Hesse. Sorry, I tried to call Mr. Hesse. One automated service that answered a number on the web site said that no number existed for Mr. Hesse. Others just disconnected or routed me to another automated service. However, after 15 minutes of calling various numbers and hearing how important my call was, I did finally get to 'Executive Services' which handles calls such as mine. The person I spoke with did have the ability to look up our account, or at least part of it; this took another 20 minutes. But, again, his hands were tied as our account records were incomplete.

So, we've wasted many hours trying to get Sprint to live up to its word. And, come to find out, we also wasted money on Fedex as Sprint's executive headquarters are in Dallas/Ft. Worth, which was not mentioned on the web site. Is this the type of behavior that will retain customers? I think not.