Sprint Nextel had a third quarter profit that was 77 percent less than last year, which is finally the way things should be going.

Not a rosy picture? Jaundiced view? You bet!

this was supposed to mean ‘better than cellular’ - huge amounts of money were spent to sell this propaganda

As someone who worked for a company who sold Sprint, both the wireless service and long distance service for land lines, I can speak about the bad direction and business practices that Sprint has had for years. When Nextel was purchased, it could have been a moment of salvation for the name Sprint, but in its usual fashion, the company showed it was more style than substance.

Sprint has had a bad habit of puffing about all the wrong things. When the PCS ‘network’ was established, the company made more of the name of service change, and why it was important (it was not), than the fact than the fact that it was in its infancy, and needed time to grow. Instead of stating that under ideal circumstances, the service was better, Sprint chose to make outlandish claims, spread by a corporate face that was a cross between an FBI agent and one of the Men-In-Black. A great deal of light was shone on the phones, and the looks, features, and slickness, with all effort to obfuscate the poor quality of telephone service - ostensibly the primary reason for ownership.

The real news somehow was thrown out the back door, while the hype was troweled on to the folks simple enough to come in the front door. The real news was not glamorous, and certainly not exciting. Things like how very limited the coverage area was, the total lack of service when in many buildings, and how, above all, the service was dependent on radio frequency transmission and reception. From the hype one would have thought the service was using some new and secret technology, developed for NASA astronauts, or brought back from the future, when Marty McFly returned.

Sprint has, from the inception of its wireless service, courted the customer by advertisement, but shunned that same customer when problems arose (and they did) after the sale of the phone, and the signing of the contract. Just a couple of months ago, we heard about the unheard of practice of ‘firing’ its customers, as the company believed that certain people were troublemakers, who had nothing better to do than sit on the phone line, being ignored for long periods of time, and then, after a voice miraculously appears on the line, being abused by what purports to be customer service.

from BetaNews

However, even there Sprint has encountered setbacks. The carrier is known for its generally sub-par customer service, and has experienced a number of network outages. It has also for a long time depended on customers with less than stellar credit, a potentially risky situation.

This has likely at least partially led to Sprint’s current situation. For the quarter, the company lost another 337,000 post-paid customers, in line with its earlier warnings. Overall, the company’s total subscriber base dropped 60,000 to 54 million from the second quarter.

Profits fell from $279 million a year ago to $64 million this quarter. This can be blamed on the average revenue per subscriber — an important measurement of overall health of wireless carriers — falling some three percent to $59. Traditionally, Sprint’s customers have been some of the quickest to spend extra money on added features.

Sprint says it is working on several measures to improve its business, including a simplification of pricing, expansion of its customer care staff, and widening its distribution network.

Sub-par customer service? Understatement is not a strong enough word. Now the poor folks who used to depend on their Motorola iDEN phones for business, have found the company treating them like an annoying insect, to be swatted out of the way.

 this was supposed to be a step forward - ask any Nextel customer what he thinks about that

This company deserves to die an unceremonious death, with no marker on the grave, as the whole experience is best forgotten.

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Tags: sprint, nextel, customer service, pcs, iden