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For what seems an eternity, I’ve struggled unsuccessfully this week to place an order with Sprint. A once-loyal seven-year Sprint customer, I now wish I had opted otherwise. Below is the story of my trek through Sprint Customer Service Hell.
My journey began with a visit to the Sprint web site Wednesday for a look at what was available in terms of new phones and calling plans. A little online research followed, and I decided to replace each of my three phones by upgrading to champagne, pink and silver models of the Katana DLX — phones CNET reviewer’s described as Sanyo’s best model to date. There, that was the easy part!
Next, I tried to order three of the phones online. Because I couldn’t remember the username or password (last used two years ago) necessary to place an order online, I decided to place the order over the phone. The Sprint Customer Care representative gladly renewed my two-year contract before forwarding me to Sprint Sales where, I presumed, I would place an order for the actual phones.
Unfortunately, the Sprint Sales representative to whom my call was directed by Sprint Customer Care couldn’t fulfill my request. “Katana DLX phones are not available,” he said. I was foiled again!
Now, I would have to go to a local Sprint Store. Before I went the next evening, however, I called ahead to make sure they had three different-colored versions of the Katana DLX phone in stock. The friendly young lady at the store assured me they had the phone and said she would hold them for me when I came to the store for a 7:30 p.m. appointment.
After arriving at the Sprint Store well in advance of our appointment time Thursday evening, I was served promptly. Before we could even get the process started, I learned I would not be able to complete the purchase of the phones without my wife’s consent via phone or in person as her name was the only one listed as an “authorized user” on the account. Because my wife travels constantly as part of her job and was unreachable at 30,000 feet, I was again unable to complete my phone upgrades.
My wife returned from her trip Saturday afternoon and, after church on Sunday, I called the Sprint Store to make sure they still had “my” phones in stock. Upon hearing that they did, I scheduled a 2 o’clock appointment. At 1:40 p.m., my wife and I hopped in the car for the 15-minute drive to the store — this time armed with everything, including the account password my wife had received via text message from Sprint earlier in the week. Soon after 2 o’clock, the store manager called my name and asked how he could help us.
“We need to upgrade three of our phones and have earned $150 upgrade credits for each of them.” He asked for our account information (i.e., first and last name, primary phone number on the account and password), entered the information into his system and said, “Sorry, the system shows you entered a new contract eight-nine-oh-seven and do not have any credits.”
“I said, ‘Yes, we did enter a new contract August 9th. The person with whom I spoke offered it to me and assured me our $150 credits on each phone line would remain intact for our upgrades!”
“I’m sorry, but the system shows you don’t have any credit,” he replied. “You’ll need to contact Sprint Customer Care” and let me use the phone at the counter space at the far end of the store. He even dialed the number for me.
Little did I know, I would spend more than 90 minutes on the phone, speaking with a hard-to-understand Sprint Customer Care representative sitting in a cubicle in a call center in some faraway land — India, I think.
After providing our account information again, I explained my situation to the Sprint Customer Care rep and, halfway through the ordeal, was assured that my $150 credit per phone had been restored and that the Sprint Sales representative to whom I would be transferred would be able to assist me with placing my order for new phones free of any $18-per-phone activation fees the Sprint Store manager said he had no choice but to charge me.
The Sprint Sales representative took our account information again and, within seconds, shared more bad news with me: “There’s a problem with your account. I’m going to have to transfer you back to Sprint Customer Care.”
I couldn’t believe it.
The Sprint Customer Care rep — a new person yet again — took our account information again, checked our account again and told us he could not find any problem and that everything appeared fine — even the $150 per phone credit appeared on his screen — and that he was puzzled by the fact the Sprint Sales rep had said there was a problem.
By then, I had had enough. I ended the call and got in line again to speak with the Sprint Store manager. Ten minutes later — after an hour and a half on the phone with Sprint Customer Care and Sprint Sales — we found ourselves standing in the same spot where our visit had begun.
After few formalities, the Sprint Store manager entered our account information into the computer again. Same result.
“We’ve been having problems like this all week,” the Sprint Store manager said. “If I were you, I would check back with us in a day or two and see if our system is working properly.”
At 3:45 p.m. CDT Monday (Day 5 of my struggle), I called the Sprint Store to see if their system was up and running again. It was not, according to the manager I asked to speak with.
