I read the title of this article incorrectly. I thought 1,000 customers fired Sprint, but it's the other way around!
Sprint to 1,000 customers: You're fired
Sprint Nextel showed 1,000 “needy” customers the door and gave them until the end of July to find another wireless provider. The letter was reproduced over at Gizmodo and some of the commenters on that post said that Sprint Nextel is setting themselves up for a customer service onslaught by people who want to get out of their contracts without paying the early termination fee.
I experienced this kind of treatment years ago with either a CD club or a book club (I can't remember which). The sales method was the typical “we'll send you the month's selection unless you tell us not to, and you pay us when you receive it.” Well, someone taught me a trick that basically got me out of paying for the selection if I forgot to tell them (which I did). You just write on the package “REFUSED — RETURN TO SENDER” and the post office will send it back. I don't know if the post office charges the original sender, but I know they didn't charge me. Anyway, after doing this a few times, the company dropped me. I was costing them too much.
The main point is that companies are not obliged to keep every customer that chooses to do business with them. Not all customers are worth the time and hassle. Businesses are in business to make a profit. If a customer sucks too many resources from the company, it's better for the company to terminate the relationship. I imagine this is true for just about any business. When subtle hints don't work (longer waits on the phone, restricted access to representatives, etc.) then a company can just pick the parasites off.
I can see this being abused now that Sprint Nextel has tipped its hand: Person signs up for a package with a very expensive phone, then calls customer service constantly for the next three weeks or so. How much can the company take before they give in? Or will they start to write things in the contracts that prevent this? It will be interesting to see.
I know a few customers that my company works with that need to be booted as well.
People always want as many promos as they can get for the most tv packages possible, but don't want to downgrade.
\Rant done
Interesting. I've always had great experiences with Sprint, and am currently getting a great deal from them (in part by calling/e-mailing and asking for additional discounts — good thing I didn't get fired).
Interesting 🙂 I HATE Sprint, but haven't bugged them enough to get rid of me yet, I suppose. (That would involve more 15 min. waits to reach a person.) The phone service is fine but customer service and website are terrible, mainly since the merger. I would list how they managed to drive me so nuts yesterday that I was physically hitting my cell phone, but it's a long story!
They mentioned these customers would call customer service 15 times a day! No wonder. On the other hand they could have just charging for it beyond a reasonable point.