I am currently an employee of CONVERGYS Corporation, a contracted call center for Sprint PCS located in North Logan, Utah. This call center handles 80-90% of Sprint PCS Collections department calls. If you've ever had your phone shut off, your calls are rerouted to the collections department. Or if you're late on your bills, you get called and given the phone number 1-800-808-1336 to call, which is straight to collections. First of all, this is only a temp job until I graduate from Utah State University. Like most employees here, I'm just a poor college student trying to pay the bills. Most everyone at some point in their lives works somewhere they just dream of leaving. Mine is now. I can't wait to get out of the enviorment of working with immature 18-25 year old college students, most of whom don't care if they get fired for poor job performance. Not only that, but the employer and client (Sprint PCS) treat their employees like crap, so that the average employee lasts about 3 months before either being fired or quitting. The ones who stick around, like me, are married and have a family to support and since they treat us like crap, they have to pay about $2/hr more than the average job in the community to keep us. Like I said, we all dream of quitting. So, when you're getting poor customer service, just reallize that it's not the typical attitude of the person you're talking to, rather just them passing on the crap that Sprint dumps on it's employees to you, the customer.
I just want to comment on the poor customer service offered by Sprint PCS.
1)"Collections Specialists" are very poorly trained. Well, almost all customer specialists are poorly trained. (personally, I've talked on the phone with someone in the activations department who didn't know how to activate a phone and asked me if I could explain it to them). Training lasts two weeks and half the time, you don't learn anything about how SPCS accounts work, making it difficult to do your job. Training basically consists of:
a) Your job is to take payments.
B) Here's how to process a Credit Card or Check by Phone Payment
c) If the customer asks anything, transfer them to another department (usually Customer Service/Account Services, or if you're really nasty on the phone, you might get transfered to the Spanish Department).
We're not even trained on how to change your plan, give credits to accounts, etc. So even if a credit is due to you, we don't know how to do it (we, meaning most specialists who work here).
2) They 'make' us go through a script each call, which doesn't exactly calm down a customer who has just had their phone shut off. Every time you call in, 'for quality purposes', we have to ask you why your payments are late, even if it's in the notes on your account seven billion times.
And we have to a) ask for your balance in full (even if you've already said you can't pay it today) b) ask why it's late c) ask how much, if anything, you can pay today d) ask if you can pay the minimum to restore your services, and if you say no to all of those, then we have to ask e) When can you pay the balance (a.S.A.P.)?
Just a little note about the whole non-existent "Promise To Pay" idea sprint has put in everyone's head. The option to restore services with just a payment arrangment is only open to those with exceptional credit anyway (meaning you always pay your bills on time), and it has to be within two weeks, you can't have anything past due over 60 days, and you have to have kept all previous payment arrangments.
A Payment arrangment consists of 1) amount to be paid 2) method of payment and 3) date of payment. You may set up a "PTP" (promise to pay) but unless you meet all above conditions, you're phone either will not have service restored or it may be interrupted before your arrangment.
If you think all your calls are recorded, think again. Sprint PCS says 'your call MAY be recorded' which really means they record about 1/100 calls, chances are not yours. And if it is, they're only going to go dig it up and listen to it again if you file legal action requiring it.
3) If you think we 'noted' your account as to what happened, think again. If we even note the account at all, here is a sample of what an account note looks like.
CCi; bal=$153.23; ed $5 fee; set ptp $50 3/15/02 spcs machine (3/17); rfd=grandma died; cust a/u at phone shut off without notice; xfered to cas; billing questions
Explanation-Customer called in. I told them the balance was $153.23. They couldn't pay, so I set up payment arrangments for $50 to be paid on 3/15 in the payment machine. (I hate this Job) reason why payments have been late, they had a death in the family, but we shut the phone off anyways. (I hate this Job) Customer was angry/upset that we shut their phone off without written notification. (I hate this Job) I told the customer that the Terms and Conditions say we can do whatever we want and don't have to care about the customer. (I hate this job) Transfered to customer service because I didn't want to listen to them anymore.
Sprint Sucks.
If you're going to not be able to pay your bill for 2-3 monts, don't expect sypathy from SPrint PCS. They don't care. If it's late, it's late, they turn off your phone. Just cancel, but before getting another cell phone, request to read the Terms and Conditions of Service in full before signing up with anyone else. (They're usually about 4-10 pages long, and usually say something in them like "Sprint PCS reserves the right to interrupt your service at any time for any reason and is not liable for poor service due to weather, climate, buildings, rocks, cats, dogs, or anything else that exists in the world besides money, which you so stupidly agreed to pay to us for nothing in return" or "By using the service, you agree to these terms and conditions, whether you have access to them or not" or "Cancelling before your one-year agreement (which you never agreed to), will result in a $150 charge for liquidated damages.
Well, that's enough for today on ranting on Sprint PCS.
John
Logan, Utah
Sprint
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