Sprint Management Needs Shakeup |
Hören Zu
Sprint Management Needs Shakeup |
Sprint PCS labors under its management problems. Those management problems extend so far that its front line employees labor without empowerment, while many of its customers endure and wonder how such a company competes. This web page documents three problems I had as a customer. The problems I saw lasted so long over so many people, that I conclude these problems point to management as a shadow points to its owner.
First,
in mid-August, 1999,
I ordered from their web page, Sprint's web site responded that confirmation would occur within 15 minutes.
I had ordered both their Free and Clear Plan and the Motorola StarTAC phone.
After 90 minutes,
Sprint's computers still had not responded and
I had no idea whether Sprint had accepted or refused my request for service and purchase.
So, I called their phone number 888-253-1315.
Here, Sprint's telephone representative placed my order well,
but she was unsure whether my web order had also been placed.
It had not and I have since read of numerous others having the same problem.
So, Sprint has nice web pages, but interaction with those web pages demands
excessive amounts of time for response and sometimes an uncertainty due to no response.
The primary problem here appears to be Sprint wanting to deal with other big companies, big computer companies. Sprint has chosen to run the web server software Microsoft-IIS/4.0 by the monopoly Microsoft, and Sprint has chosen to run this on the operating system Windows NT 4.0, again, by the monopoly Microsoft. You can verify Sprint's operating system and web server through Netcraft. Microsoft's NT, which Sprint uses, is notorious for failing. Let up more specifically consider Sprint's over-simplified approach to computing, their Mocrosoft decision making procedure. Others have seen similar consequences to their Microsoft approach. The enterprise internet service provider DIGEX in Washington DC, with a web farm covering 28,000 square feet, has charged users of onsite Microsoft NT computers an extra $30 per month to automatically reboot their computers once each day. The Navy regreted using NT when Microsoft's notorious ``Blue Screen of Death'' brought a high tech missile frigate to a halt for hours because an NT computer divided by 0, causing not just the application but also its computer to halt, causing its network of NT computers to halt. See Computer World Australia. Computer experts, not just labeled ``computer expert,'' know that a more appropriate internet standard computer would be a Sun computer; perhaps an IBM AIX computer; or perhaps the new standard reflected in 120,000 Mexican schools, German government funding, Korean intrigue, the all time highest first day stock increase by one of its companies (VA Linux) in December 1999, IBM's porting it to its big mainframe 390, over 50 percent of French operating system sales, SGI forming its future on this operating system, and Info-World's Product of the Year: Linux. On such a Linux/Unix operating system, 55 percent of all web sites run Apache-the standard- with code from UC Berkeley, IBM, et. al. Sprint chose a notorious operating system, Microsoft's NT, perhaps from a golf-course chat with a Microsoft representative; or perhaps because a senior manager used NT at home and by gosh what works at home is good enough for mom-and-pop Sprint. Then, on top of that weak operating system, Sprint added a non-standard web server.
Such poor judgement concerning computers, judgement listening to other companies' advertising departments rather than objective criteria -managers distracted from Sprint's best interests- should engender new technically versed managers (like those from Carnegie-Mellon, Stanford, or Purdue University) and should give several managers termination pay.
Second,
in mid-August, Sprint's main web page [content since changed]
SprintPCS
pictured a Motorola StarTAC cell phone.
Under this picture was advertised a $100 rebate to be included with the phone.
Sprint sent that telephone with no rebate coupon.
