It’s Not Companies, It’s People…

Today I had another run in with Sprint and prior to today I would have had a rather rancid rhetoric to spew about the incident but then today something happened that made me see the world a little differently. Today started out like any other day as a Sprint customer. Which is to say it is wonderful so long as you don’t actually have to deal with Sprint at all. But I knew today I was going to have to bite the bullet and dial *2 on my Sprint enabled phone. Ugh, it’s not without trepidation that I ever dial that number. Why? Well it’s not your run of the mill calls that make me resent Sprint customer service. I think for day to day questions they do a very good job. What I do not like about Sprint is that when you need someone to go above and beyond the call of duty (at Sprint) and actually take some initiative it can be very tedious. I’m not sure what the hiring process is like at Sprint but they are not generally looking for service oriented people who have a will to assist customers. Like I said though, that’s an opinion I once had regarding Sprint.

Today though I learned a lesson about Sprint and definitely about business and success. Whether you are a gigantic company like Sprint or a small mom & pop style company like yours truly you have got to have initiative and the needs of your customers have to be important. The kicker here or should I say the hair pin turn that causes most companies to run off the road and crash is that they don’t look for people with initiative who want to over-deliver a solid result to their customers. Maybe I’m wrong though. Maybe it’s not that these companies don’t look for employees with initiative, maybe they do. Maybe they try hard to find them but come on. I mean really how much can your hiring manager do when you are paying the empty position $5.25 an hour right? Okay, okay enough about that and honestly that’s a whole different conversation about what is being done to the American laborer so I’ll shelf that… for now.

So my little voyage began with a simple goal. I say simple goal because in my mind this type of thing shouldn’t be too hard to do. I mean land lines have been doing it for years right? Heck yes! What am I speaking about? Well it’s simple really. All I want is for Sprint to forward any call going to my voice mail to a new number. Geez it shouldn’t be that hard right? I know I’ve written much more complex code than this in fact I’m sure of it. Nanometer code has to be harder but hey… I digress. Ironically Sprint causes me to digress quite a bit but again I digress from my digression. So why would I want to have someone else handle my voice mail? I mean it’s voice mail. Voice mail sucks, you have to pick up your phone, dial your own number go through a mindless process and then listen to some recording. What a waste of my time that is until I ran across this new service http://www.line1com.com/ that will convert your voice mail to text and email it to you and guess what? The voice to text conversion is amazing. I don’t know what they are using but it isn’t Dragon Naturally Speaking I can tell you that for sure. The ability to have my voice mail converted to email and sent to my phone is like manna from heaven. I hate phones, I hate everything about phones. As a developer phones are the anti-developer. Phones cripple your thought process as easy as a falling air craft carrier would crush a pop can. If you write software for a living you hate phones I guarantee it.

So I’ve found my new source of freedom and for $10 a month I can hardly sit still as I sign up for it. They even tell me Sprint supports it. At that point I should have known better I’m surprised Sprint supports smokes signals but somehow you can pick up a Sprint phone, make a call and it works. But don’t ask them to do a whole lot more than that or you will get drug by your nostrils through the weeds and into whatever rubbish heap is closest to their hand. Gosh I’m being kind of harsh eh? Well I’m sorry. Sprint is on my list! That is until today.

Now that I’ve bashed Sprint and really thoroughly conveyed my own sense of derision and revulsion about Sprint as a company I need to do a 360 and confess something. I’m all wrong. There’s nothing wrong with Sprint. It’s a solid service, it works remarkably well and they offer a lot for a very good price. There is nothing wrong with Sprint. But there are people working for Sprint (quite a few of them actually) who simply do not belong there. These people need to go back to their former state jobs and stay there (yeah, I know that was uncalled for). So my opinion has changed and here’s why. You ready? It’s good.

Me: “Hello, I’d like to have my voice mail calls forwarded to a new carrier so they can be dispatched as email.”
Sprint: “Okay, Mr. Winn let me see what I can do. Can I place you on hold for a minute?”
Me: “Yes this would be fine.”
Sprint: {Silence}
Sprint: “Hello Mr. Winn we are not able to forward just your voice mail alone we have to forward all your calls.”
Me: “This isn’t true I know that you are doing what I just asked for other Sprint customers.”
Sprint: “Um. Okay. Mr. Winn let me have you talk to my partner.”
Me: “Okay that would be fine.” (Partner? What you guys have lovers now? What’s up with that?)
Sprint: “Hello Mr. Winn. My name is Connie and I don’t believe this is something we can do but I want to help you so be patient and I’ll investigate this.”
(Now let me tell you here and now that Connie… Was just awesome. She spent 20 minutes trying to find me an answer but she was too low on the food chain to have access to the really good intel on this subject. However Connie was just awesome.)
Sprint: “Hello Mr. Winn, I’m going to forward you on to our advanced technical support and they can assist you further is this okay?”
Me: “Yes absolutely. You’ve been outstanding and I’m more than happy to wait.”
Sprint: “This is advanced technical support and what you want cannot be done.”
Me: “Yes it can be done. Line1Com is doing it for many Sprint customers right now.”
Sprint: “Well I’m sorry Mr. Winn. Legally this cannot be done and they are wrong to have their service doing this.”
Me: “No. I think you are mistaken. Many are doing it and with Sprint’s cooperation. Can you just investigate this and try to help me.”
Sprint: “No. I’m not going to do this. I’m telling you it cannot be done and that’s all there is to it.”
Me: “No, that’s not all there is to it. Sprint is doing it for other customers can you please just ask around and help me. I would like your help.”
Sprint: “I cannot help you. This is not possible there’s nothing more I can do.”
Me: “Yes there is. You can put me on the phone with someone who has initiative, understands customer service and wants to help me.”
Sprint: “I am and I do and you will not get this to work.”
Me: “Our conversation is finished I want to speak with your manager.”
Sprint: “Fine but he’s going to tell you what I just told you.”
Me: “Really? Well let’s let him decide that. Get him on the phone now!”
Sprint: “Hold one moment please Mr. Winn.”
(About 10 minutes passes by and then I’m on the phone with a manager who’s about to open my eyes to the world and what makes it run smoothly and how a lot of people make a lot of money simply by caring, wanting to help and believing their customer is telling them the truth.)
Sprint: “Hello Mr. Winn. I’ve personally looked into this and I think it’s something we can do. Do you mind if I put you back on the phone with Suzy Clueless so you can give her the company name you are working with and the phone number we need to forward your voice mail to. We are going to resolve this for you today.”
Me: “Yes, that would be fine.”

You know how the rest went. So my point in all of this is don’t get mad at companies. It’s not the companies that are causing you grief. The companies do have good people working for them who do want to help you. You must be patient and diligent in your efforts until you reach one that is high enough up in the food chain to assist you.

A true lesson for me. I don’t think I will bad mouth companies as casually as I have in the past. I think instead I’m going to seek hard working, honest people with integrity who want to go home at the end of each day satisfied they have done a good job.

- Rex