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Sprint has just announced that they’ve been recognized as J.D. Power’s 2011 Customer Service Champion in what seems to be a week of accolades for carriers. (T-Mobile was awarded the highest ranking in retail customer saatisfaction – yet again – today.)
It’s a great turn-around for a company who was notorious for bad customer service earlier in the previous decade. It seems most things have taken a turn for the better, though, after Dan Hesse was appointed CEO. Under his direction, we saw the company transform into the serious competitor they are today.
Hesse has stated from the beginning that his number one priority would be to turn that customer service ship around and put it back on its proper path, and with today’s award he can say that he accomplished his goal. Read on for full press details.
Distinction from the voices of Sprint’s most important critics – its customers – comes one week after Sprint announces 12 consecutive quarters of improvement
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (BUSINESS WIRE), February 17, 2011 – Last week Sprint (NYSE: S) announced its 12th consecutive quarter of improvement in customer satisfaction and first call resolution¹. Today, the company was recognized at the J.D. Power and Associates Customer Service Roundtable in Las Vegas as a J.D. Power 2011 Customer Service Champion – one of only 40 companies to have earned this distinction.
Sprint and the other companies recognized as J.D. Power 2011 Customer Service Champions, represent the highest-performing companies that deliver service excellence to U.S. customers – both within their respective industries and across all industries measured.
“We are pleased to receive this distinguished honor and proud of the hard work of our employees in enhancing every customer experience,” said Bob Johnson, chief service officer for Sprint. “These important interactions take place in our stores, on our website or in calls to our care centers. What makes this honor especially gratifying is that we received this distinction directly from our own customers. They recognize the consistency and high quality of service we’re committed to providing. Our steadfast focus is on customer satisfaction and it will continue to be our top priority.”
To receive this elite honor, companies must not only excel within their own industries, but also must stand out among leading brands evaluated by J.D. Power in 20 major industries. J.D. Power evaluated more than 800 brands. Companies were identified based on customer feedback, opinions, and perceptions gathered primarily from J.D. Power’s syndicated research and through supplemental research.
“For three years now, we have said the customer experience is among our company’s top priorities,” said Johnson. “That’s why we’ve invested our time and effort to ensure we’re answering customers’ calls faster, resolving service issues on the first call and eliminating the reasons customers contact us with service issues in the first place. We’ve also focused on offering consumer-friendly services such as Ready Now in our retail stores and pricing plans unmatched by anyone else in the industry that provide both value and simplicity.”
In addition to the J.D. Power and Associates honor today, a recent survey from Vocalabs, which tracks the quality of support customers receive from their providers, noted Sprint as the wireless industry leader in call satisfaction. According to the survey, Sprint leads all national competitors in both call satisfaction and first call resolution, two key metrics in the overall quality of customer service.
¹According to data from Advanis on customers experiencing care from Oct. 1, 2010 through Dec. 31, 2010.
WOW!! That is a Shcoker!! From worst to first!
Damn! I think hell just froze over. o.O
I have to say that I agree with this award. For years Sprint had off-shore customer support…It took elevating a lot of issues to tech support which seemed to be North American based.
From my recent experiences, all customer support is North American based, if not US based. The people have been courteous and helpful and there has not been a need to elevate the call.
Great job Sprint!!!
Regardless of where the customer service is based their customer service still is sub par atleast in my experience. I have been with Sprint for a long time. It definitely has improved but there still more room for improvement. Dan has definitely done a superb job since he has been there. Hope they continue to get newest devices as Big Blue and Big Red seem to be getting a lot of new devices. I wasnt very impressed with their announcement earlier in the month. I was thinking it would be the Xperia Play, even though I wouldnt buy the phone but having a phone like that in the lineup helps tremendously
The damage was done along time ago to these fools by these fools. Who even cares about JD Powers. They carry no weight in these days and times. Go tell that bull to June or Ward Cleaver.
