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

[utiz4321]

I don't think a greater retail presence is the most important issue, either.

 

Also, soccer just isn't the massive phenomenon here in the United States that it is in Latin America. As much as Marcelo loves the sport, he's barking up the wrong tree. Sprint and its storied and highly frustrating history of being "almost there." Or maybe "trying too hard"?

It is a history of unfulfilled potential.

 

Sent from my LGLS992 using Tapatalk

[Arysyn]

More Sprint retail stores for Texas:

 

Sprint Expands in Texas with 79 New Retail Stores Creating More Than 550 Jobs

 

This doesn't make sense to me. Marcelo seems to still be running with his long held belief that Sprint has a distribution channels deficiency vs. the other carriers.

 

Sprint doesn't have a distribution problem from what I can tell. There are already 350 stores in the State according to the release. People can order phones online or by calling and they usually get the best deals by doing so instead of going into a store... so I don't get what this accomplishes.

 

This money should be going into Network CapEx or paying off high interest debt.

 

Perhaps if a new macro site or small cell was being built on top of or near each new store, it would make more sense to me why Sprint is doing this... but I just don't get what this store expansion accomplishes when Sprint has other more pressing needs.

I hate it when carriers announce new retail stores, as retail presence is far less important than things like good branding and marketing to lead people to utilize online shopping channels. If people really want to see/try out a device before they purchase it and/or want to purchase a device in person, they can travel a bit further out to get to a well-placed retail store in a busier area that serves customers from surrounding areas. There really doesn't need to be a wireless retail store on every corner like there are with banks, pharmacies, and gas stations.

 

All carriers are guilty of doing this, and I think it would make much more sense to minimize the retail model, not expand it. Just have superstores in the larger areas.

[jamesinclair]

RE: Airave LTE

 

Thanks guys, I guess Ill look into upgrading my dads unit eventually. 99% of the airave is for him to make calls that dont cut off, so while those LTE improvements sound good, theyre not a must have right now.

[Arysyn]

As I was writing a pm to someone, I thought of an idea carriers could use, rather than having standalone wireless retail stores which offer very little incentive over buying online.

 

For instance, its common knowledge that stores like Best Buy and Barnes&Noble are not doing very well in the competitive market against Amazon. I remembered how back in the early 90s, their was a semi-electronics, semi-book store combination chain called "Media Play", which like Barnes&Noble, had a cafe. The problem with Media Play though, is that it didn't sell nearly as many types of electronic and appliance items as Best Buy, nor as many books as Barnes&Noble. Eventually, many Media Play stores closed, and I'm not sure if any are still open nowadays, or not.

 

My idea, is for Best Buy to scrap its warehouse/showroom image, and become more "fancier", with an upscale appearance, quieter atmosphere, and sell more luxury items. This new Best Buy merges with Barnes&Noble, which starts selling books at the new Best Buy stores, along with having cafes, which Barnes&Noble stores currently have. Then, instead of Best Buy hiring their own employees to mind the wireless sections, Best Buy brings in official carrier representatives to sell their devices, except for the unlocked devices, which will still have Best Buy employees sell.

 

This wireless section of the store can be located next to the cafe and magazine sections, so that people can try out the devices while sitting around the cafe. This would help carriers to give customers more reason to shop their stores in person while being surrounded by other merchandise they can shop all in the same one-stop shopping experience, and be able to test new devices at the cafe, which can be equipped to help them shop online there for any special ordering requests. It would be much more convenient than the current retail model is for carriers, and also for Best Buy and Barnes&Noble.

[Dkoellerwx]

As I was writing a pm to someone, I thought of an idea carriers could use, rather than having standalone wireless retail stores which offer very little incentive over buying online.

 

I realize this is pretty much the "everything goes Sprint thread" but this is pushing the limits of relevance. Next time you have an idea like this, a different thread may be more appropriate. 

[Arysyn]

I realize this is pretty much the "everything goes Sprint thread" but this is pushing the limits of relevance. Next time you have an idea like this, a different thread may be more appropriate.

