RSSThe first 15 days: Is the Palm Pre better than Sprint is bad?
By Angela Gunn | Published June 23, 2009, 10:27 AM
If there was a more remarkable idea circulating in the gadget-head community back in January than Palm's got a scorching-hot new phone on the way, it was, "And they chose Sprint as the launch partner".
Seriously, Sprint? Necessary only-major-mobile-provider-in-the-heartland evil to tens of thousands of mobile-phone users? Whatever Dan Hesse was saying about customer service in those moodily lit black-and-white commercials, the prospect of putting Sprint in charge of selling the odd, pretty, pricey little Palm Pre was wince-inducing.
But if there's anything sweeter than a comeback story, it's two comeback stories. And so many observers took heart from reports that Sprint was intent on being in fighting trim for the launch -- special training for in-store device "advocates," the ReadyNow no-customer-left-behind push, and so forth. Among those observers was your reporter, a Sprint customer for over a decade who would really, really like her mobile provider to not screw this up.
So the Pre has been out for a little over two weeks, and I've had mine in hand for a week. Every hope I had for the handset has been met -- it's a joy to use, a beauty, the One True Phone that's likely to have me abandoning my long-suffering Sidekicks after all these years. I await more toys in the Apps Store and I wish battery life were better, but it was worth the wait.
And after seeing Sprint's execution on its end of the bargain, I wish I'd waited 'til next year and gotten it from Verizon. After the promises of better customer service in general and laser-like focus on the Pre experience in particular, Sprint seems to be not just as bad as ever but -- due to the phone's unique nature -- just a bit worse.
Let me tell you about my Pre buying experience. Settle in, honey.
Act One: In which we seek a rare gadget and end up in the food court
The calendar over my desk has a big red circle around June 14, and FREE FROM B'BERRY! written in the box. The Pearl was never a good match for me, with its tiny screen and peculiar keypad, but I wanted to give it precisely a year from the date I purchased it -- to be sure I get whatever rebates might apply, and to give the local Sprint stores a chance to restock their Pre supplies after the launch on June 6. I'm not buying "a new phone," after all -- I've already made my decision, even handled an early prototype, and I'm waiting for precisely that phone.
But it's June 14, and the Sprint store downtown is still out of Pres. But I call around, and I find one at the Sprint kiosk at the big mall in my part of town.
This is where it all goes wrong. (And yet you've so much article ahead of you!) What I didn't know then is that, although Sprint had big things to say about how customer service on the Pre would be of unparalleled quality, with in-store "advocates" specially trained on the device, the fact is that the system only applies to the company stores, and I'm heading toward a kiosk. Though it carries Sprint branding, sells Sprint phones, and hands me Sprint contracts to sign, a kiosk is not an official Sprint entity.
I'm going to suffer for not knowing this.
The mall is jumping on a late Sunday afternoon, and the food court (which is where the kiosk is located) sounds like a school lunchroom with no monitors to shush the rowdies. There's a line at the kiosk and one salesgirl working, so I content myself with people-watching and get to the desk in about 40 minutes. Dessetta, the salesgirl, is a little rushed -- she has staff training in about an hour, and the other clerk on duty has disappeared into the sunlight outside -- but I know the phone I want, so we get right down to business.
At this point I should mention two things: 1. I share a mondo-minutes account with a few of my relatives back home, and 2. My brother used to work for Sprint, years ago. Dessetta and I were talking about that while she set up my phone, because all those phone lines can be confusing. I cautioned her to watch out for the other Angela on the account -- my family has a shocking lack of imagination when it comes to names -- and repeated my number, which begins with an area code different from the others on the account.
We wrapped up the sale. I asked about a buyback for my hated BlackBerry, and Dessetta's manager -- he'd wandered over late in the process -- said he could give me $20 store credit, but with no TouchStone chargers available yet (the only other thing I wanted) I should probably just wait and come back. The kiosk doesn't have any special screen protectors for the phone, but Dessetta sells me a five-pack of those trim-your-own protectors. I promise Dessetta that if Sprint's customer-satisfaction people phoned me I would indeed give her "a five" (the system's top rating), and I took my phone to a quiet corner to start checking it out.
“By the time I buy my next Pre, I'll be buying it from Verizon...because if this is Sprint's saving throw, it's pretty clear it has failed.” |
However, I didn't think much of that omission; I made it clear that I knew a lot about the Pre already, and my overworked salesgirl was in a hurry to close. And so I'm on my own and walking home when the phone rings... the BlackBerry in my bag, the one that should have been deactivated. My Pre, in my hand, is silent. I check the configuration on the Pre. It's set to my brother's phone number.
My brother is in Nebraska, but as of the moment Dessetta configured my Pre, his phone is effectively in Seattle.
I might want to look into that.
Act Two: In which we are helped by kindly faceless individuals
I call my brother on his house phone and explain the problem. After the momentary weirdness of seeing his own phone come up on Caller ID, we work out that tech support will probably need to speak to both of us, since (again) we all share an account. I call in. I get cut off. I call back. I get "Michael." "Michael" -- I've changed his name -- is going to be the only bright spot of this story, so pay attention.
