RSSSprint customer drain continues in Q4, 1.3 million leave
By Tim Conneally | Published February 19, 2009, 9:45 AM
This morning, Sprint Nextel reported its fourth quarter earnings, or more accurately, losses. The wireless operator posted a $1.2 billion loss for the quarter, a 14.4% drop in revenue, and a loss of 1.3 million customers.
"In tough economic times, we're generating substantial cash and reducing costs to ensure we remain financially sound," said Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse in a statement this morning. "We already have the cash on hand to be able to meet our debt service requirements at least through the end of 2010."
Sprint may have a strong cash flow, reporting over $500 million in the fourth quarter, but is seriously bleeding customers. For the full year 2008, it lost more than a million customers per quarter, closing out the year with 4.5 million fewer subscribers than 2007.
The number of departures is almost equal to Sprint Nextel's total "Power Source" base, or customers who utilize both the Sprint CDMA network an the Nextel iDEN network, which is 1.4 million. CDMA-only subscribers amounts to 35.5 million, and iDEN-only amounts to 12.4 million.
The year 2009 is sure to be a dramatic one for Sprint Nextel, as it will be the exclusive carrier for another company's golden goose, the Palm Pre. Both Palm and Sprint have become the underdogs of their respective markets, with Sprint now the smallest of the four major US wireless carriers, and Palm starting over from scratch in the mobile OS department. If the excitement over Palm's new product continues, maybe Sprint Nextel can finally start attracting new subscribers instead of scaring them off.
Not surprised as Sprint appears pretty open about how there are doing before it happens(Costumer care/computer prompts anyone "think Best Buy lol). I've been through a lot of changes with them and continue to be with them. They always given me a fair shake and although the hoops keep multiplying when contacting them I hope this current cycle will endeavor em to rethink customer strategies. I like to see them gear towards the SIRIUS Satellite model but it looks as if no one is immune to the present day circumstances.
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|Sirius completely destroyed XM and is virtually bankrupt. How would adopting anything that company does help them?
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|I have been with them for 10+ years. They resolve every single issue I ever had. Credits are issued. Problems are fixed. Their Customer Service people are just as good as anyone else. I have good coverage, digital or roaming. Sprint is not perfect but I really cannot say they are that bad either. People are simply picky. One dead spot and they switch and switch again.
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|I'm glad you've had a good experience with Sprint, but you're dangerously close to fanboyism. "One dead spot"? In my state, Sprint is lucky to have coverage in the middle of the major cities. I get 5 bars with AT&T in my friend's living room..the geographic center of his town is in his back yard. His Sprint phone barely gets one bar. Sprint's towers are spread incredibly thin. In fact, if you don't get the high end deal with them here, you're on roaming a good 50% of the time - in your own back yard! I know they do pretty good in the big cities, but that's not the main battleground for cell business anymore. AT&T knows this and has aggressively moved into rural areas. Verizon is now doing the same, mostly via acquisitions. People who are stuck with local telecoms and their forty-year old bubblegum landlines are looking for any alternative they can get. I can't help but think Sprint would be doing the same if they had more capitol - they can't be ignorant of this trend.
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|I have AT&T and I have tons of dropped calls and hit or miss service on the constant with spotty 3G, and I live / work in a major US city. It's the luck of the draw with these companies. They all suck somewhere
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|People get cell phones so they can talk on the road. Sprint has no coverage outside of large metro areas. Combine that with historically bad customer service and numerous alternatives and you've just lost the bulk of your customer base. The only mystery is why they've screwed around so long when the hemorrhaging was so obvious. Last I heard Sprint was rated #1 in customer service..whether that's true or not I don't know. If Sprint had coverage where I lived, I'd seriously consider using them. They have more local stores with longer hours than any other carrier. They also have some interesting deals, including unlimited data for tethering which NOBODY else around here offers. Maybe they suck, maybe not - I honestly don't know, but I'm so sick of AT&T's crippled, incredibly overpriced hardware I'd be willing to give anyone 30 days.
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|You heard wrong. Consumer reports has them in dead last by reader surveys.
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|My roommate is actually leaving Sprint. He doesn't know they've been losing about one million customers a quarter, and he's never had to call their customer service line. When I asked him why he was switching he just said he was "not impressed" with the service.
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|Has anyone actually called their customer service and asked them a question?
Obviously Dan Hesse has not!
I had reason to call in order to get basic information about a few of their services - and that experience left me with an incredibly bad taste despite my rather liking their technical positioning (the aspect that led to my calling in the first place).
But its going to take more than technical systems to get me to deal with that corporate clown car.
Until they sit down and have a MASSIVE overhaul of the basic competency of their customer service - in ALL respects - they will continue to have problems!
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|Had no such issues with Verizon ... so far. :) The two times I've had to call, the conversations lasted less than 5-10 minutes, and didn't involve any yelling.
So far so good.
Now if they could just get a decent phone in their line-up.
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|My experience with sprint was terrible service, tons of dropped calls and the customer service was simply awful.
when the LG voyager came out, we switched to verizion.
Not only do we get great reception, never have a dropped calls, and the CS has been fantastic the few times I've called.
I'm soooo happy we switched and I suspect the 4.5 million other customers that switched last year feel the same way.
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|How do you like your Voyager?
The only problem I've had so far is a piddly one with ringtones (not being ablt to manually addthem just by dragging them to the phone).
Solved that one by mailing them to my phone-number@vzw and for some reason that enables the "save as ringtone" functionality. Back-ass-wards way of doing it, but...
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