Add to del.icio.us     Digg this

June 29, 2010

Sprint Nextel is making it very clear that the company wants to improve its public perception, brand image and overall customer satisfaction levels. Since January, Sprint emerged as one of three firms with the biggest improvement in Forrester's Annual Customer Experience Rankings based on a survey of more than 4,600 wireless customers.

As the 3rd largest wireless provider in the United States, Sprint Nextel saw its customer satisfaction rating sink to the lowest levels just a few years ago. But since a new CEO took over in late 2007, with a focus on improving customer satisfaction and reviving the company's brand, the company has seen steady improvements since that time, and continues to do so.

"In July 2009, Sprint was down and out," said Harley Manning, a vice president at Forrester Research. "But they've since made a concerted effort over the past two years to really turn things around. And they have, really. Now they're just a very short distance of the other two major wireless carriers, AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless."

"Sprint has essentially gone from 'Do not subscribe to my service under any circumstance' to being on par with its main competitors," Manning added. "And if the momentum continues, and the company makes an improvement of that size again in 2011, it will certainly shoot past its competitors in terms of overall customer satisfaction."

Out of a potential one-hundred points, Sprint went from a rating of 45 last year to a rating of 60 this year. That's a good improvement. And while the company still ranks the lowest of all four major U.S. wireless operators, it's not that far behind the industry average rating of 65.

If Sprint continues to improve at this speed, the company could lead in customer satisfaction in 2011. Sprint's reputation for poor customer service and poor network coverage was years in the making. But network and billing problems after the company bought Nextel in 2005 exacerbated an already fragile image. Dissatisfied customers left in droves every quarter.

Meanwhile, Sprint's competitors, AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless, gobbled up these Sprint defectors, adding millions of new subscribers every quarter to their rosters.

And, if you can believe this, three years ago, Sprint continued to damage its reputation by actually sending already dissatisfied and disgruntled customers letters terminating their service for calling customer service too often, adding insult to injury.

One of the most important improvements Sprint made was focusing on resolving customer issues on the first call to a customer care agent. Making the resolution of the customer's problem a top priority for care agents helped focus the staff in the call centers, Sprint says.

Sprint also changed its compensation model for employees and outsourced call centers. The company tied customer satisfaction directly to compensation for employees. It applied the same model to its outsourced call center partners as well. Call centers with higher customer satisfaction levels were awarded more calls, while lower performing call centers were not just penalized but were actually closed down altogether.

As a result of these many changes, Sprint has been able to consolidate its call centers and reduce the number of centers it had from 74 to about 44 in the past two years. This reduction has helped the company achieve its objective of serving customers. And it has had the added benefit of reducing overall costs for the company, which has also helped to achieve one of the company's three main priorities, improving its cash position.

And as Sprint's reputation sank so low and the blood-let of customers was so bad, the company's board of directors ousted then CEO Gary Forsee. A few months later at the end of 2007, Dan Hesse was hired as chief executive to turn the company around.

The first order of business for Hesse was to repair Sprint's damaged reputation with a new focus on its immediate customers. And he did just that.

"When Dan took over in the fourth quarter of 2007, he outlined three main priorities," said Bob Johnson, chief service officer for Sprint. "The first was to improve the company's cash standing, and the other two were to improve the company brand and improve the customer experience, two very important ingredients that go hand in hand."

Johnson added that a two and a half years into Hesse's tenure as CEO, the three priorities remain exactly the same. "Dan has created a new culture around satisfying customers," he said. "Every staff meeting we have starts off with discussing the customer experience. We analyze the data and see where the pain points are and work to improve them."

As Sprint's customer satisfaction levels rise, the company is able to further reduce its number of calls to customer care, which allows it to continue to consolidate its operations and reduce its costs.

"Just before Hesse took over, our customers called us twice as often as customers for Verizon Wireless or AT&T," Johnson said. "Fast forward to now, and we are in line with our competitors. Instead of the average customer calling us twice a quarter or eight times a year, they are calling us once a quarter or four times a year, which is how often they call our competitors."

In February 2008, Sprint launched its $99.99 "all-you-can-eat" rate plan called "Simply Everything," which includes not only unlimited voice, but also unlimited data, unlimited text messaging, unlimited email service, Web-surfing, Sprint TV, Sprint Music, GPS Navigation and even unlimited push-to-talk service.

A comparable service from Verizon Wireless that includes the same features costs $140 a month.

Then the company followed that up with a $69.99 a month plan called Any Mobile, Anytime, which allows subscribers to call any cell phone in the U.S., regardless of the wireless carrier. The plan also comes with Sprint's Everything Data plan, which includes unlimited text messaging and data services. Subscribers also get 450 voice minutes for calls to landlines.

Sprint has complemented that new rate plan with a slew of new smartphones, including the Palm Pre, which launched a year ago, as well as new Google Android phones, like the HTC Hero and the first 3G/4G handset, the HTC Evo.

Manning added that Sprint is on the path toward changing itself from a company that is product-focused to being a company that is customer-focused, which ultimately leads to success.

Add to del.icio.us     Digg this

Source: Sprint Nextel.