Mail from Favorite {fvrit} Blog:
Date: June 18, 2008
Sender: MARTY T.
Email: {REDACTED}
IP Address: {REDACTED}
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CAN YOU HELP ME GET A LETTER TO DAN HESSE. WHAT A JOKE THIS COMPANY IS...WAIT TIL YOU HEAR MY LETTER...PLEASE READ:


Dear Mr. Hesse,

I have been working in the wireless industry for over 15 years now. I have worked for all the big providers and I became very knowledgeable about the competition before I made my move over to Nextel about 7 years ago. Of course I was there to lead customers through the merger with Sprint and my job changed drastically at that time. At one time I was the number one sales representative in the country and Nextel even rewarded with me with a brand new car a few years ago for my performance. But since the merger, I have become a customer Retention rep. The merger was challenging for my Nextel accounts and it has continued to be a sore subject with the Nextel Business customer. However I led them through it without losing too many of them. As a matter of fact I was able to save nearly 700 Business Accounts (over 6000 lines) from leaving over the last 4 years. Today I manage over 475 Business accounts in the Baltimore/DC area. Some of these accounts have nearly 400 phones on them. Some are smaller accounts with 50 or less. Most are accounts with 100+ phones.

I have read every article that has been written about you and your huge challenge to turn this company around. They say your first priority is to improve the horrendous customer service that Sprint has offered for the last few years. I have read so many negative comments from customers at the end of each article as well as comments on other blogs and web sites out there, all condemning Sprint for every reason you can thing of.

I thought it might be refreshing for you to read some recent actual letters from over 200 of my large Business accounts or at least a true sampling of them. I would be glad to send them to you so that you can get a true feeling of how unhappy a customer was until I began managing their accounts. You will read how at one time they were just minutes away from leaving Sprint until they heard about me and I could possible help them, You will read how satisfied they are now that they have someone to go to for everything. You will read how neglected and abandoned they felt before they began a relationship with me. You see, I believe you don't have as many dissatisfied customers as you think. You have neglected accounts...you have business customers that feel that no one cares about them. And when you help them even in the smallest way they become a satisfied and loyal customer. I know because I inherited those 475 neglected accounts. I did not go looking for them. They found me. And it started with only a few neglected accounts. The others all came in when people started hearing about how much I cared for Nextel Business Customers.

I have all these letters that tell how much they hated Sprint and how unhappy they were. Many talk about why they were so unhappy. Others talk about how they were prepared to go to Verizon the day before they met with me. All of them talk about what a difference I made and why they stayed with Sprint from that point on.

You are probably wondering why I might have this many letters from my accounts that I am willing to share with you. I have them because the word is out that I have been asked to leave my position at Sprint last Friday. It did not take very long for these emails to come in, sometimes 20 at a time. They are writing to an email address that was set up for them to write their comments about the situation. They have also been told that you may want to review their letters.

I work for a third party dealer in Baltimore called {COMPANY NAME REDACTED}. Before that I worked for another dealer. About three years ago, the month after I was awarded a brand new car from Sprint, my employer was asked to release me. They were very vague in that they felt I was too "pro-customer" and not what Sprint wanted in their organization. I was told at the time that I had to stop lowering bills for customers as it was effecting the RPU. I was told that I was asking for far too many concessions or credits in an effort to save accounts and that I should just sell phones and let customer service worry about saving them. They said that Customer care is trained to save accounts and that I should stop.

My employer decided not to release me until a year later when these same managers threatened him if he didn't. They told him they would not renew his license if he did not part ways with me. They did everything possible to persuade him even to the point of making up an account that was disgruntled over something they said I did. That was never proven but I lost my job anyway. Later this employer wanted me back as some of these people had left the market and he admitted that he was actually paid to let me go. Or he was relieved of some type of penalty that he owed to Sprint.

It took me two days to go to work for a larger dealer in the market. My reputation was good and I had 350 large accounts who wanted to follow me wherever I went. That is when {COMPANY NAME REDACTED} asked me to bring them to his dealership. Needless to say, my customers were relieved that I had found a new home and that I would continue to service their accounts. But these same area managers were shocked and did everything possible to persuade him not to hire me. They tried very hard to scare him by telling so many untruths and making up stories of fraud and theft. But he stood strong on bringing me into his organization after calling every single customer that was coming with me and checking with other sources to realize that this group of people were trying to railroad me.

At that time, he was losing an enoromous amount of business customers and he asked me to manage my accounts but be on the look out for companies that came into his stores with concerns and/or questions about canceling their service with Sprint. I started getting so many referrals from my own accounts and from Business accounts that were walking into his 9 store locations. I became his own Retention rep and we hired an assistant to help me with so many that I needed to turn around.

