Look! They call this retention offer?

Steve Sobol wrote:

> Better retention plans go to people who spend more money, generally.

I wouldn't say that. I'm on the $35 plan, and I managed to get someone
to knock $5 a month off my Vision add-on, plus a 14% discount over my
overall bill.

The only reason I'm on the lowest plan is because nearly everyone I call
is on Sprint (I've referred quite a few people), so the overwhelming
majority of my minutes comes out of my unlimited PCS2PCS bucket.

It seems more like Sprint bases "retainability" on the longetivity of
your account (I've been with Sprint for nearly seven years now, probably
the longest I've ever been "married" to a particular service) and how
reliably you pay your bills (never missed a payment, never been shut off
here).




--
E-mail fudged to thwart spammers.
Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply.

---

› See More: Look! They call this retention offer?

"Isaiah Beard" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> Steve Sobol wrote:
>
>> Better retention plans go to people who spend more money, generally.
>
> I wouldn't say that. I'm on the $35 plan, and I managed to get someone
> to knock $5 a month off my Vision add-on,

Anyone can get $5 knocked off the $15 Vision plan.

> plus a 14% discount over my overall bill.

The discount you get depends only on who your employer is.

--
John Richards

On 9 May 2005 23:53:20 -0700, [email protected] wrote:

>Here is part of your problem. When you call into sprint and ask for
>the retention department (old school), the reps don't know what you're
>talking about. They have been retooled to refer to "retention" as the
>"customer goals" department. So, if you want "retention" ask for
>"customer goals" dept. Then again, lets cut to the chase,. 800 658
>7564 is the number to dial.

But now that you have posted that direct number, it won't stay their
number for very long.

....so, just get the new one! This same number has been posted on
Howardforums.com for months,... it's really no big secret if you've
been doing this for awhile,

"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean the worlds NOT out to get
you."

Scooterflex wrote:
> This is starting to sound like Phillipe...

It's not Phillipe. I know Steevo from a couple other newsgroups and mailing
lists we're both on. I can guarantee it's not Phillipe.

--
JustThe.net - Apple Valley, CA - http://JustThe.net/ - 888.480.4NET (4638)
Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / [email protected] / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED

"The wisdom of a fool won't set you free"
--New Order, "Bizarre Love Triangle"

Tinman wrote:

> C'mon folks, at least read what the guy wrote. He was on TWO $30 plans.

For two different phones.

> him. If I were him, I would at least make one more attempt, and make
> sure the rep is aware of just how much he was spending. If the folks
> here missed it, you can bet your ass the SPCS rep did too.

He was spending $60 per month. That's still midrange as far as revenue per
customer goes... I know people who spend upwards of $100 per month on a single
line. (I used to be one of them!)


--
JustThe.net - Apple Valley, CA - http://JustThe.net/ - 888.480.4NET (4638)
Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / [email protected] / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED

"The wisdom of a fool won't set you free"
--New Order, "Bizarre Love Triangle"

Tinman wrote:

> We can argue about $60 being too low; I have no problem with that. But I
> read Steve's post--perhaps incorrectly--as a borderline insult because
> the guy was only spending $30 per month. I felt that was out of line, as
> the guy had, according to him, been spending twice that for many years.
> It also seemed obvious that he was willing--I'd say expecting--to pay
> even more than $60 per month. He just wasn't happy with what they
> offered for $80 per month.

Wasn't meant as an insult, just a statement of fact, and $30/line/month isn't a
big revenue generator, no matter how many lines there are. No one really offers
any plans under $35/month as far as I know...

> Yep, it sure seems that way. I still think the OP can do better than
> what he was offered though.

Quite possible, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise, just wanted to say "don't
expect much".

> My deal has been renegotiated so many times I'm afraid to have anyone
> touch it. I pay 59.99 for 2,000 minutes, plus 20.00 each for two shared
> phones.

I suspect if the OP had a shared-phone plan, it might have helped things.


