Ampers & Dot

By nature I am a pretty crazy mobile device enthusiast. I can name and detail more cell phone acronyms than just about anyone (CDMA, EVDO, GSM, HSDPA, HSUPA… I can do that for hours).  I can even explain to you the difference between 1G, 2G, 3G, 3.5G, and 4G data speeds and who they related to the 700mhz spectrum.

What I can’t explain is how the hell Sprint lost 1,090,000 customers in Q1 this year.  That’s about 12,000 unhappy customers a DAY.  That’s horrendous.  As someone who has switched cell providers only once ever (with Verizon for nearly a decade (Cellular One, which rolled into Verizon) of dissatisfaction before jumping ship to ATT (Cingular, which rolled into ATT) and have actually been surprised at the relatively positive service), I can only say that losing 1.09m customers in three months is truly amazing.

What went wrong?  According to the comments in the post I linked up there… a lot went wrong.  There are 75+ comments running on that thread and nearly every one of them is negative.  Although there isn’t one overwhelmingly strong central theme- people just don’t like Sprint.

For a long time I’ve been quasi-active on a few gadget forums and one of my strongest memories of one of my favorite communities, PDAphonehome.com, is the amount of conversation around Sprint and the PPC6600.  Looking at the 6600 threads you’ll notice that two of the top three most popular threads are about Sprint promising an update for a phone… and then not delivering. Over 2,000 replies and over 160,000 views of people pissed off at Sprint. And on the thread for Sprint’s updated model, the 6700, there’s an open thread with nearly 1,000 replies and almost 300,000 views about Sprint dropping the ball again.

Ok, so that’s enough with the boring phone stuff- let me finally get to my point in all this: social media is killing Sprint.  In the old days, way back when modems dialed numbers and eBay was still a legitimate website, the ability to discuss your dissatisfaction for something was relatively limited.  While now, when my phone connects over 83 times faster than my first modem and eBay is like craigslist mixed with a Nigerian email scam, spreading your unhappiness about a company is easier than ever.

Jumping online to rant about something is not only possible, but you’ll find a community that shares a similar distaste.  These communities enable dissatisfied customers’ hate to brew- by hearing other stories people get even more riled up and unhappy.

This wasn’t originally where I expected this post to go, but what I’m getting at is that Sprint has always sucked.  It’s just hit the tipping point where people no longer care to hold it inside.  And once they see how annoyed everyone else is, it makes it easier than ever to give up.

And not to fan the flame or anything, but should you be similarly unhappy with Sprint, like 1.09m others, check out this forum thread on how to get out of your Sprint contract.

Sorry Sprint, it’s nothing personal- but while reading PDAPhoneHome forums I met a lot of unhappy people- and I sympathize enough to be unhappy too.  It’s time for to utilize social media to fix your reputation and get your customers back.  Also, while you’re at it: roll out WiMax already.  No more delays, ok?