The reason I posted this here, is it had to do with carrier stores, specifically referencing the post RedSpark made regarding Sprint adding carrier stores, which this was one of my two responses to.

 

Besides, I've been on staff of several forums in the past, including a few I've administrated, and I know how difficult it is to keep everything completely on topic. S4GRU is definitely one of the better sites in this regard, though there are a few ways of improvement this site could make in helping to keep things more on topic, particularly thread titles.

 

I've made some of these type of suggestions here in the past, but I was told it couldn't happen because it might mess up this site's search engine optimization.

[ericdabbs]

Hmmm.... interesting....

 

https://twitter.com/marceloclaure/status/855997936320348160

 

"Coming in next couple of weeks."

 

That does sound interesting but I don't know what to think of it but I am not too excited about it since I don't know what "a couple of weeks" means.  I mean to be honest, I would much rather have Sprint focus on deploying as much B41 LTE as they can and especially the rapid deployment of small cells.

[RedSpark]

I hate it when carriers announce new retail stores, as retail presence is far less important than things like good branding and marketing to lead people to utilize online shopping channels. If people really want to see/try out a device before they purchase it and/or want to purchase a device in person, they can travel a bit further out to get to a well-placed retail store in a busier area that serves customers from surrounding areas. There really doesn't need to be a wireless retail store on every corner like there are with banks, pharmacies, and gas stations.

 

All carriers are guilty of doing this, and I think it would make much more sense to minimize the retail model, not expand it. Just have superstores in the larger areas.

 

Instead of adding more store locations, Sprint needs to improve or relocate its current ones. It also needs to improve its most important distribution channel: The Sprint Website

 

One tower outage or a single tower overloaded and in need of an upgrade affects a limited set of people in a given area. The more remote the tower, the fewer people it affects. However, a bug-ridden feature/function on a website (or a poorly designed website overall) can affect everyone who does business with Sprint as a customer, or who considers doing business with Sprint as a prospective customer.

 

Take Sprint's coverage map, which finally got an updated look and redesign in the past months/year. Prior to this update, the map window itself was poorly designed and sat stale for years. When your product is the network, the coverage map on the website (in addition to the other value proposition messaging and transactional steps for customer onboarding) is what engages prospective/current customers en masse... more than a single tower or retail location would ever do.

 

Sprint's lack of CapEx funds to move as quickly as we'd like on tower upgrades/network expansion has its roots in past business or strategic failures, and it's been discussed pretty much in full here. However, where your current product is the network and the ad is the coverage map, it's a failure on a macro business level to effectively communicate a value proposition to a customer... and this failure has extended beyond the Coverage Map page into other sections as well. Who knows how many current or prospective customers were turned off by a poorly functioning website or poor impression of Sprint's value proposition... and it was avoidable in my opinion.

 

Sprint finally seems to be getting this right. The website looks better overall. The BYOD Process is more clear. There's finally a "My Sprint" App for BYOD devices on Google Play. The website is the most important distribution channel Sprint has and it needs to be properly leveraged.

 

Adding more retail locations doesn't improve the actual product sold... and it's a step backward. Sprint needs to improve the product sold, and that only comes with efficient, effective and committed spending on CapEx. Spending money on retail locations takes away from this. Sprint's current distribution channels are sufficient in my opinion.

[red_dog007]

I keep reading a lot about the Sprint website being bad, but what is wrong with it? To me, it is just the design. But the design is very trending and in with website designs.  And that is more a personal preference vs a functioning working website.

 

Works solid on FireFox and Brave both desktop and mobile versions.  I recently changed my plan and didn't have a single issue.  I log in monthly as well. Pages load fine. They load fast. Etc.

 

The only "issue" I see is having to 2FA every time you log in, but I do this with any site that supports it.

Edited April 25, 2017 by red_dog007

[Hmight]

 

Instead of adding more store locations, Sprint needs to improve or relocate its current ones. It also needs to improve its most important distribution channel: The Sprint Website

 

One tower outage or a single tower overloaded and in need of an upgrade affects a limited set of people in a given area. The more remote the tower, the fewer people it affects. However, a bug-ridden feature/function on a website (or a poorly designed website overall) can affect everyone who does business with Sprint as a customer, or who considers doing business with Sprint as a prospective customer.

