Friday, June 6, 2008

Loyalty

On Monday, I came online to pay some bills.
While attempting to pay my Sprint bill, I lost broadband connection, twice!
After the second lost connection, I was able to finalize payment.
Then I found two payments were authorized.
I called Sprint and was walked through a restart of my broadband.
I was informed that my area here in South Dakota does not have a Sprint broadband tower available, therefore, I am connected by dial up to another provider's tower.
So, they advertise hi-speed data transfer, when in reality it is low-speed dial up.
And there is nothing Sprint can do if the connection is dropped.
Subsequently, I got a customer service rep on the phone and explained to her what had happened.
The rep informed me that she had spoken with her supervisor, and the supervisor was in the process of refunding the payment to my bank account.
Lo, and behold!
Here it is Friday, and neither my Sprint account nor my bank account reflect any refund.
Well, I called customer service again, and was informed by Danielle, that she could find no entry on my account regarding overpayment.
She also promised me that the refund would be processed.
Now, I have had my Sprint account since June of 2000.
All these years I have not had any inkling of wanting to change providers.
Well, now that money is getting tighter; and I review my association with Sprint, I have to admit that Sprint really does not have much in the way of customer loyalty.
My account is set up for 400 minutes, and when I use less than that, I get no credit; however, let me go five minutes over the 400 minutes and I receive an additional charge.
The Marine Corps taught me that loyalty and respect are two way streets.
I'll wait and see if Danielle is successful in getting the refund through, and then I need to really assess whether Sprint's customer loyalty is loyalty at all.

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