Here are a few, not all, of the contacts I had to initiate with Sprint for the $100 rebate they promised,
| 8/28/1999 | After going through 3 people, then recalling 888-397-4744, I was told I would receive a rebate by mail in 10 days. | |||
| 9/14/1999 | Finding no address on Sprint's web page, I sent a letter to the address from which I received my phone,
|
|||
| 9/23/1999 | Calling 888-211-4727, Blain said the ``coupon will come as they become available'' [note that eventually Sprint sent not a coupon but a check]. He said to call again after their deadline for sending coupons. | |||
| 10/8/1999 | Calling 888-211-4727 at 10:55am, Justin answered at 11:14am, finishing talking at 11:29am. He said a $100 check has been issued, though not printed or mailed. He said to call 888-397-4744 next time. | |||
| 10/27/1999 | Rather than a rebate, Sprint bills me $199.99 for the phone. My Citibank Mastercard (Citibank reference number X5FWQZW4) marked having already paid Sprint $334.38 on 8/24/1999. Unusually, this Master Card receipt gave not an address, but the telephone number 888/211/4727. Additionally, Sprint's bill hadn't yet accounted for my previous month's payment, sent 9 days earlier to their Baltimore mail address, which is but 35 miles away [Other bills I send to Baltimore take but 3 days to arrive and be credited]. | |||
| 10/27/1999 | At 6:56pm I called 888-211-4727. Ray listened to my Sprint problem, then either hung up or had his Sprint telephone fail. | |||
| 10/27/1999 | At 7:20pm, I called 888-397-4744. Cesar M said Sprint has not sent the coupon, and he entered my request. He said I should receive a coupon in about 15 days [that would be November 10]. | |||
| 11/18/1999 | I finally get my $100 check from Sprint's own Bank account for the August phone I purchased. |
I probably spent 22 hours total to get this $100 rebate. If I had not actively pursued this rebate, I feel I would not have gotten it. That Motorolla StarTAC cell phone, which Sprint sold in August on their opening web page for $299.99 with a $100 rebate, they discontinued before they sent my rebate. So, Sprint failed to include the promised rebate coupon with the cell phone, they dropped my requests for their promised rebate, and, in the end, did not give a rebate from Motorola, but instead issued a check from their own bank.
What can we conclude about how Sprint's management functions? They did not see their opening web page advertisement as a promise: they need to better see the importance of their web page statements. Together with the above poor choice of web server, I get the impression that Sprint managers read PC Magazine and PC World for a large corporation's decisions. Rather than keeping management that reads what amounts to gossip and advertising, I suggest Sprint get some managers that can do. That is, get a manager who knows something technical, maybe even a manager who could write his own web page in ascii or install the Apache web server. As a technical company, Sprint should have managers who understand technology's underpinnings, rather than playing games in college reading corporate cases and maximizing profits on financial moves. I am reminded of a company that required all its employees to install the Linux operating system, so they might understand what was coming to underlie much of internet.
I also get the impression Sprint has left those answering its phones with little power. They can refer, but can not make decisions. They can register information that will be lost in Sprint's computers, but can not make an entry that issues a check to be sent in 2 days. Sprint seems to spend days, weeks, months before it is almost forced to act, then sends out what they must by Federal Express. Giving front end employees little power has resulted in shipping problems appearing in billing, billing problems appearing in consumer calls, and consumer calls looping around to various Sprint telephone numbers many times over, until their meer repetition increases the small probability of action. Sprint's management could take a course in the possibilities of Perl and Python CGI scripts, some Bayesian decision theory or its simplification in fuzzy logic, to solve these decision problems. I feel Sprint has good underlying technology through good technicians, but has hired management that does not come up to those standards of technical and concentrated thinking [ad homonem attack], management that listens to those who talk most, rather than, say, a Delphi approach to group decision making. We all know people talk about what they know, that the more trivial is easier to jabber about, that we are impressed more by lots of more trivial talk than by more exacting terse talk. So, Sprint management perhaps does not trust those who answer its telephones, or does not want to give them the ability to affect a transaction gone bad, or does not see how to get their poorly chosen operating system, Windows NT, to do work with its telephone crew.
Or, perhaps Sprint's management understands technical issues, likes to deal with them, but does not want to deal much with customers. If this is the case, I suggest they read ``Out of the Crisis by Deming,'' to see that your customer is not just another manager, but also those purchasing your services.
Or, perhaps Sprint's departments revere themselves, but do not see the importance of other departments. As a result, Sprint's departments do not communicate well. I saw so much lack of communication with Sprint -in a communications company- that I conclude Sprint does not fully see the value of such communication, probably does not hire those expert in computer communications, and uses what are traditionally not peer-to-peer computers. Since Sprint obviously uses several NT computers, I presume they use few Unix/Linux computers. While all Unix/Linux computers will both send and receive information to any other Unix/Linux computer, or any other computer working at internet standards, this is not true of Microsoft computers. You doubt? Try doing what most any Unix/Linux computer does on installation for every Unix/Linux computer in an office, without add on packages, just a change of parameter: read a file on a computer of the person in the next office, allow zher [not mispelled] to read a file on your computer, or allow zher to run a program on your computer. So, Sprint may well need much better computer communication and personal understanding between its departments.
