• Gary Forsee, Sprint CEO, Is A Poopy Pants, A Bad Dancer, And He Reads The Consumerist All The Time
"...every article we write that has Sprint's name on it gets put on the desk of Gary Forsee, CEO of Sprint."

• Sprint/Nextel Will Fire Any Employee Caught Participating In Blogs
"Be careful on the internet, Sprint leaks. Don't want you to go for a smoke break and find your badge deactivated when you try to come back inside."

• No One Told Sprint Customer Care They Had To Let Customers Leave Contract Without Termination Fee Over Text Message Rate Raises
"benpopken: What does Sprint think of our "how to cancel without ETF posts" ?
philip: The honest truth? We laugh."

• Sprint Gives Better Adjustments To More Profitable Customers, Ranked On A Scale From One Dollar Sign To Five Dollar Signs
"The more money you make Sprint, the more likely they are to you adjustments on your bill when you ask for them, regardless of whether the adjustment is due to a Sprint error. In the computer, your "value indicator" is represented on a scale of one dollar sign to five dollar signs, with five being the highest."

• Why Sprint's Customer Service Sucks: They Only Let Reps Adjust Billing Up To $3 Per Call (As An Average)
"Sprint has such shitty customer service because they don't give customer service reps enough leeway to disburse billing adjustments, nor do they provide enough support..."

• Sprint Will Cancel Service For CDMA Customers Who Roamed 50%+
"Mr/Ms Customer, I do apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused. This is a final decision by Sprint and I have been given no ability to reverse the actions outlined in the letter you received."

• No Bonuses This Year, Everyone's Gotta Buckle Down, Except For The Executives
"An employee had the balls to ask, "So compensation for specialists and managers is being reduced to somewhere around 0%... despite having less resources and assistance to do more work and achieve higher goals. Will these compensation cuts be the same at the executive level?""

• Why Sprint Can't Fire Gary Forsee: A Known Bad Is Better Than An Unknown Worse
"Everyone who was in a position to get him removed has retired, resigned, or been terminated... There is no one in the company shareholders would trust to replace him."

— BEN POPKEN

Really? Is this the same man whom one year ago Business Week magazine hailed as one of the "Best Managers of 2004"? Says our tipster, name withheld to protect his job security,

Everyone who was in a position to get him removed has retired, resigned, or been terminated... There is no one in the company shareholders would trust to replace him.

philip: The last couple of months our COO was fired, our Vice President of Customer Service resigned on two days notice, and our Chariman stepped down. Gary Forsee, our CEO, temporarily ran all of these positions at once.
benpopken: eeks
philip: Yeah VP Customer Service was the first to accept a Severance Package (a golden parachute I'm sure) when Gary Forsee announced 5,000 layoffs on January 7th. It was a bad, bad day.
philip: Everyone who was in a position to get him removed has retired, resigned, or been terminated.
philip: There is no one in the company shareholders would trust to replace him. He has ensured himself [a bulletproof] position. He is Chariman, CEO, and President.
philip: We just got a COO last week after almost three months without one... And nobody in executive leadership is experienced enough to lead a $40B corporation with 52 million subscribers. So even though company performance is outrageously disappointing, shareholders are fearful of how much worse it could be.
philip: Objectives for 2007 posted a couple of weeks ago and I have never seen metric demands that are so outrageous. A lot of good people will lose their job and I imagine a lot of good customers will string together tin cans and string. I'm not sure that Sprint is the worst because all things considered I have mixed feelings on if, as a consumer, I hate Sprint or Cingular more... But we are certainly not headed in the right direction and we show no hope of improving in the near future.
benpopken: sounds like you need a new leader
benpopken: but the shareholders are too pussy
philip: Exactly
philip: And the truly worthy talent within our corporation are all being walked out the door for not meeting goals. Or they're opening company policy up for cute 20s-something pro-consumerists bloggers to tear apart for everyone to read.
benpopken: ha!

— BEN POPKEN

Previous leaks from our Sprint moles.

philip:...in our recent all-employee webcast... [Gary Forsee] was very blunt. "These were our goals, we missed them by a lot, we are laying people off, the goals will be stricter, and compensation will be moved to (AND I QUOTE) "somewhere close to 0%"... Can't say that I like him much. Our all-employee web cast was Gary saying, "Am I the only one who knows what I'm doing?" and he evaded a lot of legitimate concerns in the usual corporate evasion manner.
philip: my favorite part [was] the open question session. An employee had the balls to ask...

philip:..."So compensation for specialists and managers is being reduced to somewhere around 0%... despite having less resources and assistance to do more work and achieve higher goals. Will these compensation cuts be the same at the executive level?" I think you might have something about 10,000 Sprint employees who could quote that 30-second piece of heaven verbatim.

