The Phone Saga Continues
I wrote in August about my phone saga. What I didn’t know at the time I wrote that post is that the new phone I was getting was a Nextel phone and even though they are on a the same network as Sprint, they work very differently. That means that most Sprint tech support folks, even though they were incredibly nice and tried really, really hard to be helpful, knew nothing about the phone or its problems. Some of them couldn’t even understand the problems since Sprint phones don’t have SIM cards and Nextel phones do.
I wrote that post on August 2nd. If you go to my Sunday evening post from August 14, you’ll find that I finally got my phone working that weekend.
And guess what- we’re back to a phone saga. The battery is dying. Just this week, it decided that it could hold a charge for about 11 hours, and that was it. Now, that mostly means that when I’m home, it’s plugged in. It’s still working, but now we need to buy a new battery for it.
We might also need to buy a new battery for C’s phone. It also seemed to lose its charge really quickly earlier this week, but then he spent 3 days with it turned off, so I’m not certain. It’s almost like an EMP hit our phones and nothing else.
Anyway, now I’ve got to start looking for phone batteries.
I wasn't a reader back then but I know that the entire business of Sprint and Nextel becoming one company but never doing a single thing to actually make themselves that way to their customers is very frustrating. I go into a store and see phones still designated as Sprint or Nextel only and I can't believe that they have been a single company for, what, six or seven years? It boggles my mind.
The hardest part was, a lot of people knew a little bit. It wasn't until the last guy we talked to that he actually fully understood the Nextel phone. Prior to that, each person had been able to give us one more step in the process, but they didn't know there were more steps in the process.
I do think that if the phones are so different, they should have seperate Sprint and Nextel tech support, or at least when I get on and say I have a Nextel phone, the person should say "Let me transfer you to one of our Nextel experts".
I wish it was better at Verizon. I walked into their store while on the phone with my sister who was in the hospital. I asked "what did the doctor say" when the sales woman said, "can I help you?" I looked at her and said into my phone, "when is the surgery going to be?" The woman huffed and rolled her eyes. When I told my sister I'd have to hang up, she said rudely, "How can I help you?" I said, "I would like to upgrade my phone." She said, "you'll have to go online." I said, "I went online and I didn't understand what to do." She said, "I can't help you there. You'll have to go online." I said, "Are you listening to me? I didn't know what to do online and thought I could do it here." She said, "We don't do upgrades here. Go to the website and look up the telephone number and call them." I said, "While I'm online, I'll look up the number for AT&T or TMobile, too." I don't think she got it.
My customer service was excellent. I've never actually had problems with any of the Sprint staff I've worked with- on the phone or in the store. It's that Sprint doesn't train their staff on Nextel phones.
One of the first people who helped us called us back about 30 minutes after we'd gotten off the phone with them with one more idea of how to fix it. Everyone we talked to was frustrated that not only couldn't they help us fix the problem but also that they didn't have a resource to direct us to. We really just got lucky that we eventually got a guy who knew Nextel phones.
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You have given me another reason why I do not miss having a cell phone.
That sucks about the phones! We have virgin mobile; I pay $15.75 every THREE months to keep my vintage flip phone working and the Mr. pays $26.75 a month for his 3G unlimited data/text/talk plan. I occasionally have phone envy, but I would much rather use an actual computer keyboard than a teeny little phone screen.
We both have old flip phones. No smart phones or data plans for us. I'd rather not be able to be online at all times.