--
JustThe.net - Apple Valley, CA - http://JustThe.net/ - 888.480.4NET (4638)
Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / [email protected] / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED

"The wisdom of a fool won't set you free"
--New Order, "Bizarre Love Triangle"

[email protected] wrote:

>>>Maybe the $150 rebate every 18 months is working for them. It's not
>>>quite good enough for me. I haven't done anything yet.
>>
>>What would be good enough for you?
>
> If the rebate would actually pay for any nice phone at all it would be
> as good as any carrier would give a new customer, even Sprint. . But
> it won't.

I got my Samsung 660 for $30 after a $150 rebate, and the $150 rebate is
available to existing customers who haven't bought a new phone in the last 18
months (that didn't apply to me; I was activating a second phone, but still)...

I don't think that's a bad deal.

How often do you expect phone discounts? The carrier is going to want to see
some benefits for giving you a phone near or (often) under their cost...


> Things have changed now. They have dramatically raised the "retail"
> price with discounts only for new customers. Those discounts are a
> mechanism to keep you signed up for a long contract, and that's their
> only function. It's obvious. Bundling.

The New For You discount is aimed squarely at EXISTING customers. No, you don't
get as much of a rebate as some new customers will, but you get a nice discount
nonetheless.

> It makes little sense to buy phones at the prices they are selling at
> now. You have to have a spiff or free offer. It's designed that way.

*shrug* I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

--
JustThe.net - Apple Valley, CA - http://JustThe.net/ - 888.480.4NET (4638)
Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / [email protected] / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED

"The wisdom of a fool won't set you free"
--New Order, "Bizarre Love Triangle"

On Tue, 10 May 2005 20:49:29 -0700, Steve Sobol <[email protected]>
wrote:
>>>What would be good enough for you?
>>
>
>I got my Samsung 660 for $30 after a $150 rebate, and the $150 rebate is
>available to existing customers who haven't bought a new phone in the last 18
>months (that didn't apply to me; I was activating a second phone, but still)...
>
>I don't think that's a bad deal.

How many phones do you have? Seems like a lot.

>How often do you expect phone discounts? The carrier is going to want to see
>some benefits for giving you a phone near or (often) under their cost...

I very much doubt that. How much do you think it costs to make a
phone that weighs 3 oz in a plant in Mexico (Motorola) or Korea
(Samsung) in very high volume? Not much. Maybe $15 or $20. I doubt
the camera adds $10.

The bundling is distorting the price of the product and causing the
rates for service to increase.

If Motorola and Samsung were duking it out in the market selling their
products to us directly or through dealers, with the carrier left out
I think nice color camera phones would be available for $100 or less.
Some might be more, but there would be a lot of products competing.

As it is that competition on hardware is taken out of the equation.
That is almost always bad. More competition would be good.

The GSM carriers would be supporting something I might like: A bigger
PDA phone for the week, and a smaller phone for the weekends. You
don't see that suggested at all. That could be done on Sprint, with
the online phone change, though certainly less convenient than
swapping a SIM.

>
>The New For You discount is aimed squarely at EXISTING customers. No, you don't
>get as much of a rebate as some new customers will, but you get a nice discount
>nonetheless.
Current customers get a much worse deal than new customers. That is
another distortion of the system. The carriers are using their
contracts and their stranglehold on the phone supply to game the
system.

One thing you might be interested in: I called Sprint today, I asked
them why any change in the phone on the account resets the 18 month
timer for the new phone rebate, even if they didn't give me anything
at all.

I can understand if they give me a free phone or a large rebate that
they would want me to work that off. But I changed from one phone to
another that I owned and I had a new 18 month timer! That makes no
sense. The rep agreed and said she would bring that up in their
meeting.

[email protected] wrote:

> How many phones do you have? Seems like a lot.

Just three. One is a spare, an old half-broken LG 5350. The other two are
currently in use; my wife's Hitachi P300 and my Samsung SPH-A620/VGA-1000.