5,000 layoffs were announced in January. Sprint is definitely not the happy place to work right now. This makes it even harder to find a sympathetic rep when you call for a billing adjustment. — BEN POPKEN

Previous leaks from our Sprint moles.

Starting February 26, 2007, CDMA customers who roamed more than 50% during either November and December, or December and January (we're not quite sure which, sorry!) will receive a mailed notice that their service will be canceled.

Graciously, Sprint won't charge these customers an early termination fee.

For some customers, the cancellation will come as welcome release from Sprint. For others, it will be an annoyance and inconvenience.

So what of Sprint's promises of "free roaming" or "roaming included?" Sorry folks, the all-you-can-eat buffet has a three-plate limit.

A source inside Sprint says,

The true irony is that during the summer when we stopped waiving ETFs for moving to an area outside of Sprint coverage, we would instruct specialists to offer a roaming package as a solution for no coverage... And now we are coming back and saying, "But roaming-included plans do not allow for the customer to live outside of Sprint coverage"

Full copy of the Sprint internal document announcing the change, inside...

Sprint Enforces Terms and Conditions for Excessive Roamers Communication to customers for excessive roaming which violates Terms and Conditions of Roaming Included Service Plans

Summary: Communication to customers for excessive roaming which violates Terms and Conditions (T&Cs) of Roaming Included Service Plans and results in Sprint's enforcement of T&Cs through termination of service.
Specialists: All CDMA
Customers: CDMA customers identified with excessive roaming use.
Effective Date: 2/5/07
Details:

• Mail date of customer notification: 2/26/07
• Cancellation of customer account: end of bill cycle on or after 3/15/07
• CDMA customers were identified with excessive roaming usage which violates T&Cs specific to Roaming Included Service Plans.

Identified customers were notified by letter of the following:

• Level of roaming usage is not permitted by the terms of the Roaming Included Service Plans
• As a result, Sprint wireless service (and any other lines of service associated with the same Roaming Included Service Plan) will be terminated at the end of the next billing cycle that ends on or after 3/1507.
• Impacted customers will not be charged an Early Termination Fee (ETF)
• Impacted customers may be eligible for the Sprint Phone Buyback Program

Requirements:
• Customers identified with excessive roaming use

• Over 50% for 2 or more consecutive months.

• Customers who received notification of their excessive roaming use will be impacted.

Actions:
• Confirm information within the Customer Notification Letter
• Do not attempt to save these customers.
• Do not transfer these customers to Account Services to save.
• Do not re-activate the cancelled account for these customers.
• Do not establish a new account for these customers.
• Direct these customers to information on the Sprint Phone Buyback Program at www.sprintbuyback.com
• If customer's final invoice is not correctly pro-rated.

• Follow standard procedures to properly final their account

Suggested Scripting:

'Mr/Ms Customer, I do apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused. This is a final decision by Sprint and I have been given no ability to reverse the actions outlined in the letter you received. I can tell you that Sprint offers a program to buy back eligible phones and you can learn more about that at www.sprintbuyback.com. Again, I apologize that I cannot assist you any further at this time.'

— BEN POPKEN

Customer service reps have goals to meet for every call they take UPDATE: This is the average reps shoot for per call, over time. You only get an average of three dollars per call to give back to the customer. Calls need to be under seven minutes. All companies have these metrics, but Philip says,

I have never seen any company enforce metrics as strictly as Sprint and truly give no consideration to impacting factors either..."

philip: Even a valid, justifiable adjustment (meaning we were crediting for our own mistake), specialists have a very very small limit. And if they don't make the goal, they don't get their raise. So it's motivation for them to say no.
benpopken: is the limit per call, or per day, or what?

