Sprint sees increase in customer satisfaction

Trefis recently looked at the three reasons that Sprint is seeing an uptick in customer satisfaction that is showing in their stock prices. Over the past few years, Sprint has treaded a rocky road when it comes to customer satisfaction. They have found a way to turn this around. One reason they've increased customer satisfaction is because they've identified and supplied the need for prepaid phone cards. Supplying prepaid cards also allows for Sprint to avoid monthly subscriber losses due to unpaid bills. They've also increased the visibility of their brand and introduced new SmartPhones that are appealing to their audience. Read about their other improvements here.

Verizon, T-Mobile lead in wireless customer service; AT&T, Sprint below average

ZDnet reports that Verizon and T-Mobile have lead the U.S. wireless carriers in overall customer service. The report said that wireless customer service has improved overall as hold times and problem resolution has improved from six months ago.

Overall, customer care performance has improved to 735 on a 1,000 point scale. That’s up 12 points from February. Seventy-six percent of calls to customer service were resolved on first contact, up from 66 percent in February. Hold times also average 5.55 minutes, down from 6.58 minutes in February, according to J.D. Power.

Very interesting news for iPhone and Palm Pre users.

Sprint to cut call centers

KansasCity.com reports that Sprint CSO Bob Johnson could be planning to close as many as 20 call centers in 2009. They are expecting a 20% drop in calls about billing and handsets due to improvement in Sprint service. Johnson also cites that customers call Sprint at a very high rate, more than any of their competitors.

What do you think about moves like this? Although Sprint has improved their service, do you think taking away their customer care continue to affect the reality of the situation in a positive light?

Sprint’s Customer Service

In a recent interview at Fortune, Bob Johnson, the Chief Service Officer for Sprint, took time to discuss the improvements he’s making at Sprint.

Sprint has repeatedly received the worst customer service ratings from J.D. Power & Associates, and the company sees that this may be one of the things that is leading into the poor performance of their company.

First of all, they’ve changed the way customer service representatives are paid. Originally, they were paid by the length of the phone call; the shorter amount of time, the more money would be received. Johnson has changed this, observing that if you’re incentive is to keep the call short, then occasionally the problem will not be resolved. Since the majority of the time they see problems with the billing, Sprint has also adapted a new plan that is a flat rate of $100 a month for unlimited voice and data. Therefore, customers won’t be on the phone as long with errors on their bill.

Bob Jackson states:

We’re already seeing improvement. I am a long way from declaring victory, but we have improved in two key areas - first-call resolution and customer satisfaction - for four consecutive months now.

But Sprint may still have a long way to go before regaining it’s customers faith in their service.