>>How often do you expect phone discounts? The carrier is going to want to see
>>some benefits for giving you a phone near or (often) under their cost...
>
> I very much doubt that. How much do you think it costs to make a
> phone that weighs 3 oz in a plant in Mexico (Motorola) or Korea
> (Samsung) in very high volume? Not much. Maybe $15 or $20. I doubt
> the camera adds $10.

I'm sure it costs more than that. Primarily, the phone manufacturers have to
pay a nice chunk of change to Qualcomm to license CDMA; the phone manufacturers
don't typically build their own chipsets, either.

Anyhow, what the phone costs to make isn't the issue. The issue is what the
phone manufacturers charge the carriers, and I'm pretty sure it's more than $10
or $20. Do they really only cost $20 to make? I'm sure that's true for at least
some of them. Does Sprint pay $20/phone to a manufacturer to bring inventory
into their stores? I seriously doubt it. Especially if you're talking about
Motorola, whose products have always been priced high.

> If Motorola and Samsung were duking it out in the market selling their
> products to us directly or through dealers, with the carrier left out
> I think nice color camera phones would be available for $100 or less.

Maybe, maybe not. At any rate, it sounds like you want extremely cheap or free
phones, so the point is moot.

> The GSM carriers would be supporting something I might like: A bigger
> PDA phone for the week, and a smaller phone for the weekends. You
> don't see that suggested at all. That could be done on Sprint, with
> the online phone change, though certainly less convenient than
> swapping a SIM.

It could be more convenient. Verizon allows ESN swaps online. I'd love it if
Sprint did too.

>>The New For You discount is aimed squarely at EXISTING customers. No, you don't
>>get as much of a rebate as some new customers will, but you get a nice discount
>>nonetheless.
>
> Current customers get a much worse deal than new customers.

....sometimes. Maybe.

I think I was able to get $30 more in discounts as a new customer (technically,
that's what I was, I was activating a new line of service) than I would have as
a returning customer using New for You.

$30 isn't bad, but it isn't all that big a deal either.

Before making any assumptions, check your paper, the Sprint website, etc., and
see what kind of deals are out there for new customers. Yes, they ARE better.
How much better is up for debate.

> One thing you might be interested in: I called Sprint today, I asked
> them why any change in the phone on the account resets the 18 month
> timer for the new phone rebate, even if they didn't give me anything
> at all.

As I understand it, it's 18 months since the last time you activated a new
phone on the account. I have activated phones on my account that were not
bought new... after I broke my Samsung 660, I activated my brother-in-law's old
LG and it didn't reset the timer. I finally got the 620 I wanted, but I haven't
checked whether it reset the timer, but based on my recent experience it should
not have.

> I can understand if they give me a free phone or a large rebate that
> they would want me to work that off. But I changed from one phone to
> another that I owned and I had a new 18 month timer!

Hm. Sounds like there's a problem here... inconsistency in how the policy is
implemented.

> sense. The rep agreed and said she would bring that up in their
> meeting.

I was given the date I qualify for NE2, after activating the LG. It was
12/2/2005, which is exactly 18 months after the date I bought my last new
Sprint phone... the Samsung 660 with which I activated the new line last year.
I'll check again tomorrow to see if the date got reset with this latest change,
but I bought a used phone off eBay - so it shouldn't.

--
JustThe.net - Apple Valley, CA - http://JustThe.net/ - 888.480.4NET (4638)
Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / [email protected] / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED

"The wisdom of a fool won't set you free"
--New Order, "Bizarre Love Triangle"

On Wed, 11 May 2005 00:19:24 -0700, Steve Sobol <[email protected]>
wrote:
>[email protected] wrote:
>
>>>How often do you expect phone discounts? The carrier is going to want to see
>>>some benefits for giving you a phone near or (often) under their cost...
>>
>> I very much doubt that. How much do you think it costs to make a
>> phone that weighs 3 oz in a plant in Mexico (Motorola) or Korea
>> (Samsung) in very high volume? Not much. Maybe $15 or $20. I doubt
>> the camera adds $10.
>
>I'm sure it costs more than that. Primarily, the phone manufacturers have to
>pay a nice chunk of change to Qualcomm to license CDMA; the phone manufacturers
>don't typically build their own chipsets, either.
No argument, but if the qualcomm chipset costs $5 I would be shocked.

