Sprint-Nextel

In a poll conducted by MSN Money-Zogby , Sprint Nextel, one of the country's largest wireless phone carriers, was inducted into the MSN Money's Customer Service Hall of Shame, a ranking of the companies whose service is most often rated "poor" by consumers. With more than 3,000 responses, 40% of people who had an opinion of Sprint's customer service said it was poor, ranking the company number one in the poll. No other company had 30% by that measure (The Customer Service Hall of Shame, MSN Money 2007). The majority of complaints on MSN's messages boards concerning Sprint's poor customer service centered around money (billing) and the time they have to spend dealing with rude and insensitive customer service reps. One major problem the company has faced has been integrating the billing platforms of Sprint and Nextel, which merged in August 2005. "There are definitely areas within customer service where we need to improve," says Roni Singleton, a Sprint spokeswoman (Sprint Nextel: It's No.1 but that's no honor, MSN Money 2007). As an example of progress in addressing this problem, Singleton says that Sprint has introduced a shortened, wireless bill that is averaging three pages instead of the previous six. Sprint has now moved all customers to a single billing platform and has also created a website, "Buzz About Wireless", which includes a customer-service-focused message board.

However, two months later, Sprint found another strategy to deal with customer service issues pertaining to their customers; terminate their service. On June 29, 2007, Sprint sent letters notifying some customers that their service would be cancelled by the end of July due to excessive calls to customer service ("Sprint breaks up with high-maintenance customers", Reardon 2007). Once again, Roni Singleton as their spokeswoman says, "We have to be able to quickly and efficiently serve customers and