Gibbs ponders Prince, the weather in Ventura, and a Sprint press release
Everything changes if you wait long enough. For example, did you know that the Internet is finished? Yep, the artist formerly known as Prince (who now seems to be known as Prince again) declared a few days ago that “The internet’s completely over … The internet’s like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated.” Thanks Prince, good to know.
Anyway, here in my adopted home town of Ventura, Calif., we’re waiting for the weather to change. Sure, we normally have “June gloom” but this is usually followed by glorious, sunny weather that is, dare I say it, exquisite.
However this year, April was sort of gloomy, May was mostly gloomy, June was gloomier than usual, and now July is trying to out-do June. This is ridiculous. You pay heavily to live in California. The cost of services is high as are property taxes, but usually with such great weather you feel like there’s a reason for the expense. This year, we all deserve a tax refund.
And talking about things that are changing, or, at least, reputedly changing, I have to revisit my recent rant about Sprint’s customer service or rather lack thereof.
In that column I addressed my criticisms to Sprint’s CEO, Dan Hesse, (who, big surprise, didn’t reply), pointing out that they don’t care about existing customers. Their pricing for a replacement phone one year into a two-year contract was ridiculous given I could pay the early termination fee and go to another service provider and get a better phone for a lot less money.
As I discussed a couple of weeks ago, I switched, of all things, to a Sprint service reseller, Credo, and am quite happy and much better off. Then about a week after my switch, a press release from Sprint landed on my virtual doorstep.
The press release related, with an air of smug self-satisfaction, that Sprint is changing: “It’s one thing to grow a company ground-up on a commitment to deliver an outstanding customer experience [could that be a jibe at the likes of Credo?]. It’s quite a different feat to introduce the concept to a multi-billion dollar enterprise.”
The press release continued: “Sprint is changing its tune – externally and internally – to hold onto customers in an industry with one of the highest churn rates. Sprint … has flipped its strategy to focus on a singular mission: improve the customer experience. “
Oh, really? Am I to understand that this program only started in the week after I left? I ask because as I wrote in my previous column, I saw no evidence of this new, improved “tune” when I was talking to Sprint customer service; all I heard was the same old, tired dirge that scores of readers of this column have written in about. That dirge has, as a backing track, the industry standard business-as-usual hum of disinterest in the customer.
The Sprint press release added, “Gartner will announce Sprint as the winner of its CRM Excellence Award in the ‘Customer Experience’ category,” from which I conclude that all cell phone service providers stink (which, according to you, dear readers, is the case). Sprint must therefore stink least.
In spite of my snarky disbelief I’m going to give Sprint the benefit of the doubt here and hope it can live up to its press release hyperbole because change is always possible. That said, I’m betting that unlike waiting for better weather here in Ventura, major improvement in Sprint’s customer service could be much longer coming.
Gibbs waits for the sun in Ventura, Calif. Your forecast to backspin@gibbs.com.
