Sprint -- Fire Me (Please!)

Sprint deciding to 'fire' its customers who request too much tech support got me thinking. Wow, maybe I'm a candidate for being 'fired'. I'd like that.

It didn't used to be this way. Companies used to want me as a customer. I paid my bills. I showed up early to the airport. I didn't lose my phone or scratch my rent-a-car.

But in the last few months I've noticed a change.

I'm sure it's been going on for a lot longer -- but somehow it all just came to a head.

Sprint. Hertz. American Airlines. They all want me to fire them. Or at least, they figure I'm pretty much stuck with them. And frankly -- they may be right.

But let me start at the beginning.

I've got a cell phone. And as crazy as this sounds, I wanted to add more services to my account. I wanted new phone for my wife, and I wanted an EVDO card for my computer. So I called Sprint. Somehow, it took 2 hours on the phone (first with my relationship manager, then with 'tele-sales'). Ok, fine.

But when my new card arrived 2 weeks later, it was for a PC (I've got a mac) and my wife's phone had a new number. When i called to ask to send back the card that didn't work, and to put my wife's number on her phone I was told: "I'm sorry sir, but that's not possible, you bought an additional line for her." We'll I know better to yell at the poor folks on the phone, but when I tried to explain that my wife had a number, and didn't need a new one, and i needed a card that would work with my computer -- thinks got heated. (the 'relationship manager' explained to me that that 'tele-sales often 'slams' a new number since they get credited with a new customer, rather than just a replacement phone.) I pointed out that lying was probably a pretty bad way to keep customers.

Weeks later -- a new EVDO card came. It too was for a PC. And the bill came too -- $900.00 for the month. It seems I'd been charged for both my wife's phone (twice) and for 2 cards. And they were going to shut off my account if I didn't pay $900 within 7 days.

Ok -- you get the point. They made a mistake. I spent hours on the phone trying to correct it. And I got a bill. My time, well, it wasn't worth anything. in fact -- wasting it was good idea for them.

So when I heard that Sprint was firing customers who called support too often, I had a glimmer of hope. Heck, I'd clocked almost 30 hours on the phone with sprint last month -- maybe they would fire me. Alas, no luck.

But Hertz, that's a different story. They're playing a game of 'chicken' with me every time I show up at the rental counter.

I travel a lot, and I've become a pretty big fan of GPS as a stress reliever. So I've ended up shifting from Avis to Hertz who has a good GPS system called neverlost. (Avis has a system but it requires you to call an operator and tell them were you're going and it's kind of clunky).

But the last bunch of times I've rented from Hertz I've noticed something weird. Each time I show up there's a moment where they say "Oh, GPS, let me see if we have one." Then the rep goes in back and comes out -- and says "it will take a few minutes". Then, after cooling my heals for about 10 min, they say -- "listen, i have one, but it's in a nicer car... I can give you a 'deal' on it." From there they try and upsell me from the 74$ a day car to a $115 a day 'nicer' car. Each time I've said no, and then there's been a bit of a game of chicken as to who will blink first, me with my credit card, or them with the car i actually booked.

So -- i mentioned this to a friend of mine the other day and found out the truth.

Hertz allows it's sales reps to set whatever price they want above the set minimum for the car. They can 'hustle' and they do it with a series of upsells and tricks based on what they think you're tolerance for a bit of a financial bump is. Clearly they see a business travel with a corp credit card, and figure they can get an additional $25 a day. BTW, my friend says they compensate their reps based on sales volume, so there's a powerful incentive to get folks to kick in for the 'nicer' car. On one hand, I get sales. But when you book a car on line, and get a rate and a reservation, you don't respect you're going to have to play chicken at the counter with a person that's holding your car hostage. Since i often travel cross country, the Car rental counter is the only thing between me and a hotel room bed. It's not a fair fight.

I wonder if Hertz knows how unpleasant it is for customers to be 'hustled?". Probably most frequent business travelers signup for their Gold Customer program (whatever it's called) so they skip the desk and go straight to their car. The idea is that frequent renters don't have to be 'hustled' because they make it up on volume. I've never signed up for the frequent renter program at Hertz (called #1 Club) because i didn't really want to have to pay them the $50 a year for the privilege of not being treated badly. But now, heck, maybe it's worth it to get labeled 'Do Not Hustle this Guy".

And then there's air travel. You've read the horror stories in the papers. Stranded flights, customers with no where to turn. Well, it's kind of standard operating practice these days.

I was in Miami last week, heading home. The flight was scheduled for 6pm on American Airlines. At 6:30 they canceled the flight, and ALL flights into New York. "Weather" they said. Hmm... let's see New York is shut down for the next entire night because of weather. Must be bad. I called home. Nope. No weather. I went back to the gate. I mentioned this -- they said that it was 'rolling in.' Ok, i called Continental. They were still flying into New York. Same with Delta. Same with a bunch of airlines. But not American. Why?

Well, a ticket agent confided in me, they had too many crews out of position and they just couldn't get it sorted out. But if they admitted that, they'd have to shell out for hotels and such, this way - with weather to blame, they could stick me and all my fellow travelers with the bill. Makes sense, if you don't care about having me as a customer i suggested. "Nahh" the counter guy said, that was old news. I'd fly them again if i needed to, and they'd take my money. Loyalty, that was long gone. So, i switched to Delta -- and was out at 9:30, and landed in clear skies in NYC with a bill for $349 for a last minute ticket. American was happy to refund me the 89$ for their ticket, but the balance, well -- that was my problem. Oh, and American lost my luggage for about a week too. Compensation for that pleasure and the subsequent zillion phone calls -- 0$

It seems that all these companies have figured out that time equals money. And if they can waste yours, either by just not providing the service your ordered (a mac compatible card for my mac, a car with GPS for my rental) then at some point I'll either fork over more dough to get it right, or I'll sign up for their 'premium' customer service where they can charge me 50$ or 75$ a year for the privilege of not being endlessly up-sold.

It's exhausting spending hours trying to do things that used to be easy. Getting your phone replaced, getting a car rented, flying home. But I'm pretty sure that things aren't going to change. It seems like the handful of companies that are left in these critical services all know that there's no real choice among them. Price, service, or features. So they seem more than willing to almost dare you to cancel your service. When I told Sprint that they'd need to help me get the $900 off my bill for the gear that i didn't keep that didn't work -- they jumped to cancel my account so fast i had to remind them that i wasn't trying to skip out on a bill, but rather just get the credit for the returned gear credited to my account.

So, I've got an idea.

I'm going to start recording all my calls, and even record my counter interactions with Hertz. When they ask why I'll say: "I'm recording this for training purposes and to assure customer satisfaction."

I think that should get a chuckle.

What do you think?