Minutes later, I tried SprintPCS.com again. After entering the username and password, I was in. No problem. I clicked on the link to “Upgrades” and waited for a new screen to open in a separate window. A half-dozen attempts produced the same result. My high-speed internet connection to the Sprint web site timed out.
By 4 p.m. CDT, I had given up on the online effort and resorted to calling Sprint Customer Care yet again. After much biting, clawing, scratching and general unpleasantness, my efforts to use my $150-per-phone credits and not pay $18-per-phone activation fees, I thought I saw “daylight” at the end of my telephonic tunnel. I had reached the point where I was speaking with a Sprint Sales rep and she had assured me everything was in place so she could forward my order. Unfortunately, she hit an unexpected snag.
“There is a problem with your account,” she said, apologizing profusely. After several minutes of waiting on hold, she came back on the line and asked if she could contact me by phone after the problems with my account — whatever they turned out to be — were corrected. I said, “Alright.” After all, what choice did I have. I had no energy left.
Four hours passed without a call back, so I called Sprint. Again.
Finally, five days after I had begun the process, I reached a young man working in a Sprint Sales call center who knew what the heck he was doing. He even let me in on a little secret.
He told me I didn’t receive call backs or better service from the other reps, because I had already signed a new two-year agreement. You see, the reps working at the Sprint Sales call center make their “big money” selling two-year agreements. Customers who’ve already signed such agreements are, to the call center reps, “not worth helping.”
Our phones are supposed to arrive in seven to 14 days. If they don’t, I’ll post an update.
***
8-29-07 UPDATE: While we finally received our phones, this update has nothing to do with ordering that; instead, this update has everything to do with a new post, Did Someone at Sprint Drop ‘F-Bombs’ on Me? I wrote this new post today after receiving a comment about the post above. You’ll be amazed with what happened! Read on!
6 responses so far ↓
1 Skunkfeathers // Aug 14, 2007 at 3:14 am
I’m not laughing, but at the same time I am; I went through something roughly akin over a six day period with Qwest in 2000, over getting a simple phone number for a residential landline phone.
Hope you don’t have to post an update that carries on the saga…
2 My Western Digital Hard Drive Went Up in Smoke « Bob McCarty Writes // Aug 22, 2007 at 11:49 am
[...] might recall a few days ago when I posted about my recent experience with Sprint: Sprint Customer Lost in ‘Customer Service Hell’. Apparently, Spring must have some sort of direct line to Western [...]
3 Did Someone at Sprint Drop ‘F-Bombs’ on Me? « Bob McCarty Writes // Aug 29, 2007 at 10:32 am
[...] from WordPress, time-stamped at 12:07 a.m. It carried news that a new comment on the Aug. 13 post, Sprint Customer Lost in ‘Customer Service Hell’, was waiting for my approval. I opened [...]
4 tan // Oct 2, 2007 at 2:46 pm
I used to work in one of the Sprint call centers and although I was in billing and didn’t handle phone orders and the like, your story is really common. I spoke with at least one person a day who was basically just frustrated with what should have been a simple procedure.
I can’t speak for all the reps, but I know that many of them DO want to help customers, and try their best. The problem was we were kept under strict time restraints. We’re basically told to get customers on the line and off again as quickly as possible. Also, you’d be hard pressed to find any one rep who could resolve an issue from beginning to end, because in billing, all I knew was billing. If you did not want to pay your bill, best I could do was send you off to one of the other departments, who may or may not help you. When I tried to go above and beyond and help a customer and find an answer to a non-billing issue, I got chewed out by management for taking too long on a call. I assume that it was the same for other departments.
And yeah, the guys in India are completely useless. My advice is to hang up and call again until you get someone in the USA, because even the Sprint operators hate talking to them.
5 Sprint Slow to Deliver on Promised Rebates « Bob McCarty Writes // Oct 17, 2007 at 10:52 am
[...] than two months ago in this space, I published a post, Sprint Customer Lost in ‘Customer Service Hell’, in which I described the nightmare I experienced trying to renew/continue my customer relationship [...]
6 George // Dec 15, 2008 at 3:26 am
I would rather have pins stuck in my eyes than ever have to deal with Sprint “Customer Service”. Here’s what happened to me:
1) I made the mistake of buying a Blackberry from a Sprint telemarketer. I travel extensively, and was in need of a new phone so I was actually glad the guy called. He told me that Sprint was offering a special price with rebates galore. Hey, Sign me up! I purchased the phone using a Visa card. The phone I ordered was the wrong one so I went to the Sprint store to exchange it for an upgraded Blackberry World Phone. The store didn’t have one in stock, however the clerk kindly handed me their phone to order it from another department. The clerk then did an exchange using my Visa at the cash register, and I my new phone arrived at my home two days later. Cool.