philip: Even a valid, justifiable adjustment (meaning we were crediting for our own mistake), specialists have a very very small limit. And if they don't make the goal, they don't get their raise. So it's motivation for them to say no.
benpopken: is the limit per call, or per day, or what?
philip: The goal varies depending on Line of Business (be it corporate accounts, consumer general, retention, etc) but averages $3/call. Trust me that is not a fair amount or remotely realistic. Today in our manager's meeting the VP of Operations made it clear that it would no longer be acceptable for supervisors to make adjustments for specialists (for instance a specialist might have a supervisor make an $800 adjustment for a billing error instead of getting disciplinary action for being over goal)
benpopken: $3 a call is nothing!
philip: And that amount includes courtesy credits (which are actually technically no longer allowed), billing corrections, etc; There are specialists [customer service representatives] right now who literally are scared to go outside for break because they are worried their badge won't work when it's time to come back. I see it happen every week.
benpopken: is that how they fire people? just deactivating their badge?
philip: Depends on how many people have to be let go that day and for what issue
benpopken: crikey
benpopken: climate of fear is no way to run a place
philip: If its an attendance-related issue then we make every effort to sit the specialist down and advise them that we have to sever their employment and what not. But in some cases it happens that they go out for a smoke break and their badge doesn't work when they try to go back inside.
philip: There is a lady who is on four Level 3 warnings. Any day now she is going to be terminated for not meeting goal. She is the only specialist I have ever met that has never, ever failed a Customer Satisfaction call. It's a shame because she is so wonderful at what she does and you see her break down and cry at lunch because she is going to lose her job for doing her job without regards to bureaucracy
philip: But definitely many people who come to work and really do live in fear of not being able to keep their call time at goal (usually below 7 minutes, again depending on line of business) or keep their adjustments at goal... And then at the same time, they are held accountable for CSAT Surveys (which is when a third-party company calls the customer back a couple of days later and asks them about their experience). It's a very difficult job and Sprint really does not give specialists the support they need to take care of customers realistically.
benpopken: hm 7 minutes
benpopken: that stinks for them
philip: It's hard to pull that off when a lot of people are calling in for the 7th time desperately trying to get that valid adjustment.
benpopken: so maybe if they gave more leeway on the valid adjustments they could save a lot of grief
philip: And here's the thing- metrics exist in every occupation and industry and are extremely necessary to operate a business. But I have never seen any company enforce them as strictly as Sprint and truly give no consideration to impacting factors either.
benpopken: where did the metric obsession come from?
benpopken: gary forsee loves metrics?
philip: Gary could care less.

— BEN POPKEN

Previous leaks from our Sprint moles

benpopken: do more profitable customers get better adjustments? how much "more profitable" do you have to be?
philip: Oh yes
philip: In fact
philip: Every customer has a Value Indicator
benpopken: there we go
philip: This is where we start talking about items I could be terminated for
philip: Customers are measured by a Value Indicator that ranges from $ to $$$$$.
benpopken: hahahah
benpopken: at least cingular has a thermometer
philip: I can tell you how the metric is determined though. The formula takes into account the customer's length of service with the company, the amount of adjustments requested in the last 12 months, and the amount of the average bill.

— BEN POPKEN

benpopken: What does Sprint think of our "how to cancel without ETF posts" ?
philip: The honest truth? We laugh. Or rather, they.
benpopken: Why do they laugh?
philip: Here's the thing...

philip: Specialists are trained from day one that absolutely under no circumstances can the ETFs be waived for anything other than death (and obviously this one is subjective).
philip: So... The company failed to communicate we were ethically obligated to allow customers out of their contract.
benpopken: not to mention legally
philip: ...The change took effect at the beginning of October and it opened a 30 day window from the time you got your bill to cancel. Specialists weren't informed that it could be done until 10/17... Half our customer base had already been told no and they were not allowed to get out after they had already made a payment.
benpopken: Yeah people were having some troubles with that one
philip: Customer Care is always the last to be told.

This also certainly puts Cingular's intransigence in the face of customers trying to legitimately exit contract in a very interesting light. It means that somewhere along the line, someone inside Cingular actively decided they should flout standard contract law, just because it made them more money. Not like we didn't know this already. — BEN POPKEN

Kennedy sent the notice throughout the entire enterprise, according to a source inside Sprint. The concern is that such leaks could compromise Sprint's competitive positioning

The Sprint Executive Service teams monitors online venues for potentially damaging PR or threatening legal issues seeming to arise from internal leaks.

Executive Services forwards these flagged items to Corporate Security, a division working in concert with Legal and HR. Attached to Corporate Security are a number of internet adroit sleuths who try to track down leaks and document for termination, using Google and various online tools.

Be careful on the internet, Sprint leaks. Don't want you to go for a smoke break and find your badge deactivated when you try to come back inside.
— BEN POPKEN

He doesn't pretend to read them all but he does read some of them in staff, especially when we look especially bad. That makes my day.

We had a very interesting conversation with Philip that we'll be parceling out pieces of in discrete posts. For now, everyone wave hello to Gary!

The ghosts are gate-crashing the consumer party... spooky!

— BEN POPKEN