Marcelo Claure, Town Hall Meetings, New Family Share Pack Plan, Unlimited Individual Plan, Discussion Thread

[jroepcke51]

You slept though everything. Mr. Rip Van Webster Groves.

 

The Cardinals somehow won the World Series in April.

 

The Rams are headed back to the Dome.

 

Ferguson is crime free.

 

And Sprint misused a customer's "ghetto" comment about T-Mobile.

 

 

AJ

I died!

[WiWavelength]

I died!

 

I hope you died of laughter.

 

AJ

[WiWavelength]

I died!

 

Or you died of dysentery.

 

 

AJ

[nexgencpu]

Im assuming by this tweet its safe to say Sprint will definitely have postpaid net adds this quarter..

 

https://twitter.com/NeeNeeSprint/status/720469425976184832

[RedSpark]

Another miscalculated move. Agree they should try to move on. Can the whole series from the listening tour and start over.

 

I think Marcelo would benefit just as much from doing a listening tour to his retail stores, web team, and social media/PR team.

 

He should go to the top performing stores in regions to learn what works... and the lowest performing stores to learn what doesn't. And if changes need to be made in personnel, procedure, whatever.... make them within 24 hours.

 

At the risk of repeating myself, have him use one of the in-store sales terminals. Have him convince a customer to get TEP. All these things that work in theory in the boardroom or cubicle, he needs to experience them on the ground.

[JeffDTD]

Im assuming by this tweet its safe to say Sprint will definitely have postpaid net adds this quarter..

 

https://twitter.com/NeeNeeSprint/status/720469425976184832

Nice. And what will Muppet and co say when Sprint announces net adds? Sometimes I think the narrative of impending bankruptcy has more to do with certain critics dreaming about sprint's best spectrum/network assets being acquired by more favored competitors than it does actual hatred of the company.

 

If the kerfuffle about the G word continues, it will be part of a larger narrative much the same. Many people see both sprint and tmo as subpar. They are both often embraced by the budget minded community. Marcelo's desire to "do something more genuine" or to be more authentic by traveling and sitting down with customers is by no means a "giant failure" because of a blunder in a 30 second piece. I personally hope they continue releasing videos of customer comments, perhaps ones that are thorny on sprint. Let him answer - its an incredible opportunity for the ceo to reset expectations about the future of the network

[payturr]

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/sprint-taking-wait-and-see-approach-5g/2016-04-13

 

Well, I don't like this. While 200MHz of 2.5GHz is solid, it's not entirely nationwide. Furthermore, some of the others have 1GHz of EHF spectrum, and are prepped to kick off testing. They need to stop messing around & deliver because all the public cares about is sheer speed, reliability, & availability.

[RedSpark]

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/sprint-taking-wait-and-see-approach-5g/2016-04-13

 

Well, I don't like this. While 200MHz of 2.5GHz is solid, it's not entirely nationwide. Furthermore, some of the others have 1GHz of EHF spectrum, and are prepped to kick off testing. They need to stop messing around & deliver because all the public cares about is sheer speed, reliability, & availability.

 

I don't think Sprint wants to share its playbook, but I'm convinced Sprint will be doing some interesting things with unlicensed spectrum.

 

Have a look at this related article in which Jay Bluhm, VP of network planning at Sprint says unlicensed spectrum is "critical":

 

 

Perhaps more interesting was the discussion on the use of unlicensed spectrum, with Bluhm noting unlicensed was “critical” for Sprint, though not for the reasons it might be for other operators.

 

“We don’t have a need from a capacity perspective,” Bluhm said, adding the biggest challenge was to find a way to deploy services over unlicensed spectrum that continued to meet the quality of service expectations of cellular customers.

 

[payturr]

I don't think Sprint wants to share its playbook, but I'm convinced Sprint will be doing some interesting things with unlicensed spectrum.

 

Have a look at this related article in which Jay Bluhm, VP of network planning at Sprint says unlicensed spectrum is "critical":

It's weird because it's Bluhm in the article I linked saying they're gonna "wait and see".

 

I don't think they should disclose all details, but transparency about testing should be out in the open. 5G is access to new markets in the future, and gives carriers greater opportunity to generate revenue than LTE allows today. I really hope they got some good things in the works!

[Fraydog]

Like a lot of things in life some are lucky and others are not. T-Mobile has had lady luck on their side from the very beginning of there LTE deployment. Sprint not picking up Metro pcs, T-Mobile getting massive free cash from ATT to fund a ton of there stuff. Put that together with perfect gen-x marketing and a decent deployment (I won't give them all the credit because of the fact that fiber was already there and made their job exponentially easier) add to that a huge number of Sprint defectors due to NV.

 

It's easy to see why T-Mobile has been riding so high.

