[powerbyte#AC]

I have been a loyal Sprint customer for over 10 years. I guess you could call me a f a n b o y (they really edited that out?) In the beginning of my journey with Sprint there were a lot of issues with coverage and customer service (I lived in NJ at the time). I was unable to change my provider because I worked for the Local Telephone Division of the company, so they were paying for it anyway, and in the end things got a lot better.

Flash forward to the present, and Sprint's CS has gotten a lot better, they have a pretty great lineup of phones, and their coverage map is better than average, and if they have poor signal where you are, they will provide you a device (the AirRave), which will give you excellent coverage.

They have an AWESOME pricing structure in place, and are about to roll out the first nationwide 4G network. So what are they doing wrong that keeps them from rising to the top? I don't think it's ALL about the iPhone, but I could be wrong.

So look up top at the poll and let me know what you think. I know some Sprint reps read these forums, so maybe this will go a ways to put some ideas in their heads.

Cheers,
Robert

[rexalbel]

honestly, good question. I hear people say, ugh I'd never go to sprint. People are willing to pay more for less with verizon. I get great service in va which is dominated by verizon. 3g isn't too bad either, not as good as back where I lived in fl, but I have a much better phone now so it evens out. The phone does make a difference, I've had the ic902, and instinct from sprint and call reception was horrible. Drpped so many calls. Only dropped a few calls since I've had my pre and a few weren't me. Point of the matter is most verizon plans are 10-30 dollars more but not equal. You don't get navigation, tv, or anymobile. I think sprints advertising sucks. They need to ramp up advertising their prices, features, and best phones. I like sprint, and a s long as they keep supplying me with good webos phones, I'll stick. I think webos is showing its true colors which include all spectrums of the rainbow, while a certain fruit only shows shades of gray. Don't get me wrong, I wanted the fruit phone before, but its just to limited, and doesn't seem to be willing to change, whike webos has tons of ways for app development and distribution and multiple carriers.

[crash712us]

Personally I don't know why sprint doesn't do better, I do realize coverage is different all over and with a plan that has roaming coverage shouldn't be a issue at all. They have some of the best prices you can get. I know att can't even come close to what I am paying, and there service absolutely terrible. I think the iphone is the only thing keeping them a float.

[Ghost13]

This is great question. I too have been with Sprint for over 10yrs now. Though in the beginning there were some rough times with CS things are greatly improved and I have no compliaints.

IMHO the lack of new subscribers is due to two basic things. Those who had bad prior exp are unwilling to give a second chance and advertising. Sprint seems to have taken the high road with advertising and decided not to bash the comp. I personally respect that but in todays advertising you need drama to get attention (thanks MTV) just like everything else. Personally I feel Sprint is the only good choice.

On a side note your poll results still have too weak a population (only 6 voters) to show any significant data yet. Maybe try again when more VZW pre+ owners discover the site? I love where you're going with this though! Sprint and Webos are the best!

[powerbyte#AC]

Maybe a mod can "Sticky" this?

[Ghost13]

Sorry didn't realize the poll was still open, disregard my comment on population size. Seemed to have doubled in the time it took me to post Looks like the data is starting to speak for itself.

[morrison0880]

I honestly cannot for the life of me figure it out. Been with Sprint for 12 years, and to be honest, I haven't really ever had a bad CS experience. I just don't deal with them all that often, but when I have, it's really been nothing near a bad experience. A few years ago we moved back to WI from Dallas. After a year and a half I noticed that Sprint had been mistakenly charging me WI and TX taxes. One 15 min CS call later, I figured how much I had overpaid, and had the CS rep credit my account with that amount. Pretty good CS in my opinion.
For a long time, I think the lack of quality phones did Sprint in. When I joined in '98, their phones were much nicer than anything else out there. Since then, they really didn't keep up with the devices that were out there. Boring smartphones and extremely dull and sometimes fugly flip and slider phones made Sprint unattractive to many, and CS horror stories (I've yet to hear one that didn't sound like an over-embellished rant based on Sprint not giving something for free) pushed people to other carriers, and they've stayed there.
Here's to hoping for the iphone on Sprint. I will not be a user, but with Sprint's data plans, coverage, and network service, I think there will be many adopters, and hopefully more than a few new subscribers.

[fonefanatic]

I couldnt agree with you guys more! I left verizon for the pre and pricing of Sprint plans. I must say after a year I am sold, Sprint and Pre are the best. No one can touch Sprints prices and thier coverage in my area (eastern NC) is great! Just as good as Verizons! I think Sprints reputation is killing them. I hear alot of people say they were horrible in the past (they are not now imo). This has caused great problems for them. They need to get the word out that they have changed the culture of thier company and are different now.

