It Could Be Worse…
Hoping that this doesn’t qualify as beating a dead horse, I’d like to offer a different angle to the Sprint-Nextel customer firing saga. Judging by what we’ve written about the story and the responses from people to previous blog postings, there’s a majority who think the company was justified in letting the 1,000 chronic complainers go. Most people said it was better to cut off a small, unprofitable few to benefit the many. I agree with that principle, but I’d like to offer another possible explanation for the firings that is less customer-centric.
What got me thinking about this was a YouTube video called “It could be worse” that I watched from Despair.com, a company that satirizes corporate life. For those readers who don’t want to watch the clip, here’s a summary of the “motivational” video:
-Employees at a call center are complaining about old equipment, faulty headsets, working conditions in general
-Executive ignores complaints and says he has great system to stop them “whether or not they’re legitimate”
-Said executive leaves a brochure on the lunchroom table for a company that creates outsourced call centers
-Employees read brochure and are so fearful for their jobs they forget all about the other problems
Now what does this have to do with Sprint-Nextel? It’s possible the press coverage of the 1,000 fired customers will have the same effect on subscribers that the brochure had on employees. I’m not accusing the company of sacrificing 1,000 people as an example to show everyone else what happens if you complain, but couldn’t that be the psychological effect, unintended or not?
A small discrepancy on a bill may seem like a minor problem when you can call, complain and have it resolved, but you may think twice if that call could mean you’ll be terminated. The same goes with service interruptions, hardware malfunctions, and coverage concerns. Some people have said that’s what the 1,000 customers wanted, to be let go so they could get out of their contracts without paying a termination fee. Maybe.
And maybe those customers’ problems were large enough to warrant extreme measures. For everyone else, though, is complaining worth the risk of finding a new carrier, buying a new phone, switching over an address book, possibly disrupting a family plan, and hoping a new provider has coverage where they live, work, and play?
Am I going too far out on a limb with the suggestion people will now think twice before calling for service? I don’t know, but I think before making a complaint, some customers will start asking themselves, “could it be worse?”
