Ok my turn, everyone offered their same ol' opinions as to why Sprint Fails...

And most of you are looking at the problem from your Own Personal dislikes of Sprint, rather then from a wholelistic business standpoint.

From a business standpoint here is Sprint PROBLEMS!

Post Paid iDen:

As have been identified many times over and over Post Paid iDen is insolvable because Boost is canabilizing the price point of Post Paid iDen if you look at what Boost added and what Post Paid iDen Lost its almost 1for1 people are leaving Post-Paid and getting Pre-paid...There nothing compelling to keep people on Post-Paid iDen and pay 99$ for Simply Everything over 50$ unlimited Boost...Yea you can say Blackberry, but that really only catering to businesses at this point, consumers looking for Blackberry are transferring over to CDMA because of the better Data Quality.

There's nothing Sprint can do to keep the ship from sinking on Post Paid iDen it will bleed until it hits that niche market of enterprise users that need Nextel and that is probably i'm sorry to say it <5m subs so the bleeding of Post Paid iDen will continue for some time...So can we STOP! Acting so surprised with Post Paid iDen Losses atleast....There much more of it to Come.


iPhone

People want Iphones and the Pre, Droid, Storm, and G1-2-3 are not going to kill the hype...Until the iphone is off exclusivity with ATT this is going to continue to hurt carriers...

I know people say well Verizon still add's 1m a Q, but Verizon also has 90m subs its still easy for growth to be from within...meaning children of Verizon families get old enough for Mom Dad to get them a cell phone, etc....

But if there was no iphone would Verizon only have posted 943k post paid subs in Q3 and jumped on the Android bandwangon as Quickly as they did....Dont think so! So yes they too are affected by iphone.


Economy

The economy is affecting Sprint in many different ways from

- High Price Point are affecting the succuss of Phones

- Business Lines are being cut, this probably also is affecting post paid iDen..

- Sprint needs to grow from the outside, meaning stealing subs from other carriers, and with the economy people are not so willing to break contracts pay ETF's and the price of the new handsets at this point..which could cost some upward of 3k if its a Family move.


The Pre

The Pre will probably go down as one of the greatest marketing blunders....Palm totally botched the Marketing of this phone, i dont know how those goul girl ad's got approved by the various execs at palm to make to our screens....They were the WORST EVER! Leaving Sprint (who's no marketing powerhouse) to put out some creative ad's..And they did that but it wasnt enough...Neither Palm nor Sprint explained how to use the phone in their ad's..Palm just gave you Goul Girl spouting out some lame poetry that no one could or cared to follow.

As mentioned before..The Price Point of 300$ was TOOOO HIGH Sprint and Palm for this economy, if we were living in the Clinton years, it would'nt have been an issue. But when the country is at 10% unemployment and people are losing their houses left and right...300$ for a phone is a bit much....Regardless of the MIR...

Advertised for 200$ down and the Pre would've been a different story.

Also I would've shown some 3rd Party apps in use in a couple of ad's not completely ripping off Apple marketing but in a different style show how Pandora or something is used, to make the Pre stand out even more.


And Finally the BIG ONE:

MARKETING, MARKETING, MARKETING

SPRINT JUST CANNOT GET THE MARKETING THING DOWN!

I like many thought the "What Happening Now" was a new day for the Sprint's marketing department, and they finally understood the problem...

"What's happening now" did a great job of establishing a "Brand Image" explaining "This is who we and want to be seen as" ok got it, GREAT!

But they haven't been able to grow it from there, they're still stuck explaining what "NOW" is...We GET IT SPRINT!...its Now (no pun) getting to the point where its getting BORING and Not as penitrating anymore....

Its time to move on to SELLING YOUR PRODUCTS!! But still keeping and emaphsis on "NOW"....You did a good on the Pre and the Mifi but nothing else, where are the Ad's for the HERO, MOMENT, INSTINCT HD, BB TOUR, TOUCH PRO 2....

Take the Hero, Sprint is probably going to lose some subs to Verizon for the Droid, just because Verizon superior marketing behind it, when the Hero is right here and pretty much does everything the Droid does minus the faster processor. UGH! Sprint YOUR MARKETING SUCK A$$! Seriously.

Why are there no billboard ad's of Sprint anymore, I noticed that the other day living in the Billboard capital of NYC... Some nice large Pre billboards would've been nice.

Also why did we stop talking about the Value of Sprint, Hesse was walking around Manhattan in those commericals touting 99$ for everything....why was that not brought over to the "What's happening Now"...

