Nothing like planning a move to show which companies strive to keep me as a customer and which don’t give a damn. I’ve been dealing with both Sprint and DirecTV this past week. I’ve been a customer for over five years with both. But Sprint doesn’t seem to care if they lose me as a customer. I moved from the Seattle area to Utah last year and called Sprint to get a new local phone number for Salt Lake City. Sprint provided me with a new number but automatically extended my contact with them for another year even though I’d been a longtime customer. What does the contract extension mean? It means that if I want to terminate my service with Sprint within a year I’d be charged a $175 fee per line (we have two lines). Even though I’ve spent an average of $150/month for over five years with Sprint they would not make an exception even when I wanted to go from two lines to one line. I had to keep both lines active for a year or pay the $175 extortion fee.

So I went into the Sprint store in Bellevue, WA this week to see if I could upgrade my phones. I’d give Sprint one last chance to keep me as a customer. Both our phones are on their last leg and I figured Sprint might be able to cut me a deal if I purchased two. No such luck. The lady told me I’d be eligible on Aug 5th for a $75/rebate if I were to purchase a phone through Sprint and extend my contact another year. I told her that both of my phones were not working well and that I really needed a phone now and asked if she could make me a deal. She said she couldn’t do anything until Aug 5th. I asked when my contract is up and she said Aug 1st. I told her that I’d be leaving Sprint the day my contact expired and she didn’t seem to care at all.

Contrast that with my call into DirecTV today. I called up DTV and told them that we’d be moving into a new home shortly. DTV offered to schedule a professional installation at my new home including a brand new 40 hour DirecTivo receiver for $99. I asked the guy if I could get a better price since I’ve been a DTV customer for quite a few years. He took a look at my account and said, “I’d be glad to give you $50 off and upgrade you to a newer 80 hour DirecTivo receiver”. Now that’s how you keep a customer! The DTV consultant was friendly and acted like he actually gave a damn about me.

Both Sprint and DirecTV are large companies that face strong competition. No wonder Consumer Reports ranks Sprint near the bottom of customer satisfaction in their industry. DirecTV has to worry about Comcast and its new HD DVR. But I’ll bet that DirecTV will survive the storm if they continue to treat customers like I was treated today.

It’s been a stressful but exciting last couple of weeks. I left LearnKey and started working as a Group Program Manger for Morse Best located in downtown Seattle. I’m having a great time working with a group of very passionate and creative coworkers. Whereas it sometimes felt like we were working against what the customer was asking for at Learnkey, at Morse Best everybody is very concerned and committed to deliver exactly what’s expected from the customer. This requires us to be open to ideas and suggestions that come from customers who use our services.

It’s great to be back in Seattle. I thought I’d miss working over on the comfortable Microsoft campus but I’m enjoying the downtown area and all interesting people, foods and smells it has to offer. For lunch I’ll walk a few block to Pikes Market, grab a lemonade and take in the sun at the small park overlooking Lake Union. I’ve been commuting on an express bus from the Lake Stevens area until we move into our home mid August. We found a nice home near the Silverlake area with a big yard for our kids and dog to enjoy.

I’m in dire need of a new cell phone. Kim needs a new phone more than I do so I’ll probably replace both phones very soon. I was sold on the Treo 650 for Sprint service but after having a Windows Mobile based GPS system to play around with last week, I might be better off with a Windows Mobile based device with GPS. But that still leaves my phone problem to solve. I look forward to the day that my PDA is able to handle phone, mp3, GPS and PDA duties.