>Anyhow, what the phone costs to make isn't the issue. The issue is what the
>phone manufacturers charge the carriers, and I'm pretty sure it's more than $10
>or $20. Do they really only cost $20 to make? I'm sure that's true for at least
>some of them. Does Sprint pay $20/phone to a manufacturer to bring inventory
>into their stores? I seriously doubt it. Especially if you're talking about
>Motorola, whose products have always been priced high.

You are comfortable with the phones all being filtered through the
carrier. I am not.

I would prefer phones would be sold as phones and carriers were
carriers.

The way cellular is now is the way wired phones were 50 years ago,
provided with your service at practically no cost by the telcos. When
that was stopped we got much better equipment, and I don't think the
prices of telephone equipment is out of line today. There is lots of
competition.

I was on the Pacific Bell Cellular system when it went live in LA with
a 30# AT&T speakerphone in my car. Calls were about 90 cents/minute.
Phones were sold by a cellular retailer, the carrier had nothing to do
with it. Retailers bought them from manufacturers. Expensive though.

>> If Motorola and Samsung were duking it out in the market selling their
>> products to us directly or through dealers, with the carrier left out
>> I think nice color camera phones would be available for $100 or less.
>
>Maybe, maybe not. At any rate, it sounds like you want extremely cheap or free
>phones, so the point is moot.
I just don't care for distortion of the competitive market. I am sure
you admit that is happening. More now that 2 years ago. Competition
is good.
>
>> The GSM carriers would be supporting something I might like: A bigger
>> PDA phone for the week, and a smaller phone for the weekends. You
>> don't see that suggested at all. That could be done on Sprint, with
>> the online phone change, though certainly less convenient than
>> swapping a SIM.
>
>It could be more convenient. Verizon allows ESN swaps online. I'd love it if
>Sprint did too.
Sprint's website "activate phone online" used to allow that, I have
done it. Are you sure it doesn't?

It does however reset the 18 month timer, which sounds like a computer
programming issue. I should be able to take a phone out of my drawer
and use it without affecting anything. But I can't.

>
>Before making any assumptions, check your paper, the Sprint website, etc., and
>see what kind of deals are out there for new customers. Yes, they ARE better.
>How much better is up for debate.
LOTS better.

>> One thing you might be interested in: I called Sprint today, I asked
>> them why any change in the phone on the account resets the 18 month
>> timer for the new phone rebate, even if they didn't give me anything
>> at all.
>
>As I understand it, it's 18 months since the last time you activated a new
>phone on the account. I have activated phones on my account that were not
>bought new... after I broke my Samsung 660, I activated my brother-in-law's old
>LG and it didn't reset the timer. I finally got the 620 I wanted, but I haven't
>checked whether it reset the timer, but based on my recent experience it should
>not have.
>
>> I can understand if they give me a free phone or a large rebate that
>> they would want me to work that off. But I changed from one phone to
>> another that I owned and I had a new 18 month timer!
>
>Hm. Sounds like there's a problem here... inconsistency in how the policy is
>implemented.
No, it's consistent. The timer is reset. The rules on the website say
so.
In fact they have been moving it back on my acct, at least twice.

I just started printing out the page with the date the 18 months is
up. I have made no changes and it has been changed twice for me.