As they add $10 fees to EVERY smartphone plan and take away our yearly upgrades. HOORAH Sprint! :-/
This is truly impressive, seeing as though I left Sprint two years ago mainly because their customer service was horrible. As long as my Tmobile service and their customer service stays at the same level it is at, I don’t care how many awards Sprint gets, as they should have taken care of me, when I was their customer.
I left Sprint about 10 years ago because their service sucked, and from what I hear about them from people I know who have Sprint, the majority of them despise their customer service. I know that they’ve improved over the years, but going from zero to anything is an improvement. I hope they do improve, it helps drive competition. I think the only reason JD Power gave it to them was because Richard sends out thousands of emails in 85% caps frothing at the mouth at how great the EVO is, and how all phones should be EVOs, and the EVOs that are already in existence should be even more EVOish, and we, as human being are blessed to be in the presence of EVOs. They were probably terrified that he may actually show up at the offices that they just gave it to Sprint. Just my thoughts.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Consumer Reports named US Cellular #1 (they have, what? 49 customers?). You guys really shouldn’t read too much into Consumer Reports, JD Power, BBB, etc. You DO realize this, right?
Wow.. they’re providing great customer service with a lack of Samsung Epic Android upgrades..
DJ & Jerry, then who do you guys use to rate customer service? If you aren’t turning to JD Power or Consumer Reports, to inform you of services that you aren’t using, than were do you get your information from? There aren’t many other avenues. Are you going to try out all of the services yourself and report back to us? Third party companies are “generally” the most impartial.
Pooch
This AWARD is well deserved REGARDLESS of every crying about 10.00 added to there bills. Sprint has led the 4g charge from day one and today is the granddaddy of 4g. There htc evo 4g HAS SET THE STANDARD IN THE SMARTPHONE INDUSTRY THAT EVERYONE FOLLOWS TODAY.. YES CES AND MWC was kind of disappointing and I still give PROPS to the htc evo shift 4g. It is no SECRET that SPRINT will have to COME VERY STRONG AT CTIA IN MARCH 2011 AND BETTER INTRODUCE THE NEW HTC EVO 2 4G… OTHERWISE they will LOSE a lot of CURRENT HTC EVO 4G CUSTOMERS for the NEWER devices that were announced at CES AND MWC that will be appearing on other carriers in the next 90 days… THE MARK DEVICE IS THE MOTOROLA ATRIX 4G AND THE SAMSUNG GALAXY S2 AS WELL AS THE LG OPTIMUS 2X OR OPTIMUS 3D these devices are NEXT GENERATION so now SPRINT MUST LEAD THE WAY. Our current evo 4g HELD IT DOWN since June 4th 2010.. NOW THE EVO 2 4G MUST APPEAR FOR SPRINT TO MAINTAIN THERE STANDING… SPRINT RULES ALL CARRIERS TODAY
Actually Pooch, yes, yes I do use other carriers. I’ve been wanting to jump ship from Big Red for awhile because of their pricing, but in my experience, they have the best coverage. I also talk to a lot of people about their service providers and what they think of them for the above stated reason. Should you go by what I say? No! that would be stupid, I’m one person. However, I question their methods. US Cellular was rated as the #1 service provider by Consumer Reports in December 2010. It is easy to have a higher average when your customer base is so small (they serve 26 states, mostly in the South and Midwest). Obviously, Sprint is a much larger company than US Cellular, so the same methods wouldn’t apply. My question is where they did their polling. Was is near a major Sprint coverage area? How many people? How spread apart? *shrugs* The most important thing is: if your carrier is working for you, then stay with it! Don’t fix what isn’t broken.
^ Oh, never mind, it WAS Richard terrorizing JD Power with the evangelical frothing at the mouth and the inbreeding-induced ballistic approach to capitalization like I first mentioned. See what I’m talking about? He’ll probably call me a dweeb or to have sex with waterfowl to help me reinforce what I just stated.
This goes to show that hard work pays off.