Michael's a funny guy, and he thinks I'm funny too; Michael and my brother can bond over Sprint work life, so they've got that going for them. The fix is a bit tricky; I have to shut off my phone (and borrow my housemate's; mine is not a landline house), we have to reset parts of the account, we have a lot to do... and as Michael tells us, he's not really trained on the Pre. Tech support has, he says, been told to send callers asking about the Pre directly to the stores, and he warns me that anything he does might cause problems when I file for the $100 mail-in rebate on this $300 phone. But he understands why my brother and I might not want to wait for Monday morning to get the phone number confusion straightened out, and so 85 minutes later, my brother's number rings on his phone in Nebraska, not mine in Seattle.
That fixes the urgent problem, but the Pre still isn't working. Michael offers to transfer me from his line in Texas to a higher-level tech support facility in Florida. He does... and the call drops again. I call back a third time, get transferred again to another tech, who tells me that to do the tech support we'd have to use Sprint's online chat function, which has just shut down for the night. Call back tomorrow.
If I can't play with the pretty new phone, I can at least start trimming down screen protectors to put on it. After a couple of tries at getting the openings located correctly and the curved corners right, I give up and leave on the light plastic film it shipped with.
Entr'acte: In which we are cast out into the wide world
"Ma'am, I'm going to have to send you to the store. We can't do anything from here," said the person on the other end of the tech-support line. "We're not trained on the Pre. Take it on in and they can fix this right away."
"Should I go back to the kiosk, or should I go downtown to the big store?"
"Well, I can't actually say, but..."
"I should go to the store, in other words."
The faintest of chuckles. "Good luck, ma'am."
NEXT: "My Name is Nobody"...
Lol this does not surprise me what so ever.
I have Sprint and my spending limit until a short time ago was $200, and it seems like every and i do mean every time I call Sprint to change my plan they screw something up and make me go over my limit then they shut off my phone, and stupid Sprint wont let you dial *2 to get customer service you have to use another phone and call the toll free number they give you to make a payment.
Every times its like "Oh sorry Mr. Frost you charged a fee that only applies to new users I will credit your account right away." Then I have to wait from a couple of hours to 24 hours for my phone to get turned back on. I do not have a land line no sense of one anyways I am not home enough to use it so its just a wasted bill, and I take care of my 84 year old mother and I use my phone for work, so every moment my phone is not usable could at the very lease cause me my job or at worse put my moms life in danger because I can not call for help if she gets hurt. If I am not mistaken that issue has been fixed that you can now call 911 from a cell phone even if its not active, but I don't really want to put this to the test.
So when ever I call or go in to a Sprint store to change my plan I will tell them "To make sure not to charge me for changing my plan and making me go over my limit and shut off my phone".
Needless to say it still happens.
Sprint customer service is horrid and I can't see how they have been around for so long. When my contract is up I am moving on and Sprint will lose one more customer.
I once sent a email to Dan Hesse about how he could improve Sprint and get some of their customers back and all I got from him or his cronie was a caned email thanking me for taking the time to email him and that he is working to make Sprint a great company again blah blah blah lol. I even gave him some suggestions of things that he could do that I thought would stop the hemorrhage of customers from Sprint to other providers. I think I would of had better luck pausing a Sprint TV ad with him in it and talking to him. A company that ignores their customers is a company that does not have a long future. I would send a link to Dan Hesse for this article but lol i am sure his cronies will just send another canned email thanking me for taking the time to contact Sprint.
One more lost Sprint customer that could had been saved if a few moments would had been taken to read the email.
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|eeee gads that spending limit thing was a pain to deal with on the support side. I thought the idea was sound, like fair & flexible, but execution wise, a mess! if i recall it's an automated system, the second you pass it your shut off immediately. The only thing that sprint customer service can do is offer you whats called temp credits. They apply credit to your account to get you turned on but the credits only last a short time, 24 hrs to a week, i'm not sure anymore. if i recall the re-activation is fairly quick, don't understand the 24hr bs they told you. If they don't apply enough though you could get shut off again fairly quickly just based on usage! I've dealt with a few of those, talked about pissed customers! (and rightly so!)
And calling from another phone to deal with that, i never understood WHY they allowed it to be set up like that in the first place!
Heh there was a customer, a preacher (so he says) that said Sprint is the Devil Incarnate! But yet he continued to dance with the devil ;)
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|Ya I always thought it was BS that you couldn't call customer service from a phone even if it was turned off for being over the limit. Well I am getting rid of Sprint soon.
OH and the other great thing was that I would get a text message saying that I was over my limit and that they were going to shut it off. lol So it would be like ding text message then all's quiet on the cell phone front lol.
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|First off - Great Article!
Sprint customer service is the worst when you actually get someone, just about 8 months ago I had a terrible experience with getting a Billing issue resolved. It took over an hour to even get a rep on the line when I did it took another hour just to get it sorted out. With the experience you had just getting a new phone(the one I want) set up, while having a Family Plan - I fear to even attempt stepping up to the Pre now. If I do I will definitely steer away from the kiosk if I go through with it and just back up all my old Phone numbers with active sync if possible.