The rep agreed the phone I am using was activated in 2002, and the
timer didn't expire until 5/1/05. But it was a year or more earlier.
It has been finagled by Sprint. Interesting huh? I wish I had
printed out the pages before, I would have it in black and white. I
didn't think of it.
>
>> sense. The rep agreed and said she would bring that up in their
>> meeting.
>
>I was given the date I qualify for NE2, after activating the LG. It was
>12/2/2005, which is exactly 18 months after the date I bought my last new
>Sprint phone... the Samsung 660 with which I activated the new line last year.
>I'll check again tomorrow to see if the date got reset with this latest change,
>but I bought a used phone off eBay - so it shouldn't.
Yeah, I would be interested.

"[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Wed, 11 May 2005 00:19:24 -0700, Steve Sobol <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> >[email protected] wrote:
> >
> >>>How often do you expect phone discounts? The carrier is going to want
to see
> >>>some benefits for giving you a phone near or (often) under their
cost...
> >>
> >> I very much doubt that. How much do you think it costs to make a
> >> phone that weighs 3 oz in a plant in Mexico (Motorola) or Korea
> >> (Samsung) in very high volume? Not much. Maybe $15 or $20. I doubt
> >> the camera adds $10.
> >
> >I'm sure it costs more than that. Primarily, the phone manufacturers have
to
> >pay a nice chunk of change to Qualcomm to license CDMA; the phone
manufacturers
> >don't typically build their own chipsets, either.
> No argument, but if the qualcomm chipset costs $5 I would be shocked.

Then don't be standing in any water and quit your complaining. All these
phones offered by the carriers cost much more than you think with the
electronics inside & the licensing to Qualcomm. Then add the cost of the
battery to the phone. Then you've got the manufacturer's overhead, which is
built into the cost of the phone to the carrier (labor, machinery, insurance
etc.), the packaging of the phone, the shipping expenses, and I'm guess a
touch more for warranties and phone replacements if the phones turn out to
be defective.

Carriers still subsidize the cost of the phones to their customers. More for
new customers (on certain models). Try seeing what kind of discount SPCS is
offering new customers on any other models than the 8200's. It will only be
$150 off the price of the MSRP. SPCS will offer additional credits when a
customer buys multiple accessories at one time.

Bob

"Bob Smith" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
>
> "[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>> On Wed, 11 May 2005 00:19:24 -0700, Steve Sobol <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>> >[email protected] wrote:
>> >
>> >>>How often do you expect phone discounts? The carrier is going to want
> to see
>> >>>some benefits for giving you a phone near or (often) under their
> cost...
>> >>
>> >> I very much doubt that. How much do you think it costs to make a
>> >> phone that weighs 3 oz in a plant in Mexico (Motorola) or Korea
>> >> (Samsung) in very high volume? Not much. Maybe $15 or $20. I doubt
>> >> the camera adds $10.
>> >
>> >I'm sure it costs more than that. Primarily, the phone manufacturers have
> to
>> >pay a nice chunk of change to Qualcomm to license CDMA; the phone
> manufacturers
>> >don't typically build their own chipsets, either.
>> No argument, but if the qualcomm chipset costs $5 I would be shocked.
>
> Then don't be standing in any water and quit your complaining. All these
> phones offered by the carriers cost much more than you think with the
> electronics inside & the licensing to Qualcomm. Then add the cost of the
> battery to the phone. Then you've got the manufacturer's overhead, which is
> built into the cost of the phone to the carrier (labor, machinery, insurance
> etc.), the packaging of the phone, the shipping expenses, and I'm guess a
> touch more for warranties and phone replacements if the phones turn out to
> be defective.

Comparing cellphones to MP3 players, I think cell phones are a bargain.
You can't get a decent MP3 player for much under $200, yet all they have
is a low tech audio chip, no complex RF tuners, etc.

--
John Richards

John Richards wrote:
>
> Comparing cellphones to MP3 players, I think cell phones are a
> bargain. You can't get a decent MP3 player for much under $200, yet
> all they
> have is a low tech audio chip, no complex RF tuners, etc.