About that time we were all sent out a notice that a new team would be put in place called the PORT OUT PREVENTION TEAM. We were told to contact this group if we had customers that wanted to leave Sprint and we needed help in trying to save them. This was perfect as I was getting an average of 3 or 4 business customers a day like this. With this team I had a 95% save ratio. The reps were wonderful in that sometimes it took just listening and doing some simple adjustments to make them happy. Other times there were major issues and overages on their accounts or coverage issues. Nonetheless, we saved them each time and renewed them for another two years with a promise that I would continue to manage their account for them.

After about a year I got a call from a Manager in the PORT OUT TEAM telling me that he would assign one rep to help me with so many accounts that were coming in and I began to work with this one rep for all of the accounts that would continue to contact me. He was excellent in dealing with them and putting their fears to rest. I would email him or call him and introduce him to the account that wanted to leave. He would help me persuade the customer to wait until we came up with a solution to the issues and give us a chance to resolve them. I would then submit a POP ticket and he would satisfy the account with whatever it took. He would then send out an E contract to the customer that would tell them that he would credit the account or make any of the adjustments they wanted in exchange for staying with us for another two years. The customer would then accept the offer and return the E contract.

Once he would issue a credit to the account or add service such as free mobile to mobile or text messaging, etc. , I would then step in and do a full bill analysis and correct any issues on their account. I would put them on the most cost effective plans and that would make them happy. Then I would persuade them to take any money that this POP rep gave them and give it back to Sprint in the way of upgrading and replacing their old equipment. I would then introduced them to data and to GPS tracking and Nextmail and other applications that would improve their business relationship with Sprint and see that this company can be of great value to them.

Everytime the account walked away satisfied. They had issues and overages taken care of. The coverage issues were resolved as I would upgrade them to the new Hybrids so they would have new equipment going forward. They would have a lowered bill each month. But most important they would have someone who cared about them and talked to them on a regular basis and continued to help them with everything they needed. They were satisfied and once again a loyal customer.

I have done this for the last two years and currently manage all those accounts that were ready to walk away from Sprint. That is until Friday when this same group of managers called the owner of {COMPANY NAME REDACTED} and told him that if he did not let me go while they do some bogus investigation of my work, he would lose his dealership and could no longer sell Sprint. Sound familiar? Here is the irony:

The dealership I worked with before has been begging me to come back and work for him for a solid two years as he says this was all a set up. He admitted that far too many people at Sprint do not like me because of what I do and how successful I am and that they constantly look for anything that may look like I am doing something wrong. He admitted that they will come up with a disgruntled customer somewhere that says I may have done something wrong regardless if I have 400 others that say I do everything right. He said he had made a big mistake by letting me go and know that he should have backed me and the truth would have come out. He says I have far too many enemies at Sprint to ever not watch my back as they are always on the lookout for any ways that they can get me out.

Apparently they are trying to do this again. They told my boss to let me go while they investigated some things. They refused to give specifics but did say they found a disgruntled account. When he said that my customers are happy and he would not let me go based on one customer, they told him that they might even have some fraud and some theft that was being investigated and they would get back to him. They told him that they could not tell him how to run his business or what to do but they would not be suprized if he did not get any farther assistance for anything unless he let me go. He asked me to take a few days until he could reach someone to help us. This has been since last Friday and no one seems to be in any hurry to get any information to him. They said they would call a meeting with him and I on Monday and this did not happen. Then it was scheduled for today and that did not happen. The people who have been involved in this constant pushing to get me out are:

{NAME REDACTED}....IAE who constantly feeds incorrect information to {NAME REDACTED} who stays out of the picture as much as possible and just gives them the orders to get rid of me if I am a problem.

Her boss....{NAME REDACTED}

{NAME REDACTED} who is back in the picture after seeing to it that I was ousted the last time.

Please Mr. Hesse, help me get my job back. Help me stop these false investigations and false allegations in an effort to get me out of the Sprint organization. I cannot afford to be without an income as I am the sole provider for two people and they count on me to take care of them. This is unfair to me and also to Sprint and so many customers. These politics are so unnecessary and this misplaced use of power is creating such a hardship for me and my accounts as well as for {COMPANY NAME REDACTED}. I can stop and go on to work for Verizon again in a heartbeat and all of my accounts will follow...but I am still in love with the push to talk button and all the other things that help our business accounts like Data and tracking, etc.

They say that they have one disgruntled customer that is making some claims against me. I have 400 that will gladly tell you that they will not stay if I leave. I am a true asset to Sprint in that I truley understand what it takes to save these accounts from leaving us and going to Verizon or other providers. While these people think I have cost Sprint too much money in trying to save accounts by lowering their bills or crediting their accounts.....no one is stopping to think of how much these customers are worth in the long run when they are happy again.

I would appreciate anything you can do to help me. I am caught up in some serious politics here and need the highest power to help me right now. Please do what you can do to make this stop once and for all.

Marty T.