[morrison0880]

BTW...with no iphone coming to Verizon announcement, I'm more hopeful than ever that Sprint will get it. Sprint allows phone makers to run their own app store and control is themselves (think Pre), whereas Verizon likes to have much more control over not only the hardware, but the software aspects of the devices on their networks. If this summer brings the Pre2, the Supersonic, and the iphone, watch out. Now we just need Sprint to dip their toe into the Verizon/AT&T fight to show them both up, and they could really take off. Here's to hoping.

[mmcnamara43]

I can say that i've been with Sprint for 10 years or so, at first the CS was BAD they were rude it was like they didn't care. Now they work real hard to make sure everythings ok on your end and your happy. With a new line-up of phones, i think they're gonna get stronger. IMO

[Achill3s]

I think the reputation that Sprint had with their CS was a huge issue. Also, for quite some time, they were not really getting any new & exciting phones. They kept getting boring and bland phones while even T-mobile was getting better devices.

A sprint customer for 10+ years and I'm not going anywhere.

[netwrkr9]

I previously had Sprint 10 years ago and had to change carriers because any time I left a big city I was roaming. So when I signed back up, I told the Sprint rep that I would try it for a week (I travel a lot for work), I mean that was how unsure I was about Sprint due to a bad prior experience.

[Kedar]

Sprint is the best in my opinion. Once WebOS gets going, I can see more people switching over.

[ivhs72]

I've been with Sprint for almost 4 years, and have seen a drastic and dramatic improvement in their customer service in that time. I had bad experiences with them intially, to the point of considering leaving. But I noticed them turning and stuck it out, and the past two years have been great. My regret is their lack of a variety of smart phone technology. They've only recently allowed true MMS on them. If Sprint gets the iPhone, I'll be the first in line to get one. I get great pricing through my employer for AT&T and used one for awhile, but their plans are just too expensive, compared to what Sprint charges, even with that discount.

[zambalis]

I have a million and one bad stories of sprint, which honestly, and mostly tie in to the CS, i think more the uninformed CS rep who is just looking for a job, that companies of these sizes seem to hire more then not..

I have been with sprint for 15years, not in any way because i like them or the phones.. but functionality of what they are doing, there coverage arguably is on a playing level with Verizon.. there is nothing slow about the data service, and in most areas of coverage they are spot on..

I feel sprint dug an advertisement ditch years ago and have become stagnated in the process. for years the phones they offered were not as attractive to the growing market of tweens that are starting to control the phone sales gen.. 4g and their partnership with clear is an amazing venture, and should put them farther forward in the months to come. but its gonna take things like palm pre, and large useless phones from other providers to draw in the attention sprint is starting to deserve, or better yet realize they had potential originally and got their heads out of their respective *****..

As far as the network bickering, or what celeb can i get to do my commercial, who has better coverage... its all mundane. nation coverage is pointless if you dont travel. there idea to make all cellphones out of network free is a huge step forward, but notice through all the carrier bickering, no one talks trash about sprint.. why is that.. they dont have the customer base of V, or the mass power of att, but they are far from terrible.. and i think the other companies realize that 4G is where its going, with wimax and such.. why upset the one who is dominating the others future...

just my opinion..

[midmofan]

The knock on Sprint in the middle of the country for a long time was that the signal was fine so long as you were in a big city or near an Interstate, but as soon as you left the main road you were out of luck. That has improved a great deal and, with the current plans, roaming is not a big deal in any case. But I still hear people say they would not go with Sprint because they are afraid they might find themselves without a signal.

As to CS, Sprint did have a serious CS problem for a while. Their first line people were not trained very well and also not treated well by Sprint. I represented a CS person on an employment issue with Sprint and also had two friends that were first line CS people for a while. They gave them a three-ringed binder to read overnight and then put them on the phones. What is more, if the CS person did not sell enough add-on's to customers calling in, they would be let go. They worked long-hours in unpleasant conditions with the goal to sell more stuff not to help customers. Needless to say there was a lot of turnover which made CS even worse. (remember when you would always get the sales-pitch about special deals on home service before they spun off Embarq?)

To top it all off, Sprint, before the era of cheap pre-paid or pay-as-you go phones, was the only place some people could get a phone since they took credit risks when others wouldn't. That combined with the cheaper plans attracted the "low-end" customer for whom the annoying CS advise "try taking out your battery" might actually have been appropriate. Because CS people got so used to dealing with the low-enders that (combined with no training) made them pretty poor when dealing with a customer that actually knew something about their phone or their plan. It got to the point where I would just immediatly ask for a supervisor right away.