Comparing a cell phone to a music player is a bit of a stretch, unless
the discussion is about MP3-playing phones. But for the record, I can
buy a 4 GB iPod Mini for around $230. Considering a 4 GB microdrive
costs around $185, I'd say an extra $55 for the iPod itself is a pretty
good deal.

How about something a little closer though, say, cordless phones. I just
bought, for a whopping $130, a cordless 5.8 GHz "system." The base unit
came with two handsets, but there was a "bundle sale" which offered a
third handset for no additional charge (methinks the offer was prolly
due to competition, but what do I know). In essence, I bought my own
wireless phone system, including the base station. And this is not
exactly featureless. It includes: built-in answering machine (accessible
from any handset), animated graphical display, walkie-talkie mode
between handsets, speaker-phone on handsets as well as base-station,
room monitor mode (works great), large phone-book with distinctive ring
for incoming calls, and of course tons of ringers.

Sounds to me like that's a heck of a lot of stuff for $130. And no
subsidy lock! I actually could have purchased any of the dozen or so
different models/brands and any one of them would have worked with my
phone-line. That wasn't the case in the cell phone section. YMMV.


--
Mike

[email protected] wrote:

> Sprint's website "activate phone online" used to allow that, I have
> done it. Are you sure it doesn't?
>
> It does however reset the 18 month timer, which sounds like a computer
> programming issue. I should be able to take a phone out of my drawer
> and use it without affecting anything. But I can't.

I just talked to Sprint CS for an unrelated reason and did check my New For You
qualifying date, which was pushed back to January 2006 because the USED phone I
just bought will be eighteen months old at that time.

However, the CSR confirmed that I was correct, that the timer is only reset on
purchases of new phones. Or is supposed to only be reset for new phones, anyhow.

So obviously there was a screwup somewhere, and the CSR said it had to be fixed
at the store. (Ummmmm.... I don't think so. Closest Sprint store is 45 minutes
away.)

>>Before making any assumptions, check your paper, the Sprint website, etc., and
>>see what kind of deals are out there for new customers. Yes, they ARE better.
>>How much better is up for debate.
>
> LOTS better.

I can't answer that, because you didn't give any examples. LOTS is subjective.

>>Hm. Sounds like there's a problem here... inconsistency in how the policy is
>>implemented.
>
> No, it's consistent. The timer is reset. The rules on the website say
> so.
> In fact they have been moving it back on my acct, at least twice.

No, it's not consistent, because I've changed phones more than once, and I have
not always been reset.

> I just started printing out the page with the date the 18 months is
> up. I have made no changes and it has been changed twice for me.

Then obviously something is wrong, wouldn't you say?

> The rep agreed the phone I am using was activated in 2002, and the
> timer didn't expire until 5/1/05. But it was a year or more earlier.
> It has been finagled by Sprint. Interesting huh? I wish I had
> printed out the pages before, I would have it in black and white. I
> didn't think of it.

I'd like to start gathering some data from you and others who have had this
problem. I'm sufficiently annoyed to start complaining to Sprint... and the
more people who share their experiences with me, the better... I'd like to say
"this just happened to me, and look, it happened to a bunch of other people
too; fix it."

>>I was given the date I qualify for NE2, after activating the LG. It was
>>12/2/2005, which is exactly 18 months after the date I bought my last new
>>Sprint phone... the Samsung 660 with which I activated the new line last year.
>>I'll check again tomorrow to see if the date got reset with this latest change,
>>but I bought a used phone off eBay - so it shouldn't.
>
> Yeah, I would be interested.

As I mentioned, it did get reset, but according to the CSR, it shouldn't have.

This ought to be interesting. If you want to send some more information over to
me that is related to the 18-month timer, use my posting address, which is
valid and unmunged.

I love Sprint's network and coverage, and phone selection. Their backend
systems, however, apparently need to be fixed.

--
JustThe.net - Apple Valley, CA - http://JustThe.net/ - 888.480.4NET (4638)
Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / [email protected] / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED

"The wisdom of a fool won't set you free"
--New Order, "Bizarre Love Triangle"