 

Take Sprint's coverage map, which finally got an updated look and redesign in the past months/year. Prior to this update, the map window itself was poorly designed and sat stale for years. When your product is the network, the coverage map on the website (in addition to the other value proposition messaging and transactional steps for customer onboarding) is what engages prospective/current customers en masse... more than a single tower or retail location would ever do.

 

Sprint's lack of CapEx funds to move as quickly as we'd like on tower upgrades/network expansion has its roots in past business or strategic failures, and it's been discussed pretty much in full here. However, where your current product is the network and the ad is the coverage map, it's a failure on a macro business level to effectively communicate a value proposition to a customer... and this failure has extended beyond the Coverage Map page into other sections as well.

 

Sprint finally seems to be getting this right. The website looks better overall. The BYOD Process is more clear. There's finally a "My Sprint" App for BYOD devices on Google Play. The website is the most important distribution channel Sprint has and it needs to be properly leveraged.

 

Adding more retail locations doesn't improve the actual product sold... and it's a step backward. Sprint needs to improve the product sold, and that only comes with efficient, effective and committed spending on CapEx. Spending money on retail locations takes away from this. Sprint's current distribution channels are sufficient in my opinion.

 

I agree for the most part with what you're saying. I think it has to do with Marcelo's background.  He was not a product or network guy.  He's a salesman and distributor first.  He wants to expand the distribution network for Sprint to grow, the network will follow.   

 

Also, it may be that Masa is the final decision maker on the network spending side, so he doesn't have much influence on the network CapEx. 

[clbowens]

I keep reading a lot about the Sprint website being bad, but what is wrong with it? To me, it is just the design. But the design is very trending and in with website designs.  And that is more a personal preference vs a functioning working website.

 

Works solid on FireFox and Brave both desktop and mobile versions.  I recently changed my plan and didn't have a single issue.  I log in monthly as well. Pages load fine. They load fast. Etc.

 

The only "issue" I see is having to 2FA every time you log in, but I do this with any site that supports it.

 

Well for one, for me, the coverage map page looks totally crappy.  It looks like the CSS for the page is not being applied.  This is in both Chrome and Firefox.

 

Also, when I log into my account, there's still a mix of old styling and new styling.

[RedSpark]

I keep reading a lot about the Sprint website being bad, but what is wrong with it? To me, it is just the design. But the design is very trending and in with website designs.  And that is more a personal preference vs a functioning working website.

 

Works solid on FireFox and Brave both desktop and mobile versions.  I recently changed my plan and didn't have a single issue.  I log in monthly as well. Pages load fine. They load fast. Etc.

 

The only "issue" I see is having to 2FA every time you log in, but I do this with any site that supports it.

 

On "My Sprint", several of my iPhone 7 lines now say we have an iPad as the device. We don't.... so that's definitely a bug.

 

Sprint's most important distribution channel is the website. It's the one that most current/prospective customers interact with. It's gotten better, but there are still choke points where the user interface isn't what it should be.

[RedSpark]

Well for one, for me, the coverage map page looks totally crappy.  It looks like the CSS for the page is not being applied.  This is in both Chrome and Firefox.

 

Also, when I log into my account, there's still a mix of old styling and new styling.

 

I'm seeing this as well.

[RedSpark]

I agree for the most part with what you're saying. I think it has to do with Marcelo's background.  He was not a product or network guy.  He's a salesman and distributor first.  He wants to expand the distribution network for Sprint to grow, the network will follow.   

 

Also, it may be that Masa is the final decision maker on the network spending side, so he doesn't have much influence on the network CapEx. 

 

That's very possible, but this is where Marcelo is getting it wrong.

 

People will come for the right product at the right price if there's an effective value proposition communicated.

 

Adding more retail stores to communicate Sprint's current value proposition for its product doesn't improve the actual product.

