FREE Airave, Airave subscription, $100.00 Service Credit

[TouchyFeely]

I have been a Sprint customer for 9 years; August 29th, 2008 I purchased the Mogul and the ERP (equipment replacement program) for the Mogul. After some time I decided that the Mogul was not for me and returned the item to the store.

This last December I realized that I was being billed 7.00 per month for the ERP insurance. So I went to the store and explained that I wasn’t happy about the charges on my account and would like them addressed. They told me to call customer service to explain the issue but to be prepared for the response.

Since I am currently month to month on the Simply Everything Plan and really have no qualms with keeping or leaving sprint so I decided to give them a call and test the waters.

The first CSR I reached had a very thick accent and gave me the feeling she was outsourced so I hung up. After 9 years with Sprint there is one thing I know for certain and that’s to speak to someone who’s first language is English and resides in the USA. CSR’s from other countries are limited in ability and since English is their second language a lot of context is lost when conversing and explaining situations that require individualized attention, not a uniform approach.

USA CSR tips:

1. Call between 7:00AM EST and 7:00PM EST time.
2. The higher the hold time the more likely you be sent to India or Tijuana for help.
3. The agents are also less stressed when call volume is low making it more likely to appeal to the compassionate side of the robot on the other end.

When I called back and got a hold of CSR in Florida; as a note I find the CSR’s in Georgia are the nicest and easiest to speak with. I told her that I was unhappy for 2 reasons. First unbeknownst to me I had the ERP insurance attached to my account. Secondly I was dropping calls all the time in my home office.

I began to explain my situation and after I was done she outright told me that it is my responsibility to read my statements and make sure that billing is correct and that she could only credit me for 60 days making the total 14.00 USD.

I could go on about the details of the phone call and rehash my argument on the matter but I will move on, but I will say this, I use a lot of analogies when communicating thoughts to people as I try to paint a picture of something that they can relate to while remaining synonymous to the situation being spoken about.

So I gave her the analogy about an experience I had at burger King recently.

BURGER KING

I went into Burger King to grab a small bite to eat, (just call me captain obvious) and ordered 2 double hamburgers. The cashier told me my total was $4.28.
I asked her why my total was $4.28 and she told me that each double hamburger was 2.00 plus tax. I asked her why she would charge me or anyone else $2.00 for a double hamburger when double cheese burgers are $.99. With a cocky arrogant grin she replied with, “Because that’s not what you asked for, if you wanted them for $.99 you should have said, “I would like to order 2 double cheese burgers without cheese” instead of “hamburgers”.
So I said you think you’re smart huh? “First of all every time I order 2 double cheese burgers without cheese I get cheese on them. Second, all customers expect businesses to have the best interest of the consumer in mind, we trust you to help us make decisions. So I asked her a simple question, “Let’s say I was your manager and I gave an employee hired long after you were a raise. Then he or she told you about it, what would you do?

I couldn’t believe it but she was actually willing to participate in my debate and she says,

“I would ask you why”. I said, “Because she asked for it and you didn’t”.

She still didn’t catch on and I got a little nasty and told her that unless she changes the way she thinks she will continue the same 7.00 /HR career path and left.

BACK TO THE SPRINT CSR:

I told the CSR this story and I asked her if she understood the connection between the situation at Burger King and my situation with Sprint and she told me yes but that it’s still my responsibility to read my bill. At this point she was getting loud and trying to make the analogy to how INS transfers to your new car when you transfer registration. I quickly let her know that I am P&C licensed and explained what that meant so she moved on but started talking really loud and over me. I came outright and told her that she was speaking too loud and that if we continued to talk this way it would only escalate me further funny thing was that I wasn’t even mad to begin with.

So I asked her to bring it down a notch and she tells me, “Well since I am not doing a satisfactory job with handling your needs would you like to talk to my manager?” I chuckled and told her sure.

SPRINT MANAGER:

TheSprint manager comes on the line after about 23 minutes of hold and I start all over. After about 3 different analogies and listening to another attempt to tell me how insurance works the manager came out and said to me that he could only take off 60 days worth of the INS fees. At this point I took a deep breath and I sighed, I told the guy to listen to me without interrupting me and to listen with his ears and not his mouth, to forget about his monthly bonus for not issuing credits and to just listen. He agreed, I basically broke down the marketing process and hand fed this guy Business Profitability 101 and Margin for Dummies.


THE OUTCOME:

By the time I was done he gave me 100.00 service credit, a free Air Wave and lifetime credit of Airwave service fees which is normally 4.99 a month all for a 2 year agreement.

What the guy didn’t know was that I was supposed to be under a contract anyway but they screwed up and even if I’m in a contract I can bail out anytime with no ETF because of my roaming at home, so the 2 year agreement is moot in my situation.

LOOP HOLES AND TIPS:

NEED INS?

If you didn’t get INS on your phone and want it but you’re out of the 30 day period to enroll just add a line or buy a new phone and place INS on that phone, cancel that line within 30 days and leave the INS on your account. The rule for INS is that the INS attaches to the LINE not the equipment. This comes in handy if you don’t have an upgrade available and you just dropped your 600.00 Blackberry into the toilet without the INS you thought you would never need. In that situation the $50.00 deductable is worth it.

WANT OUT OF CONTRACT?

Some of you won’t be able to do this because SPINT has instructed the phone manufactures to remove the ROAM ONLY feature in our phones. Unless there is some sort of firmware hack you can apply.

Normally a phone has 3 settings in it.

Sprint Only
Automatic
Roam Only

If you have your phone in ROAM only and you do not get charged for roaming then Sprint picks up that bill. After a while you will get a letter telling you that they will cancel you if you do not figure out a way to stop roaming. This allows you a 1 way ticket to a carrier of your choice. I get free roaming and I have bad service at home so I nail sprint 24/7 in roam only, not intentionally only because I have no service.