THEN they tried to outsourse CS to the other side of the ocean. That was a huge disaster as the people could not speak English but tried to pretend they were in the US (the scene in Slumdog Millionare nailed the old Sprint CS to a "T" except he spoke English a lot better than the Sprint people did)

Since CS was brought back in-house, it has not only improved, it is, IMO pretty darn good and a lot better than other companies I have had to deal with, but I'm sure there are many people out there with a bad taste in their mouths from the way it was.

Next, their commercials, especially compared to AT&T and Verison pretty much have sucked for a long time.

Lastly, in my circles of friends, family, co-workers and the like, the biggest killer for Sprint was the I-phone. Everybody's kids, wives and girlfriends wanted the I-Phone and nothing else. I-phones are simply the "cool" phone for people to have. I know a lot of people switched from Sprint to AT&T because of the I-Phone either for themelves or so their kids could have one.

I can tell you one thing that helped Sprint around here (but hurt the Sprint Stores) was having Best Buy carrying their phones with no mail-in rebate garbage. They were advertised well and, at least at our store, the BB people know the Sprint phones and plans quite well and do a very good job.

[Ghost13]

+1, about the 4G. Sprint really needs to up the ante with this Technology and its ADs that draw attention to 4G. Apparently it's low prices just are not enough to get new converts from "Big Red" or AT&T.

[mikesm]

Sprint's coverage in the parts of the SF Bay Area that I usually travel in is noticeably worse that VZ and AT&T. The roaming to VZ is a mixed blessing, as the constant hoping between Sprint and VZ in a marginal coverage area kills battery life. My AT&T handset shows good signal in almost all the areas that Sprint has issues with.

In building coverage is also notably worse than VZ and AT&T, and that's due to the fact that Sprint has no low frequency spectrum that penetrates buildings well. AT&T and VZ have all of the old 850 Mhz band, and they also won 700 Mhz spectrum in 2008 as well. Sprint does have some spectrum down low that iDen runs on, but they don't seem to have a plan to convert that to CDMA.

Also, with the exception of the Pre, the don't have a modern highend handset. No iPhone, no Droid, no NexusOne. Ok, they do have the best HTC windows mobile phone. Big deal. Plus, if you want a Pre, you have be on an example do it all plan, which they don't require on normal handsets.

So yeah, Sprint's cheaper in some cases, coverage is much worse than AT&T and VZ, and the one advanced handset they have is now being sold as an upgraded model on VZ and will soon be sold on AT&T.

I think it's pretty easy to see why they are a 2nd tier carrier. It's hard being a CDMA player and not having the scale of VZ.

[mikesm]

+1, about the 4G. Sprint really needs to up the ante with this Technology and its ADs that draw attention to 4G. Apparently it's low prices just are not enough to get new converts from "Big Red" or AT&T.

The 4G story is BS. It's not even being built by them, but by Cleerwire, which is run by incompetents and has a tony coverage area. And it uses WiMax, which is the "betamax" of 4G technologies.

Talking about 4G is a waste of time - they need to pay and get some good handset deals and improve marginal coverage areas.

[GoBigRed79]

There are a few big reasons around here anyway why a lot of people are not on Sprint and it mostly has to do with the past.

1. CS was a disaster for a long time. I had Sprint service 7 years ago and I had a lot of problems with billing errors and then trying to get them fixed. I think this is around the time that CS was outsourced to India.

2. At least around here Sprint was known for a long time as the cell phone carrier for "lower-end" people. There were always some strange characters at sprint stores when I went in there for service. Did not bother me, but I could see it bothering all the soccer moms out there.

3. Coverage. Here in Omaha, Sprint had a reputation for good coverage in the city and on the interstate, but bad once you got out into the country.

4. Verizon becaome big here because they bought out all the local carriers taht a lot of people were with. Alltel was pretty big in Nebraska, and Verizon just bought them up. USWest used to be big in Omaha, and Verizon bought them out back when it was formed. So a lot of people did not start with Verizon, but ended up with them through buyouts. AT&T was not really big here until the iPhone.

I am on Verizon now. I receive a pretty large discount through my employer for Verizon, so price is not really an issue for me. If I was paying regular rates, I would leave them for Sprint. But a lot of people have had Verizon for a long time, and have had good service from them and don't care about having the latest or greatest, so as long as they are happy, they stay with them. But I will be interested to see how the average customer reacts to some of the new required data plan policies that Verizon is starting to push. I think for Sprint to be successful, they need to start being aggressive with their advertising comparing their pricing to AT&T and Verizon.