Bad, Sprint. Bad.
Most people have probably heard of the long distance company, Sprint (Canada). In the past year, they have started offering local phone service in Canada to complete with some of the bigger players (Telus and Bell Canada). As you may have read earlier in the month, I had decided to give Sprint Canada a[nother] try for local phone service. Let's just say things didn't turn out as I had planned...
From: patrick gibson <xxxxxxx@xxxxxxxx.xxx> To: <webmail@sprint-canada.com> Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 17:12:13 -0800 Subject: Unbelievable Dear Sprint Canada, I'd like to congratulate you on your remarkable level of competence and customer service. Last summer, I decided I didn't want to continue supporting my local telco (Telus), and since Sprint was now offering local phone service, I thought I'd give it a shot. I filled out your online signup form, and excitedly awaited a response. And waited, and waited, and waited. After several weeks of waiting, I got fed up and sent an email to cancel the request. About three weeks ago, I decided to give you guys another shot -- this time, I'd phone in my signup information as I no longer trusted your web signup. I spoke with a very nice woman on January 6th who went over everything with me, and got me setup with all the features I wanted. I was told it would take a couple weeks to process and get me actually switched, which was fine -- just so long as I had a date in my hand, and had actually spoken to someone. Friday, January 24th was to be lucky day. Today is Monday, January 27th. I noticed that nothing changed on Friday, nor did it change on Saturday nor Sunday. I phoned in today to see what was causing the delay. I was told there was absolutely no record of my previous call. All 25-30 minutes of it where I painstakingly read off *all* of my information and selected *all* of the features I wanted. The man on the phone just now politely offered to take all that information again. Yeah, right. Sure. You know, I would think that you'd want me as your customer. Here I am, *trying* as hard as I can to signup to your service. For some reason, each time I try, you do something that leads me to believe you do not want me. I can't imagine why. For your information, I am *very* loyal to companies who treat me well. It hurts, I tell you, *hurts*. I can't imagine it's easy to start competing with Telus for local phone service. But continually bunging things up when people try to signup is certainly not going to help your causing. I do not ask a whole lot from my local telephone service provider, but the one thing upon which I insist, is competence. Having reliable telephone and customer service is very important to me. If anything goes wrong, I need to know that someone will be there to help me. While I'm not crazy about Telus -- especially after all of their recent lay-offs, they at least have been able to get me signed up on the first try. I have moved several times, and have signed up for several phone numbers. Not once have they lost my application, nor have they never called me back. If I'm to be a customer of Sprint Canada, you're going to have to something mighty profound to convince me that you are the company for me. (A year's worth of free phone service springs to mind.) If you are going to take the typical corporate attitude and just brush me off, well, I certainly wouldn't be surprised, but I can assure you that I will make my experiences with you as public as I can. No friend, family member, or even foe of mine shall switch to you for local phone service. Sincerely, Patrick Gibson PS: Your website is misconfigured. If I go to <http://sprint.ca/> instead of <http://www.sprint.ca/>, I get an Error 404 message. Go ahead! Try it. You'll see...
Posted at 17:26