Still waiting and watching to see if Now is worth it.
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|Too bad about the kiosk. They usually can't do anything but sell accessories.
I used to get that kind of support at two of the Orlando area Sprint stores but I have to say that my store experiences have been good since 2006. The closer to a university, the worse the service, though.
It seems to me that the managers aren't choosing employees very well to represent them or the company because the managers have always bent over backwards to help me, as do the people on the customer service line. The last time I got "well, they all do that" and rolling eyes, the phone was found to be set up incorrectly, but that was 2004.
The people in the local store had to deal with 3 replacement Musiq phones (I have that since I still haven't found a smart phone I want) and they all did it gracefully, even though I practically know them by name now.
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|After reading your article it made me realized that 4 years after i left that horrendous company, their attitude hasn't changed one bit despite the new CEO. I'm sure me and your brother could probably share some outlandish stories about them, just like most ex-employees of that comapny ;) And it seems the manager of that store doesn't give a crap either. Sad...
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|And I had such hope, too! I've had pretty good experiences with tech support over the past year or so -- with the phone support, that is. They're knowledgeable and helpful and stuff gets done. And that was the experience I had this time as well. I seriously can't say enough good things about "Michael's" mighty efforts to solve the most critical problem (that is, the number swap). But how much can you ask of phone support folk when they've been instructed to send Pre buyers back to the stores?
I think that's where Sprint's really made a mess of this, in fact. After a few years of working on the quality of their phone and online tech support, they've gotten rather good, and customers are comfortable with them again -- and do not hesitate to call. (Five or ten years ago they were a horrorshow, yes, but something improved in the last 2-3 years.) But for the Pre, it sounds like -- from what "Michael" and the nice lady on that second call said -- they aren't training those groups at all yet. And that makes no more sense than the kiosk-store division, honestly. I'm a customer; if the sign says "Sprint" I should be confident that it meets Sprint's highest quality standards -- kiosk, phone center, online, company store, no difference.
And for a fine example of how that works, you need go no farther than just above the Seattle downtown area. Apple has a perfectly presentable Apple Store in the University Village shopping center. There's also have an outpost of "The Mac Store," a small locally owned and operated chain, a couple of miles west on 45th. And they're great with service, support, anything I've ever thrown at them. (I hear they even make housecalls.) They may have different business models and so forth behind the scenes, but as a customer all I get is The Apple Experience. (Decor notwithstanding -- The Mac Store isn't as glossy as the other one, but then again I'm not so glossy myself :-) .)
That seamless customer experience is the way it should be. And I don't understand how Hesse and company could have missed that, when it sounded from the talk beforehand like they really got it this time.
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|i actually recall their idea of phone support was to place a few (5 phones) in a kiosk in the middle of the service center and then tell the employees to "play" with them. The only hitch is that you can't be no more than 5 minutes from your desk and there only a certain number of times you could do that per week, even on bathroom breaks. So the only time to play with them was during your 15 minute breaks, lunch or if you get there early or stay later. Sadly they never informed employees when a new major phone was about to come out. That was, of course 4 years ago...
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|I've been with two wireless companies and have never had even close to that kind of experience. My roommate used to be with Sprint. I asked him if he ever had these issues. Fortunately for him, his father was the one with the account and would always call on his behalf. I can't imagine how Sprint stays in business with a support staff like they have. I suppose that's why they lost 4 million customers in the last year.
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|You have much patience. I had this long, drawn out ordeal with Best Buy and a laptop that brought me to thoughts of violence as well - as in, putting my own foot up a few peoples asses. And I swore off Best Buy like I swore of peppermint schnapps (yuck! - sweet, and yet...so, so dangerous), alas they DO seem to have the best prices on good laptops so I found myself back there. Unlike you, I didn't 'win', but what you went through sounds painful enough...at some point in there I'd probably have asked for a refund or settled on a Storm or something else.
It's all about luck. I was with Sprint for a VERY short time, when I was thinking about moving on from T-Mobile, since people were saying - oh but it's a small operator and isn't everywhere etc. but after ATT, Sprint and Verizon I decided to take my chances and I've been a happy Tmo customer for 6 years. In Sprint/Verizon's defense the actual quality of service varied from black to white between different stores. Sometimes you get lucky, and sometimes you don't.
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|Had a similar bad experience when my phone broke. Sprint might as well just leave the business, I was shocked after all the bad press about customer support, they just don't get it. I hope we don't bail them out, too.
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|Yep I winced reading the first part.
The "non-authorized" kiosks for *all* the providers suck. I think Verizon started to realize this was damaging their reputation because they changed their kiosks to specifically state "Authorized Verizon reseller."
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|I live in a technologically challenged area (I.E., BFE) and I tried Sprint as my first provider, since there were only 3 at the time. Your experience is exactly why I told them to jam their phones. Still waiting for a decent pricing plan to come around here, so I can get rid of (NotSo)Easyedge.
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