Spurning Sprint, Nixing Nextel

It is amazing to me the extent to which some companies in the business of serving the public will go to avoid dealing with the public.

I received a lovely letter from Sprint-Nextel in my personal e-mail box last night. They want money from me. I will be paying it in due time, but have very little remorse in making this company wait for payment because of the shoddy manner in which I have been treated and ill-served lately.

I called the toll-free number in the note, and for the next half hour (as if I had nothing better to do) played telephone voice-mail tree roulette. After two hang ups by Sprint-Nextel’s phone system, and multiple instances of their automated system failing to register my phone number, I finally got on the line with a human being.

When you have an issue with a company--and they're asking you to respond--they'd better make it easy to reach them. Sprint-Nextel seems to go in the opposite direction, making it as difficult as possible to resolve issues by avoiding direct, personal contact with customers.

Sprint-Nextel has provided the worst connection and most dropped calls in the past six months I have ever experienced—and I’ve been using a cell phone since the days when those putty-colored bricks were in vogue. I’ve been a loyal Nextel customer for at least a dozen years. At one time, everyone in our family was on their system, plus many of my co-workers. I generated a lot of business for Nextel within my sphere of influence.

I’m not sure what happened to Nextel.
Perhaps the blending with Sprint was the un-doing of both companies. Sometimes bigger isn’t better. Perhaps it was the outsourcing of their euphemistically-named customer care division. I’ve had wonderful conversations with Indians and Canadians over recent years, dealing with outages or phones that wouldn’t operate or cooperate.

We forged a bond, a band of brothers with a common goal: Get the calls to go through. I kept punching in the digits…Sprint-Nextel kept dropping the ball and the calls.

Last week I wrote Sprint a letter and fired them. Told them their service was horrible, and I was fed up, and I cancelled my contract.
Like it says on the screen: I'm Done.

So now they want their money.
I’ll pay it.
Maybe phone it in.