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.
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