Or, perhaps Sprint's association with GTE, historically perhaps the worst telephone company of its size, has been pernicious.
Third,
Sprint can not track down a defective telephone their warehouse received,
so they will stop my cellular service today, December 11.
With the telephone rebate problem above, this new Sprint failure to check-in telephones at
their warehouse confused me.
Here are a few of Spint's false billings and my responses,
| 9/13/1999 | The cell phone Sprint sent me a couple weeks earlier fails when I plug the phone into its charger. Only after 3 days do I realize the cell phone's battery is not low: Sprint's cell phone has ceased working. | ||||
| 9/16/1999 | I call Sprint about my defective Sprint cell phone. Sprint kindly sends a replacement. | ||||
| 9/23/1999 | I receive Sprint's replacement cell phone at 9:54am by UPS second day air. UPS tracking number ``1Z X4X 259 01 2404 198'' got that replacement phone to me. | ||||
| 9/25/1999 | Satisfied with the new cell phone, I return the original defective Sprint phone back to Sprint. I put the defective Sprint phone in the replacement phone shipping box. Since Sprint included an ``UPS 2nd Day Air Shipping Document'' so I could return the defective phone, I needed only put Sprint's UPS label on the shipping box. That label from Sprint has the UPS tracking number ``1Z E92 W92 37 1046 6281''. I shipped this defective phone at 4:40 at Parcel Plus, 333 Maple Avenue East, Vienna, Virginia, 703-255-1448. | ||||
| 9/29/199 | 10:35am Evans at Sprint's warehouse, Sprint PCS Returns, 2210 Outer Loop Whse #2 Door 141, Louisville, KY 40219, receives my shipment. You can verify this through UPS tracking web site, http://www.ups.com/tracking/tracking.html for the above UPS tracking number, 1Z E92 W92 37 1046 6281. | ||||
| 10/27/1999 | Today I received a bill from Sprint with the following description, ``Phone $199.99''. That brief description led me astray. Because I had been seeking a $100 rebate for two months, and because Sprint had long ago charged my credit card $299.99 for the initial cell phone, then I presumed Sprint was giving me a $100 rebate but falsely charging me $199.99 more ($299.99 - $100.00 = $199.99). In fact, Sprint was charging me the replacement phone's non-marketing price: not their August 18, 1999, opening home page http://www.sprintpcs.com advertised price of $299.99 with a $100 rebate, but $199.99 without mention of a rebate. Since Sprint didn't mention ``unreturned phone,'' or ``replacement phone,'' I presumed this was another odd action on their part concerning my $100.00 rebate. | ||||
| 10/27/1999 | 9:35pm, 888-211-4727 ->2 -> 0, gets answered by Dean, ext. 3736. I mentioned that their bill to me, dated October 16, arriving today, October 27, He forwards the $199.99 extra phone charge to the biling department, a forwarding which never produced a reply to me. | ||||
| 12/3/1999 | 888-211-4727 ->2, gets answered by Lang.
Lang says my likely tracking number was 000008S543V761Z through FedEx.
I then checked with FedEx, http://www.fedex.com/us/tracking;
but the tracking number that Lang gave me, FedEx does not recognize: "Invalid Airbill Number".
Lang told me to call 800-974-2221 if I have problems. |
||||
| 12/3/1999 | 800-974-2221, the number Sprint's Mr. Lang gave me earlier. Calling that number at 12:14pm, I get an answer at 12:24pm. That person says I should call the billing number 888-715-4588 | ||||
| 12/3/1999 | Calling 888-211-4727 again -> 2
at 12:29pm, I waited until 12:53pm for a response.
George contacted the warehouse.
The warehouse seemed to ignore George, who, after 15 minutes said he would return my call.
George called me back at 1:38pm. He said my original tracking number for the replacement phone was 1ZX4X2590124041988 George implied that this would also be the return tracking number on the UPS sticker Sprint gave me, and that I put on the return box with the original defective phone. George told me that he called UPS and UPS has no record about my original defective phone even being sent back to Sprint. George asked me from where I returned my phone, to which I answered
|
||||
| 12/9/1999 | I receive a threatening letter from Sprint concerning the replacement telephone for which they
charged me, but which their employee Evans received over two months earlier on September 29.
