Sprint is currently offering select customers that are out of their contract or close to contract completion an incentive to stay with the carrier with a $50 account credit after renewing with a new 2 year agreement. The idea behind the credit is to reduce the carrier’s churn rate and improve its quarterly results, but it remains to be seen whether the program will be effective enough to achieve its goal, as Sprint is currently waging a battle against AT&T’s purchase of T-Mobile and continues to lose postpaid customers while adding customers through its prepaid division. Read more for unsurprising news on Sprint and the HP Pre 3
In other Sprint news, news has surfaced that suggests that Sprint will not carry the HP Pre 3 due to its previous experience with selling the Palm Pre. Sprint was initially the exclusive carrier for the Pre when it was first released in 2009 and positioned the webOS powered smartphone as a superior alternative to the iPhone, and even included full compatibility with iTunes before Apple shut down Palm’s cat and mouse game.
However, the initial fanfare and promise embodied in the Palm Pre quickly faded after complaints of poor hardware and equally poor developer support led Palm to seek out additional carriers in order to meet its sales targets for the device such as AT&T and Verizon with the refreshed Pre Plus with Wi-Fi, although the addition of two more carriers did little to improve Palm Pre sales to the general public as well as a poorly executed ad campaign.
Ironically, the most dedicated customer base for the Palm Pre and related variants became the crowd that Palm initially wanted to ignore in the homebrew scene, but it wasn’t until the homebrew scene adopted the Pre and webOS that the platform began to see increased developer support. Another factor that led to increased popularity of the Palm Pre and Pixy Plus was Verizon’s former offering of complimentary Mobile Hotspot access included with each sale of a Palm Pre or Pixi Plus included with the monthly data plan, with extensive coverage on the offering.
With the rejection of the Pre 3, Sprint is adopting a once bitten twice shy attitude towards the webOS platform while it increases support for Android and Windows Phone 7 as well as RIM’s BlackBerry with new devices coming later this year, while no HP webOS devices have been slated for release on Sprint at anytime this year or have been tested internally since the new lineup was initially announced in March.
If they want to keep Postpaid customers instead of prepaid, why not offer Postpaid customers better deals? I went prepaid on boost and only pay 40 per month for what I was paying over $100 with nextel and I’m using the same phone lol.
I don’t think it’s fair to compare anything to Nextel’s horrendous service! haha. If you’re using the same phone, that means you still running an iDen phone. The problem with prepaid plans though, is that you don’t have any of the roaming capabilities of the parent company. You also receive significantly worse customer care. This particularly applied to all Sprint services. I have been a thoroughly satisifed Sprint customer for years and I am familiar with the level of servive provided by Boost and Virgin Mobile. I guess we will both hope that Sprint holds out and doesn’t fall to the deep pockets of Verizon and AT&T!
I just upgraded through amazon wireless yestreday is there any chance I get this credit?
@ Josh
The $50 Credit, is a new tool for “the Retention Department”, to entice one, to stay @ SPRINT, and prevent/reduce the churn rate. I suggest asking really nicely from costumer service, to extend you the offer.
Remember that, you have 30 dirty days in the state of California, to “change your mind & leave”, thereby odds are, that SPRINT will honor your request! Good Luck!
Thank You
Why do people resort to trickery to get money. This is an enticement for people thinking about leaving the carrier, it is not bonus cash. It is unethical to sign up and try to get 50 dollars by threatening to leave. Sprint has been losing cash for years and your activities does not help.
About four weeks ago, with 5 months left in my contract, I was offered $65 to renew my contract. They said it wouldn’t remove my upgrade eligibility either. I didn’t bite … yet.
I was offered $50 to extend on SERO. The first CSR told me I could take the $50 and it would not affect phone upgrade prices, but when I called the employee line to accept it they said I could take the $50 OR a phone upgrade, but not both.
Oh well. Seems fair, I guess. Here’s hoping for a super Sprint lineup this Fall!! (And please, have some decent non-4G options! Too bad about the Pre 3…)