Sprint Nextel Review

I live in a rural area.  Prior to deciding to get away from the Tracphone I had at the time, I decided to do some homework about which national providers were available and provided decent coverage in our area.  I settled on Sprint because I had tried out the coverage got decent reception.  Also, they were affordable, had free long distance and also offered free home long distance (up to 50 minutes per month).  Due to the fact that I traveled quite frequently at that time to the Arlington Heights IL area I felt Sprint would be the best choice for me.  I went to the local Sprint store and got all set up.

For the first 2 years everything went OK.  I'd never had a need to contact customer service and the only dropped calls I had were due to my location.  18 months ago, I added 2 additional phones to the family plan I already had.  I was told that I could add up to an additional 5 phones at 9.99 each per month. My mom decided it was cheaper to pay me $10 per month then it was to keep her Tracphone and with my daughter driving I wanted to be able to reach her at all times.   

It was the day after Thanksgiving and I decided that we should go right to a Sprint store and not mess around with a kiosk in the local mall.  I knew it would be less busy at the store then the mall.  And I was right, the store was like a ghost town.  We had the stores assistant manager wait on us.  I explained to him that I had the family plan and that I wanted to add 2 additional lines to the plan.  I specifically told him that I didn't want seperate plans but the add-a-line.  I left the store with an uneasy feeling.  The manager had seemed quite distracted while waiting on us and I thought he boardered on being rude. The phone were selected, contract signed and everyone was happy.  I didn't bother to read what he'd given me because I'd been very clear (or so I thought) in my wishes. 

Imagine my surprise in late December when I received my first bill.  I expected to find the activation fees for the 2 new phones and the prorated charges.  I didn't expect to find that my daughters phone would cost me $59.99 and my mom's phone would be the free one under that.  I had covered all of this with Shannon when I explained what I wanted.  I called Sprint and after about 20 minutes on hold was told that the issue had been taken care of.   Again, I thought that all was good.

When the January bill arrived, I started to get really nuts.  The problem hadn't been fixed at all.  I was still paying $59.99 for my daughters monthly phone service instead of the $9.99 like I was supposed to under the family plan.  I called Sprint customer service again.  Another 20+ minute hold and then I finally got a person.  I explained the reason for my call and told "Angela" about my previous phone call and what the promised outcome had been.  Angela started looking and it turns out that the manager hadn't set up the new phone correctly.  (Gee, you think!).  And that the person I had talked to in December didn't do anything to the account.  It turned out that the manager had selected the wrong box and my increased bill was the result.  With the next bill, it was finally fixed and I only had to pay $6 because Angela was able to get me credit for what I had paid and somehow she was able to back date things.  It did take about 20 minutes for her to do everything because she had to "wipe out" what was showing in their system and start from scratch.  I made sure to ask if her doing this would extend my contract.  She noted my account with what had happened and what the correct contract termination should be.  I of course made sure to check just to be safe and Angela had done as she said.  My contract wasn't extened. 

After this, I had no other problems or issues.  So far, I've not had to call Sprint for anything else.  My contract is up in October and I've looked at the other providers and I think I'm stuck due to where we live.  If all of the customer service professionals at Sprint could be like Angela, I know it would make a huge difference in customer satisfaction.  Unless something major happens, I'll be renewing with Sprint in October.