Sprint's threat reads,
``If payment arrangements have not been made within five days, your PCS service will be interrupted''That is a nice way of saying interrupted which really means terminated. They really are a poorly organized company that can not find many accounting records, that can not find many returned phones. Amidst all this, Sprint presumes that it is correct despite its disorganization and lost equipment, so they charge the customer, me. Spint had the gaul to include an authorization for automatic payment of their egregiously erronious bills. |
||||
| 12/13/1999 | 800-808-1336, which Sprint called on its threatening letter to me its ``Customer Advocatacy Number''.
This is Sprint's newspeak, since this office does not advocate for the customer,
and, I was later told, there really is no such Sprint office.
Indeed, this is Sprint's newspeak for the opposite: in their words,
this is the ``Collection Department to discuss the payment options available to you.''
6:16pm Keenan answers and says I must talk to customer assistance. Keenan transfers me, and after several minutes I am connected at 6:29pm. |
||||
| 12/13/1999 | Sheela Answers this transfer Keenan just made. Sheela immediately asks, ``Would you like to make payment?'' Sheela informs me that I have reached the Collection Department, the very department Keenan was transfering me out of. This reflects what I have seen elsewhere in SprintPCS; eg, with telephone connections cutting off in mid-sentence from their side. SprintPCS has a cell telephone business that technicians have well installed, but most management and customer service personnecl work the company as if they were just discovering telephone connections if not the telephone itself. They represent some Americans a fellow from India observed, as he admired that some Americans get their fluids by pushing a Coke machine button, but then the Indian realized that those button pushers do not understand the machinery involved or even how to search for and extract water from the ground. | ||||
| 12/13/1999 | 6:31pm Jean answers the tranfer Sheela just made.
Jean mentions that Sprints previous approach to my account used the wrong UPS tracking
number for my returned phone.
After looking awhile, Jean said she could not find the UPS tracking number
printed on the return labels that Sprint sent me: an honest and
correct comment about Sprint's eratic record keeping.
Jean said she has many times sent cases like mine to ``bill referral,'' but such referrals are useless because ``if [sic] send forward, they [Sprint billing specialists] will deny it.'' Jean said I, the customer, must send to ``support services,'' pleading my case with email. Then jean said, ``You and I could send out [requests to Sprint for bill coorrections on the returned defective phone] until the cow comes home and [any such request] would still get returned.'' Summing up Jean's comments: Sprint has many departments I could contact, including ``Support Services'' and ``Billing Specialists,'' but Sprint will deny that the returned cell phone arrived at their warehouse, and Sprint will continue to bill me for that phone, Sprint will cut off phone services, and Sprint will engage bill collectors. |
Here is a copy of the UPS shipping document, gotten from Sprint,
attached to the defective phone carton, shipped from Parcel Plus
in Vienna, Virginia, to Sprint in Louisville, Kentucky:
I have since read about others' problems with Sprint, problems amounting to fraud.
See,
Others have been upset enough with SprintPCS to pay around $90 for an internet domain-name
on which they would post their complaints with SprintPCS.
These began being registered in April, 1999.
By August, 1999, Sprint took the defensive move to buy such names, then idling them.
On August 13, 1999, SprintPCS diverted attention by referring to itself
through unobscure email,
[email protected].
as it purchased
Before SprintPCS could purchase this site, on April 10, 1999, Steve at [email protected] purchased
On September 25, 1999, John Quigley at [email protected] purchased
Unlike the above two sites, this is an actual site.
Please send any germane links, for inclusion in this web page, to
[email protected].
If you are wondering: yes, this email and associated website ``pressroom.com'' has traditionally been
the internet service for many of the press around Washington, DC.
This document was generated using the LaTeX2HTML translator Version 98.1p1 release (March 2nd, 1998)
Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, Nikos Drakos, Computer Based Learning Unit, University of Leeds.
The command line arguments were:
latex2html -t SprintPCS Fraud -html_version 3.2 -no_navigation -address -info 0 -local_icons sprint-fraud.
The translation was initiated by Jameson Burt on 1999-12-22
Please send comments on these webpages to
[email protected].