….and T-mobilics lose their last excuse. -grin- “Intervention”
i dropped sprint in November because they’re customer service was, in a word, terrible
@Brian This never was one of the reasons why I chose T-mobile. -grin-
I do think Sprint deserves this! I love my phone, and I got good service everywhere and they’ve always been helpful in customer service back when I had my dumb phone
Good for Sprint, its definitely improved for me. If anything, I’ve needed to contact Customer Service much less over the last two years, which to me, “not needing customer service” is the best customer service.
Actually, after I bought a Moto Q from the Sprint website, I had so many problems, one being they sold me a “new” phone with an old batter, I had such horrible service, I vowed to leave Sprint at the end of my contract. Things have been good enough since that I happily upgraded to the Evo last June. My problem was around just after Hesse took over, so in my experience, he’s been a huge boon.
Also, it helps when you have some quality phones too.
@Jerry: willing to bet you’re with Verizon and if they’d won you’ll be bragging. goes to show things can change
Service & customer retention might be improving, but where the hell are my phones!!!?????? Where oh where is Sprints share of all these new and outstanding handsets coming to market? News to CEO… get with the program! The EVO is over a year old, gotta get that going NOW! waiting anymore then you’d better be announcing a dual core Goliath or something to appease all those LOYAL customers in waiting to retire their tired Android phones for some of the new stuff!
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Anyway’s.. Congrats to Sprint, I’ve never been dissatisfied with their CS.
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:)
How many years did they have to suck before they won this award? Oh yeah…they still do suck…way to ruin your name JD Power
*sniff* *sniff* …..
I smell bullshit…..
@bela. Lol. That is exactly why I’m leaving sprint for the atrix on att. Fu©k sprint.
Who ever is voting needs to shop sucking off Sprints cock!!! There service sucks and they do not care about there customers. My uncle has a phone from them and they would not replace it even those they knew it was a manufacture problem with it. They told him they would give him a discount. I mean give me a fucking break!!!
My mom and me have Verizon. After my mom having her phone over a year she went to her local verizon store near her work and they replaced her phone free of charge. I mean if that is not loyalty to your customers I do not know what is. They also transferred all her info to her knew phone.
So how is it that Sprint can win this award again and again and yet people are to blind to see the real truth about them???
Wow, someone obviously dropped the ball on this one. I just left Sprint because of their horrible customer service. Although, if I keep getting crap from Verizon too, I may not be with them more than 1 contract period.
@Brad: for your uncle, next time get a warranty. Was there a problem with your Mom’s phone or did she simply get a new flip dumb phone. try that now since Verizon has all but will make you wait 2 years to get a discount on an upgrade
JD Power’s official site disagrees.
http://goo.gl/524Bg
I wonder if someone got paid :D jk Their customer service has always been terrible from personal experiences. Maybe they are starting to improve.
Is Sprint still using non North American customer support? I left them 4 years ago partly because it was outsourced and sucked completely. At least TMobile’s customer support is friendly, helpful and you can understand them.
I just what to know if Sprint’s services has gotten any faster, Seems slow compared to T-mobile, 4G and all.
Customer service still sucks ass. Sometimes you get a person that speaks English and most times you get a Indian that tries to speak good English but ultimately fails. There phone selection still sucks. I have a Evo and it is almost a year old and it is still their top phone. I’m pissed off because they changed their premier plan so they just screwed many people off with that, if they don’t get any good phones soon people will be defecting including me.
I guess no one at J.D. Power owned a Samsung Moment.
@Brad – Its not like you are educated enough for anyone to take your opinion seriously – with the vulgarity, spelling and grammatical errors. I bet you just complain about everything to anyone who will listen.
They are bringing alot of their services back to the U.S. now. I have worked at differennt call center within Sprint for over a year now and we just keep growing and getting more and more jobs from over seas back into the US
sprint coverage area sucks and I love this one….they dont guarantee signal if you are inside a home. I have problems outside too sprint sucks
Not sure why everyone doesn’t understand, it really just means that they have the least bad customer service. Everyone else is worse.