Russ wanted a “Simpli phone”, so I picked up a Sprint Treo 650 on craigslist yesterday ($275 including a 128MB memory card; slightly used) and began the long hassle of negotiating my cell phone plan with Sprint PCS.
Rep: “Thank you for calling Sprint PCS. How may I help you?”
Me: “I’d like to add a second phone line to my account.”
Rep: [launches into long reading of how great Sprint's new Fair & Flexible plans are]
Me: [cuts him off] “I’m not interested in signing anything more than a 1-year agreement.” [Fair & Flexible plans require a 2-year agreement.]
Rep: [sounding disappointed] “Are you sure?”
Me: “Yes. What are your prices for 1000 minutes per month?” [quickly hits up Sprint PCS website to see retail prices]
Rep: “We currently offer 1100 minutes for $65.99 a month.”
Me: [notes that this is the same price as shown on the Sprint PCS website] “Now listen here. I’ve been a customer of Sprint PCS for 7 years, and I pay my bill on time every month. I think you can do a little bit better than that.”
Rep: [without missing a beat] “Of course. We have a special plan [snarky Erica note: "special" is defined here as "for the really pushy customers"] of 1000 minutes for $50/month.”
Me: “Great! I’ll take that, then. And it only requires a 1-year agreement?”
Rep: “Yes.”
This phone conversation took 40 minutes.
Morals of the story: 1) Cell phone companies suck. 2) Always negotiate, especially with big companies. You have more power than you think.
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26. April 2006 at 2:05 am
Couldn’t have put it better myself, Erica.
Here is an interesting article about negotiating prices.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1053436055,11035,#haggle
14. May 2006 at 12:10 pm
There actually is no reason to be “pushy”
Retention deals (the department those special prices come from) come to current customers (2 + years) who just ask if there are special deals…
21. May 2006 at 6:14 pm
Mr. Schlinker is dead wrong.
The ONLY way to get anything done with
SPRINT PCS customer disservice is to blast
them and get as pushy as possible to get
PERMISSION to be passed onto the retention
dept. It took me about 6 calls and one final
two hour marathon talk while I was in the
Sprint Store buying a new phone to go with
my contract renewal on the last day of the
contract after 4 years because Sprint’s customer
service is so badly trained and equipt to deal with
long term customers. Then the rep LIED and said I would
get a “new” unpublished Fair & Flexible plan with
3500 minutes a month since the published FFP only went
as high as 2000 and I was already on a Free and Clear
plan for 2500 and was getting robbed at 40 cents a
minute every couple months when I used the phone a lot.
So I need more and they would not help. Finally she
offered the “new” plan. BUT when the first bill came
it revealed her lie and was just another Free & Clear
plan with the 40 cents charge per minute over 3500.
They are the worst customer service on the earth.
philb
25. May 2006 at 6:46 pm
Sounds like you had a bad experience Phil.
Doesnt mean that all experiences with a company are like that. Take a look over on Howardforums.com, the worlds largest mobile phone community, to see that other people appear to have had a different experience than you.
27. July 2006 at 10:51 am
I have a similar story of horrible customer service. http://sprint.screwed.us is where I posted it. (not my site) I’ve never gotten any request filled with them. when I originally signed up for sprint it was because I wanted a treo 600 and they were the only company that had them at the time. it took them 3 months to transfer my number over to them from T-mobile (which has great customer service) sprint has been a huge dissapointment in every way.