Is it me or is it like Sprint's marketing can only do one thing at a time....Right now it all about AMA, and once they move on to something else AMA will all but disapear from the Ad's....Just like selling the Pre disapeared when AMA came to the forefront.

While I think Hesse is working his A$$ off to turn this ship at Sprint and he's and great leadered for turning around the culture at Sprint but I must admit I'm starting to think he's not really gifted with pushing out great marketing....He needed to walk into the Marketing Dept after Q3 reports the first full quarter of the Pre release and annouce "YOU'RE ALL FIRED"....

For CDMA-side of things until Sprint gets some hardhitting, consistent, in your face marketing going its going to waine on getting people thru the doors....

Hesse already confirmed my original thought, its not that Sprint is losing a Large amount of subs on CDMA.....Its that they cant get new people through the door to offset and post a gain...There will always be people walking away from carriers, you can't stop that.

To explain - CDMA post paid has 25million and lost 270k this quarter that's 1.4% Churn on Post Paid CDMA....Now you take Verizon 86million Post-Paid and they have a 1.47 churn means 1.2 million people walked away from Verizon but to offset that Verizon grossed like 2.1 million post paid adds to offset and post 943K gained....

Sprint didn't gross enough CDMA add's to offset and gain above the churned, and this can be linked directly back to the lackluster marketing and botched Pre Pricing efforts.

So from a business standpoint these are Sprint's Problems...


ITS NOT THE PLANS

ITS NOT COVERAGE IN LOUISIANA

ITS NOT CUSTOMER SERVICE

ITS NOT AVAILABILITY OF ROAMING

ITS NOT THE PHONES

ITS NOT SPRINT ONLY CATERING TO ITS CORE OF DATA SUBS

These So-Called Problems listed, are all Isolated Personal Problems that individual Posters have with Sprint, they're not wholelistic business model problems.

This is all im going to post on this, I'm not going to get into flaming wars with the dozen or so of you guys.....

Look we disagree on Sprint lets leave it at that, I happen to like Sprint and want them to succeed in the worst way, because they offer the best balance between VALUE and QUALITY and will loath the day that I have to go to Verizon or dare I say ATT (God help me!) and be ripped off for the same service I had with Sprint......and I'm a sucker for the Underdog especially with amount of Sprint bashing that goes in here weather jusitified or unjustified...

One minor correction. VZW's postpaid churn was 1.13. Total churn was 1.47.

I think one big thing you forgot to add is this: Sprint's past.

Sprint has a tougher time growing from the outside because the perception of Sprint from 5 years ago (or so) was terrible. When people have a bad experience with something, they're not going to forget it easily. Same as what you see in terms of customer service or even on these boards, much more complaints than compliments.

I'm much more likely to remember the nightly 5 dropped calls I had talking to my ex gf 9 years ago while I'm in NYC and she's in Memphis than I am about the clarity or the great phone, etc.

talk about it, anyone here own a Hyundai?!

Lenny and Krumie both bring up some good points about the situation with Sprint.

Two things-

1.) Great Marketing can over come bad perceptions or bad word of mouths..Again this is not something Sprint has perfected yet.

2.) In terms of Good CS, its because people are not running to message boards when they have a good CS experience, but will light up a board with a bad experience...But you do see ALOT less CS complaints on the Sprint forum then this time 2 years ago, it was almost the only thing going in the Sprint forum at the time...So let that be a testimate of Sprint Customer Service Turnaround.

Biggest Problem with Sprint is their identity. This is a two part problem.

1. Who is Sprint? What makes them unique, sets them apart, standout from the competition, their "trademark"? For example, Verizon has "it's the Network." While we can argue about the quality of it, the average person thinks that VZW has the best network. AT&T has two things; 1.) the iPhone. Love Apple or hate them, it is "the Phone" to which all others are compared. It has the highest level of customer satisfaction of ANY phone from both consumers and now business users, PEROID. No use arguing, facts is facts. 2.) "More bars in more places," a hold over from Cingular and now VZW is attacking that idea. VZW has more 3G, but coverage is pretty much equal overall. T-Mobile even has an identity, the value carrier. Yes, I know Sprint has better plans overall. But T-Mobile started the Friends and Family idea and now VZW and AT&T offer the same and Sprint has it as a secret retention tool (bad move, should offer it as part of plans or as a very low cost add on i.e. $5.00 or less a month).