 

CapEx for network upgrades and expansion will do that... and people will flock to the existing distribution channels to get the product.

 

The Website is effectively Sprint's largest retail presence and it reaches everyone. A single store location does not.... and the Return on Investment is much lower for those in my opinion.

[Arysyn]

Instead of adding more store locations, Sprint needs to improve or relocate its current ones. It also needs to improve its most important distribution channel: The Sprint Website

One tower outage or a single tower overloaded and in need of an upgrade affects a limited set of people in a given area. The more remote the tower, the fewer people it affects. However, a bug-ridden feature/function on a website (or a poorly designed website overall) can affect everyone who does business with Sprint as a customer, or who considers doing business with Sprint as a prospective customer.

 

Take Sprint's coverage map, which finally got an updated look and redesign in the past months/year. Prior to this update, the map window itself was poorly designed and sat stale for years. When your product is the network, the coverage map on the website (in addition to the other value proposition messaging and transactional steps for customer onboarding) is what engages prospective/current customers en masse... more than a single tower or retail location would ever do.

Sprint's lack of CapEx funds to move as quickly as we'd like on tower upgrades/network expansion has its roots in past business or strategic failures, and it's been discussed pretty much in full here. However, where your current product is the network and the ad is the coverage map, it's a failure on a macro business level to effectively communicate a value proposition to a customer... and this failure has extended beyond the Coverage Map page into other sections as well. Who knows how many current or prospective customers were turned off by a poorly functioning website or poor impression of Sprint's value proposition... and it was avoidable in my opinion.

Sprint finally seems to be getting this right. The website looks better overall. The BYOD Process is more clear. There's finally a "My Sprint" App for BYOD devices on Google Play. The website is the most important distribution channel Sprint has and it needs to be properly leveraged.

Adding more retail locations doesn't improve the actual product sold... and it's a step backward. Sprint needs to improve the product sold, and that only comes with efficient, effective and committed spending on CapEx. Spending money on retail locations takes away from this. Sprint's current distribution channels are sufficient in my opinion.

RedSpark, you've been and continue to be spot-on correct about pretty much everything you've mentioned about Sprint here on S4GRU. As I've mentioned in the past, I'd really hope at least some executive at Sprint would be reading S4GRU, as there are alot of good suggestions here, especially from you, RedSpark. Actually, I think many here on this site, both members and staff would be a better management for Sprint than Softbank is. Of course my view is the bigger issue to Sprint's problems isn't as much Sprint itself as it is Softbank.

 

Plus, I still quite heavily believe if Dan Hesse were still in charge of Sprint, along with the part of management that worked with him (not against him), Sprint would be doing great right now, just as many here on S4GRU were excited about all the positive developments with the network that were going on back when he was still in charge. That was up until Spftbank got involved with its CapEx haulting austerity measures. Granted, some fiscal changes needed to be made, but not on the network side of things.

 

Anyways, my ideas, very similar to yours, is that adding retail stores is not needed. However, Sprint is not the only carrier doing this. I cringed as I was watching the T-Mobile reports yesterday, when John Legere was announcing all the new retail stores they are adding. All carriers would do better to cut back on physical retail stores and focus online. In locations where retail stores are needed, I think there ought to be a different model for that, similar to the Best Buy/Barnes&Noble idea I mentioned here the other day, where carriers go to compete against each other in a larger combined retail space where other business already is.

 

I'd also say that none of the carrier coverage maps are very impressive right now. T-Mobile use to have a good one, until they decided to cover everything in Magenta. I think if Sprint were to have something like the coverage map T-Mobile use to have, they'd do fine with that. Or even better, Sprint could work with people here on S4GRU to come up with something, which could be pretty amazing.

[RAvirani]

I'd also say that none of the carrier coverage maps are very impressive right now. T-Mobile use to have a good one, until they decided to cover everything in Magenta. I think if Sprint were to have something like the coverage map T-Mobile use to have, they'd do fine with that. Or even better, Sprint could work with people here on S4GRU to come up with something, which could be pretty amazing.