2) Since I’m not exactly a tech-savvy phone genius, I returned to the Sprint store to get some help setting up my new Blackberry. They were marginally helpful; however they got me fixed up nonetheless.
3) I chose the Blackberry World Phone because as I said, I travel extensively. I was leaving for China in a few days and just as I do every month, I dial *3 to pay my Sprint bill. I was a bit shocked when the lovely robo-woman told me that my new balance was $1100.00! As I said, I purchased one phone, exchanged it for another, all on my Visa card. My normal phone bill is around 100.00 per month, and now I’m looking at an $1100.00 phone bill. I called “customer service” immediately to get to the bottom of it.
Oh my God! I spent two days, and a total of 9 hours on the phone dealing with one idiot after another. In two days, I spoke with 29 different people. I was hung up on, mysteriously disconnected with, put on perma-hold, and treated like dirt by these evil mutants employed by Sprint. I was yelled at, threatened, called a liar, insulted in a half a dozen other ways, and still nobody could figure out why my phone bill was $1100.00.
I had only two days to go until I’m on a plane for China, and I’m going through a living hell with Sprint! I was only in the US for a total of four days in between trips abroad. Time that I could have spent with family or friends was consumed by having to deal with Sprint “customer service”.
On the third day, I return to the Sprint store to try to resolve the issue. The manager of the store dialed some kind of secret magical number and handed me their phone to speak with some big chief, or the “King of Sprint”, or whatever. The guy was very pleasant, and tried to help me unravel the whole mess. Turns out, I was charged for three phones. They charged my Visa bill, and there were overlapping charges on my Sprint bill. He credited me for part of the damage; however I was told that the remaining credit for $700.00 on my Sprint bill wouldn’t show up until my next monthly statement.
At this point, I was just happy to know that I had a working telephone to take to China, and I was glad to know that the issue was more or less resolved. Had I not been on such a hectic travel schedule, I would have dropped Sprint immediately.
4) One month later: I return from China, dial *3 to pay my Sprint bill, only to hear robo-woman’s voice telling me that I’m past due for the amount of $700.00. Now, I’ve never been late with paying my Sprint bill. In fact, I usually pay early. I’ve been a loyal Sprint customer for eight years. I didn’t use my phone in China, except to reply to annoying messages from Sprint which I was receiving daily (Apparently, when you have an open dispute with them, they try to annoy you into submission by hounding you to death across the globe. You can run, but you can’t hide!)
So once again, rather than go through another two days of degradation trying to resolve anything on the phone with “customer service”, I drive to the Sprint store. During my jet-lagged attempt to get some answers from the guy in the store, I was told that this was somehow my fault because “We told you it would take a month for the credit to show up on your statement”. So let me get this straight; You’re scolding me for buying one of your phones, you’ve charged me for three, I call “customer service” only to hear that I have a “past due” balance, and I’m just supposed to lump it? He suggested that I pay the bill, even though I don’t owe them money, and wait until yet another month goes by for the billing department to straighten it out. Rather than get violent with the guy, I marched out of there and promptly called “customer service” again to see if I could find some answers.
Finally, I get someone who isn’t on drugs to speak with. The “supervisor” more or less got it straightened out. It’s been almost three months, and I’m still waiting for that rebate. Never did get that “special offer”. After the mental anguish Sprint put me through, they should give me free phones and free service for life. I would drop Sprint, however I’m in China again this month, and I’m heading to Italy after Christmas. As grueling as my travel schedule is, I don’t have time to change service right now. Whenever I can take a break, dropping Sprint is high on my to-do list!
I would file a complaint directly with Sprint; however I’ve had enough interaction with these folks. Their brand of “customer service” freaks me out a little.
Funny side note:
While I was in China last month, I realized that I forgot to call Hertz in the US before I left to reserve car to upon my return. Since I really didn’t know how to dial US directory assistance from China to get the number for Hertz Rent-A-Car, I called Sprint to ask “customer service” for help. I explained to the woman that I was in China trying to reach directory assistance in the US so I could make a rental car reservation. The woman at Sprint “customer service” responded by yelling “Sir, we are not a travel agent”, and then hung up on me.
… At least they’re consistent.
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