A small public service announcent. Deutsche Telekom received the cash at the termination of the AT&T merger attempt. That went to pay off debt in Germany. That didn't stay in the US.

 

Not sure how that keeps floating out there, but it is in both AT&T and DT press releases.

 

 

 

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

[RedSpark]

It's weird because it's Bluhm in the article I linked saying they're gonna "wait and see".

 

I don't think they should disclose all details, but transparency about testing should be out in the open. 5G is access to new markets in the future, and gives carriers greater opportunity to generate revenue than LTE allows today. I really hope they got some good things in the works!

 

I agree. Sprint is building a 5G network architecture, but they don't want to call it 5G yet for some reason. Tarek Robbiati made it very clear that they're building for 5G, not 4G. LTE Advanced has much more runway to offer Sprint than other carriers, especially with how it can scale to 3xCA, 4xCA and 5xCA.

 

I don't think the "Wait and See" really changes anything on the ground. It's still happening, whether it's called 5G or not.

[bigsnake49]

I agree. Sprint is building a 5G network architecture, but they don't want to call it 5G yet for some reason. Tarek Robbiati made it very clear that they're building for 5G, not 4G. LTE Advanced has much more runway to offer Sprint than other carriers, especially with how it can scale to 3xCA, 4xCA and 5xCA.

 

I don't think the "Wait and See" really changes anything on the ground. It's still happening, whether it's called 5G or not.

 

I think that Sprint will probably stop at 3xCA and then you might see 2 chains of 3xCA. I'm pretty sure that's probably due to handset limitations.

[Fraydog]

I agree. Sprint is building a 5G network architecture, but they don't want to call it 5G yet for some reason. Tarek Robbiati made it very clear that they're building for 5G, not 4G. LTE Advanced has much more runway to offer Sprint than other carriers, especially with how it can scale to 3xCA, 4xCA and 5xCA.

 

I don't think the "Wait and See" really changes anything on the ground. It's still happening, whether it's called 5G or not.

The way 5G is going to work, Sprint will need to use far more spectrum than even they have. It isn't by accident that a lot of the 5th generation research is in the MmWave and CmWave regions of spectrum. That's going to take a rethink of radio interfaces and far greater cell density than before.

 

I'm just starting to do research on 5G standards are and where this is going. That said, Sprint has bigger fish to fry than 5G at the current time. Survival would be first on the agenda.

 

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

[GoBigRed79]

I think Marcelo would benefit just as much from doing a listening tour to his retail stores, web team, and social media/PR team.

 

He should go to the top performing stores in regions to learn what works... and the lowest performing stores to learn what doesn't. And if changes need to be made in personnel, procedure, whatever.... make them within 24 hours.

 

At the risk of repeating myself, have him use one of the in-store sales terminals. Have him convince a customer to get TEP. All these things that work in theory in the boardroom or cubicle, he needs to experience them on the ground.

 

Right after I graduated from College I worked in the CS call center for a financial company for a while.  One thing I always thought was impressive was that every so often the CEO of the company would come around and talk to us and then get on the phones and take calls from customers for an hour.  Also on days when we would be getting slammed with calls it was not uncommon for senior managers and directors to come out of their offices and jump on the phones to take calls.  That type of stuff always impressed me.  And I know some direct changes came about based on our CEO's experiences taking calls. 

[JThorson]

I think Marcelo would benefit just as much from doing a listening tour to his retail stores, web team, and social media/PR team.

 

 He should hire me.... oh and a few others here to help give him direct thoughts and experiences regarding Sprint. Maybe we can set up a conference call with him. Who's in?

[jreuschl]

I agree. Sprint is building a 5G network architecture, but they don't want to call it 5G yet for some reason. Tarek Robbiati made it very clear that they're building for 5G, not 4G. LTE Advanced has much more runway to offer Sprint than other carriers, especially with how it can scale to 3xCA, 4xCA and 5xCA.

 

I don't think the "Wait and See" really changes anything on the ground. It's still happening, whether it's called 5G or not.

 

Sorry but if Sprint decides to call whatever flavor of LTE Plus as 5G they'll be a laughing stock.  They'll call it WIMAX 5G or whatever.

 

Even though no one needs speeds even above 1 carrier B41...

[RedSpark]

Sorry but if Sprint decides to call whatever flavor of LTE Plus as 5G they'll be a laughing stock.  They'll call it WIMAX 5G or whatever.

 

Even though no one needs speeds even above 1 carrier B41...

 

So when should it be called 5G?

 

This isn't just about speeds. It's about capacity.

[nexgencpu]

Isn't 4x4 MIMO+3xCA going to allow Sprint users over 600mbs on a handset this year.

 

Remind me again why Sprint needs pie in the sky "5G" anytime soon??