What does Sprint have seriously? "The NOW network?" What is that? What does it mean or say to the average person? 3G and first 4G network, but no phones and what does it mean????? Being the "NOW Network" is your identity? No, that says nothing. While I understand the Hesse ads for M2M, many people do not get it, they are in an art gallery talking about calling people, how out of touch is that with the average person? They do have two small pluses, NASCAR title sponsor and NFL cell provider. I know that many here on HOFO couldn't care less about either, but the average person watches one or both, and the numbers are huge. Sprint needs an identity.

2. Along with identity, they new a new one. Sorry Lenny Sprints past identity still hurts them, and it is bad. When people see my Pre, they ask about it and many like it. Then they ask, who's your carrier or where can I get one. I have seen it in most of their faces when I see Sprint. I even get questions about their bad customer service or coverage. They need to change the name of the company and give it an image. All IMO.

1) If you think about it, word of mouth from friends and family can overcome any good marketing (Let's forget about iPhones, Droids, Pres whatever phone that may make one carrier more attractive than the other to some). If Verizon had to suffer from Sprint's original stigma, even with its marketing powerhouse, I don't think it would be anywhere near where it is now.

2) I actually wasn't talking about Sprint's CS. I was saying, in general, people will more readily complain about something than they will compliment something. If I served 100 people, 90 with excellent service, 10 terribly, I'm pretty sure I'm getting at least 5 complaints, but will I get 45 excellents? Not even close.

I agree with you on a few things, including its not the coverage in louisiana. It's the coverage in the US! There's a map for that.

#1 Coverage...
#2 Marketing (praising the company that they fixed #1)

#1 is the key to the post paid cell market.

My experience with Sprint is generally good. I had been with ATT and Tmobile, and now with Sprint for 1 year. The only major carrier that I haven't been with is Verizon and I won't because there's no any reason for me to do so.
I'm a hardcore deal hunter so nothing I care more than the price value ratio with price as the main consideration. So I don't mind about the CS experiences with Sprint as long as my $30 sero rolls on.

That said, I don't like the why Sprint grouping it's customers. I feel like I was rated as worthless because I have a heavily discounted plan. You know, this kind of feeling makes me angry, although I can understand.

Also I agree that their marketing is bad! I didn't see any significant existence of Sprint ads anywhere. Not like Verizon to flush the TV with crap ads all the time. But if that saves my money, (because Sprint doesn't need to put too much money into ads and can offer some lower rates) I don't care. Only most people not clever enough to take the advantage.

And how do they overcome that past identity - DING DING DING - Great Marketing and being able to back that up what you marketed. Sprint could change its name tomorrow, with the media we have today, people will still know its "Sprint"..So that not going to really work...

This company needs better Marketing PERIOD! Its awful....I disagree about the whole "NOW" network not having a message or idenitity...

I think its a fine message and gets right at the heart of how Sprint should see itself...Problem is they haven't taken it to the next level...All they keep doing is explaining now network.

"It's the Network" only takes Verizon so far as well on the surface as we're see now, because Verizon has also got a bad stigma around its neck, of Locking down phones and Boring phone selections...Again its starting to hit home for Verizon with having posted its 1st <1m post paid ad's Quarter...

Which is why have Verizon jumping on Android (they had no interest in Android before iphone started to affect them) and why they're now trying to become this "Open Network" because they know they're considered the Lock-Down Kings will also start to hurt...

The market is saturated. The only way to get new subs is from another carrier. If peeps are satisfied with their current carrier, there needs to be a DAMN GOOD reason to switch. Sprint does not have one. No superior coverage, no killer handset. No bargain plan. Fastest 3G? meh....It's not good enough to be almost as good or slightly better.

actually, lenny, I agree with your posting much more than I disagree...

but the main thing missing, by in large, from your posting is: WHAT should Sprint/Hesse do now?

I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that Sprint needs to do something MAJOR, not just minor tweaks. That Sprint needs it own Project Dark, call it Project Light... but only a big splash can overcome all the market forces and image problems it has. That and fix the major structural issues like the iDEN problem.

I don't yet have a concrete idea of what the big thing could be, but that it should be bigger than AM, Pre, SEP, etc... Maybe a major tie-in with Google, or Dell, or Netflix... I dunno yet... just something truly outside the box...

I have great coverage here in Socal, better than ATT. So it might be only Verizon to have better coverage.

Hate to say it but a name change maybe?

I like how some people on this forum totally dismiss Sprint's free roaming coverage (which could be the most extensive out of any carrier) from the equation. Like it doesn't exist and if Sprint doesn't cover everything natively then they are at some huge disadvantage.