I believe that Sprint is working with JWMaloney on a new coverage map although I'm not sure if that is purely aesthetic or if it includes the actual coverage displayed...

 

Also, I remember reading somewhere, maybe on reddit, that Sprint was looking at implementing some sort of customer verified map in the coming months.

[imex99]

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[greenbastard]

 

 

And of course, it's an introductory price. After promotion is over, 5 lines are cheaper on T-Mobile (after taxes) and only $10 more expensive on Verizon.

 

Not as competitive as they make themselves to be.

Savings until 6/30/18; then $60/mo. for line 1, $40/mo. for line 2 and $30/mo. lines 3-5.

Edited April 25, 2017 by greenbastard

[Hmight]

And of course, it's an introductory price. After promotion is over, 5 lines are cheaper on T-Mobile (after taxes) and only $10 more expensive on Verizon.

 

Not as competitive as they make themselves to be.

It is still cheaper after 2 years with Tmobile when accounting for the entire length of 2 year of service.  Taxes can vary by state.  Tmobile charges $5/line for the hotspot.  So even with taxes, you could be paying less for 5 lines of service anywhere with Sprint. 

[Hmight]

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2017/04/25/sprint-ceo-stays-on-track-for-big-stock-bonus.html

 

 

The earnings call is may 3rd, :-).  I don't see Sprint stock would drop more than 1 dollar after earnings call.  I expect them to add around 100k in postpaid phones, and around 300k total users. 

[Arysyn]

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I've got to say that is a pretty good deal from Sprint at five lines for $120, even compared with T-Mobile's recent but now expired three lines for $100 (or $80 with the Hookup offer).

 

Thing is, I still don't like these steep multi-line discounts at such a huge difference in price value over single lines. A small discounted difference is fine, but these are very large differences. I feel the same way about how insurance companies give greater discounts to couples over individuals. That is much worse in my opinion than these multi-line discounts, as if being married makes a person a better driver, or has better health, etc.

 

Apparently, T-Mobile is going to unveil their next Uncarrier move by the end of June. If I were in a position at Sprint to help make decisions, I'd get the inclusive tax incentive done and a two line deal between either two smartphones or one smartphone, one tablet offer for $75 with unlimited 3G tethering and the limited streaming (except audio), with a $15 upgrade option to allow both lines unlimited 4G tethering and HD streaming. Doing this would combat whatever T-Mobile has planned for the next Uncarrier, which I have an idea about...

 

My thinking is that T-Mobile may eliminate the individual plan on postpaid, and have a deal for either two smartphone lines, or one smartphone one tablet, with the emphasis on the tablet arrangement being included, perhaps as a way to combat any additional device charges other carriers have tacked on. Maybe even as a way of introducing a shared line program, where one line can be shared by multiple devices, hence the offer I just mentioned. Sprint could introduce something like this ahead of time.

[Hmight]

 

 

The Website is effectively Sprint's largest retail presence and it reaches everyone. A single store location does not.... and the Return on Investment is much lower for those in my opinion.

 

The website has been working a lot better for me.  I notice it loads much quicker and hasn't lagged like it's used to be.  Hopefully, they have figured things out. 

[Tengen31]

10x10 In Macon Georgia

 

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk

[RedSpark]

The website has been working a lot better for me.  I notice it loads much quicker and hasn't lagged like it's used to be.  Hopefully, they have figured things out. 

 

Little by little it seems!

[red_dog007]

Well for one, for me, the coverage map page looks totally crappy.  It looks like the CSS for the page is not being applied.  This is in both Chrome and Firefox.

 

Also, when I log into my account, there's still a mix of old styling and new styling.

Oh, well the coverage map has always been bad. I did forget about this.  Small, bad colors, map outdated in places. The guy here who made the new one is freaking awesome.

 

And yeah, mix of old styling and new is just personal preference.  Can't knock that too much. It isn't like the website looks like it is ancient or cheaply designed.  After all, navigation and functionality are the key aspects and I find everything I need.  Plus they made a great edition to their online bill viewing.