Sprint Takes Customer Service to the Internet

Some companies, believe it or not, are making progress with their customer service. For example, Sprint PCS, a wireless company with 4.7 million clients.

Dana Laine, a Westchester resident, contacted me with a billing complaint against Sprint. Ashley Pindell, manager of the company’s public relations, showed with her answer that the firm is more innovative than most in handling complaints.

At Sprint, it turns out, you don’t have to call customer service repeatedly to find out what has happened to your complaint. You can simply dial in on the company’s Web site and find out after a few days what decision has been made.

That, of course, is assuming that you know how to navigate the Web. And that is one of the issues here: Should Sprint representatives have ascertained Laine’s Internet expertise before adopting this means of dealing with her?

The facts were initially given me in a fax from Laine.

She said her mother, Arlene Peck of Marina del Rey, had left on a month’s trip to Israel after telling Sprint she wished to suspend her $50-a-month wireless service, which came with several hundred free minutes.

The company said, fine, they would stop her monthly fee and put her on the Vacation Plan, charging her $1 a minute for any calls.

When Peck returned home last fall, she called the company and was told she was back on her regular plan.

But in the two months that followed, it turned out there had been a glitch. She was still on the $1-a-minute plan, and her bill on Nov. 24 came to $382.19.

Laine said that her mother had called Sprint customer service and, finally, as she was transferred from one service rep to the next, her blood pressure soaring, gave the phone to Laine.

“I then dealt with them for another hour and a half, being transferred from person to person,” she told me. “Nobody had any authority to give a credit over $25 or $30.

“Finally, I spoke to a representative named Joshua D’ana. He explained to me . . . the only thing we could do is tell him the problem and he would then e-mail that information to some anonymous people who would then decide on the solution.

“Then, seven to 10 days later, we could log on the Web site and find out the result.”

I sent Laine’s account on to Sprint’s Pindell, who soon was back with an answer: Why hadn’t Laine checked with the Web site? It would have shown Sprint had decided to refund the entire amount in dispute.

“There must have been some disconnect,” Pindell said. “Her next bill will show a balance of $104.07, basically two months of her recurring charges of $50 a month. There was a mistake. We don’t have any calls at $1 [a minute] now listed.”

Why hadn’t Laine and Peck learned it from the Web site?

“I went through on the Web thing, but it wasn’t working,” Laine said. “I tried logging on several times, requesting an answer. They said to try back again later. There was something wrong with their Web page.”

But it may be that Laine was inexperienced with the Web. When she checked again after I gave her the news, she was able to confirm it with a little patience.

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To Web experts at Texas-based EDS--where I’ve gone to before for up-to-date evaluations of the Internet scene--the question for Sprint is the extent to which it can afford to rely on its Web site to convey its decisions to customers.

Brad Rucker, director of Internet services for EDS, notes that only 40% of U.S. adults can get to the Net right now.

So, Rucker says, while Sprint may be out front of other companies in using the Web, it needs to assess each customer’s ability with it before deciding how to communicate with that customer.

Or, as EDS spokesman Ken Capps puts it, “Do they want e-mail? Do they want fax? Do they want a phone call? What do they want at that point?”

If Sprint is going to employ the Web, Rucker asserted, then it’s got “to make its Web site easily usable. Their design goal has to be that somebody who’s never seen this before can find what they need the first time.”

In short, Sprint did what Laine and her mother wanted. But it didn’t get the word to them very effectively.

I also talked to another of my favorite experts in both the Internet and wireless worlds, Melissa May of Digevent, an Internet broadcasting firm based in Orange County.

She agreed with EDS: “For people reluctant or resistant to going on the Internet, it seems to me you are required to get them the information some other way.”

But, still, May felt, Sprint is showing a progressive attitude toward customer service.

By using its Web site to notify customers, Sprint is giving them “a way to check their dispute after hours,” and it is being braver than many other companies also, because it is allowing customers to establish “a paper trail” which is a far more definite indication of what a company intends to do than the oral assurances of customer reps.

Some companies won’t go so far, May said, because they think this increases their liability to being sued in disputes, “although customer care documents can probably be brought to court anyway.”

These innovations are worthwhile, she felt, because “customers can go online at their own convenience. The company puts the information up online, and they can retrieve it when they want.

“But you still must be aware of less Internet-savvy customers.”

My own feeling: These are exciting times, as the Internet becomes more a part of all our lives. Firms like Sprint PCS are on the cutting edge, and we can’t be unhappy about that, though they need to take pains to assure that everyone, whatever their access to or competence with new technologies, is brought along.

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Ken Reich can be contacted with your accounts of true consumer adventures at (213) 237-7060 or by e-mail at ken.reich@latimes.com.