Consumer VoIP Featured Article
February 10, 2009
Study: Sprint Nextel's Focus on Customers is Paying Off
By Vivek NaikSprint Nextel, citing a study from J.D. Power & Associates, reportedly announced that it’s made a 50 percent improvement in the last six months of 2008 in terms of catching up with competitors’ customer satisfaction rates.
Story continues below ↓
“Customers understand what we’re doing,” said Bob Johnson, chief service officer at Sprint (News - Alert). “They like what they are seeing now. We have a way to go, but the progress we’ve made is steady and solid.”
The company says its efforts got underway one year ago, when CEO Dan Hesse saw that the CS numbers were too low and customer turnover figures were too high. Its wireless customers were not very happy with customer service, fault repair, inconclusive discussions with representatives, retail related marketing queries, lack of consistent online solutions, and poor interactive voice response systems.
A marketing truism is that customer longevity is directly proportional to CS. Leading from the front, the CEO decided that improving CS and, more importantly, customer experience would be the company’s primary blinkered focus and he made an announcement to declare this.
Over 2008, customer ratings in various categories varied from very satisfied to extremely satisfied. Customer plan awareness reached 93 percent in December, 2009. “Simply Everything” plans were a hit and were reportedly estimated to save $480 per year per customer when compared with plans from other top companies.
The customer satisfaction index, response times, service, repair and first time resolution figures were through the roof when compared with figures in 2007. Thanks to a two year $15 billion investment in spreading the network all over the country, customers now feel that they are mostly always connected anywhere. Customers feel that bills have become more detailed and easier to read when compared with 2007.
While the punch line for 2008 was “Improve CS and customer experience”, the theme for 2009 is “Serve, Solve and Satisfy”.
Sprint has extended a few of its most effective 2008 guidelines to take customer experience to higher levels in 2009. Reduction in customer voice calls by offering easy to understand pricing and self-help and self–service tools. Assisting customers to clearly understand the different pricing packages and help them to select the correct one.
Recognizing that customers needs change over a period of time and accordingly assist them in appropriate decision making. Call center care agents to get it right the first time and to take pride in guaranteeing no follow up call. Quick resolution of customers problems, without compromising on satisfaction. Attractive offers for customers who stay longer, take longer duration packages.
Don’t forget to check out TMCnet’s White Paper Library, which provides a selection of in-depth information on relevant topics affecting the IP Communications industry. The library offers white papers, case studies and other documents which are free to registered users.
Vivek Naik is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Vivek's articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Michael Dinan