[RAvirani]

He should hire me.... oh and a few others here to help give him direct thoughts and experiences regarding Sprint. Maybe we can set up a conference call with him. Who's in?

If only it were possible...

[Arysyn]

I'm curious how Marcelo or other Sprint employees assigned to this managed to find these "customers". From all the talk about it from Marcelo, this sounded as if it were going to be an informal chat between Marcelo and Sprint customers about their views regarding Sprint, what they like about Sprint, what they don't like about Sprint, and what could make Sprint better. It certainly wasn't made to seem like a marketing opportunity for Sprint to make ads out of bashing their competitors.

[RedSpark]

I'm curious how Marcelo or other Sprint employees assigned to this managed to find these "customers". From all the talk about it from Marcelo, this sounded as if it were going to be an informal chat between Marcelo and Sprint customers about their views regarding Sprint, what they like about Sprint, what they don't like about Sprint, and what could make Sprint better. It certainly wasn't made to seem like a marketing opportunity for Sprint to make ads out of bashing their competitors.

 

The process by which they found these people was very mysterious. I'm sure they had to sign some kind of release for their comments to be used. Otherwise, I have no idea how they found these people.

[jamesinclair]

I'm curious how Marcelo or other Sprint employees assigned to this managed to find these "customers". From all the talk about it from Marcelo, this sounded as if it were going to be an informal chat between Marcelo and Sprint customers about their views regarding Sprint, what they like about Sprint, what they don't like about Sprint, and what could make Sprint better. It certainly wasn't made to seem like a marketing opportunity for Sprint to make ads out of bashing their competitors.

 

I dont know Spints process, but what we usually do is as part of a routine survey we ask people if they would be interested in participating in a focus group for some compensation for their time. If they want to, they leave their contact info.

 

Of the 1,000 people who say yes, maybe 20 actually agree to show up at the required date and time.

 

They then sign off on waivers concerning their rights to privacy and such.

 

Obviously having a room full of cameras completely changes the dynamic vs a fully private and anonymous discussion. The filmed conversation is probably not valuable at all.

[PythonFanPA]

I do not debate differences in Sprint service at different locations.  For the purposes of this post, I do not care.

 

But Facebook?  Really?  Is it representative of the whole?  Almost every comment is negative.  Facebook has become shit.

 

Back when I was in college -- and Facebook was limited to educational institutions -- it was a neat resource for meeting and recognizing new people.  Then, Facebook opened to everyone and his dog.  The emphasis on the latter.

 

The Facebook commenting system used by so many web sites now is horrible.  Not all that intelligent people -- who could/would never actually write a letter to the editor of the local newspaper, cogently make an argument at a city council meeting, or coherently interact with their political representatives -- now can express their feelings on any and all matters.  Dumb, meet dumber.

 

Facebook has become the cesspool of the Web.  I think somebody used the term "vitriol" earlier in this thread.  I agree.  You nailed it.

 

For Facebook, thanks, Obama...I mean, thanks, Zuckerberg.

 

 

AJ

Subjectivity of the reader taken into account, I just wanted to simply state that for my part, if I could 'like' a post 1000 times but could only do it once, this post would probably be my choice.

[jeffcarp]

The listening tour lost its credibility when he decided to carry a TV crew to record the whole thing. If you wanted to listen to customers you could had done that while your assistant takes notes.

 

You didn't need to prove the whole industry that you are traveling around America's top notch cities listening to customers from every carrier about what they want from their carrier.

 

Most wireless customers except the tiny minority that is part of the magentan cult simple want their service to work to make phone calls, text and data anytime they need it regardless where they are. In a simple terms just be the dumb pipe. Customers want that, and be treated with respect from their carrier that's all.

 

Ever since Legere started throwing candy around many especially tech blogs are treating wireless service as something different. Seems the used car salesman techniques have worked on the sheep.

Doing a listening tour for internal improvement and publicizing the fact that you're doing a listening tour for promotional marketing is not mutually exclusive. Both can be accomplished from the same activity and it would be dumb of Sprint to not promote that he's out talking with customers. You taking exception to the publicity isn't realistic in my opinion.

[jeffcarp]

Yes I agree the listening tour is a joke. If Marcelo Claure want to know why customers leaving sprint just go to sprint's Facebook and compare to T-Mobile att and Verizon. There is a huge difference in the amount of unhappy customers compared to the other 3 carriers. I don't use sprint service so cannot tell how much improved they are compared to 2 years ago. But my receptionist has sprint and once in a while she has voice and data issues. At least she does not have to walk to the back of the office to get reception like 2 years ago. I has never encountered those problems with att. Yes sprint improves but not enough for people to switch since their service is still not up to par compared to other 3 carriers in metro areas.

Customers ranting on Facebook do NOT reflect a representative sample of any company's customer base or their concerns.