How Customer Service at T-Mobile Has Declined From ‘Something’ to ‘Nothing’?

By NATE GARTRELL On Dec 8, 2021

The bloom appears to be off the rose when it comes to customer service at T-Mobile. T-Mobile was supposed to benefit from this merger with Sprint by alleviating customer problems. However, as a result, T-Mobile’s customer service has drastically been poor on the job.

As you may recall, T-Mobile was the worst out of the top four U.S. carriers in virtually every category relevant to a wireless network.

However, things changed when John Legere succeeded as chief executive officer in September 2012.

Throughout a discussion with Bloomberg, Legere emphasized that T-Mobile solves customer problems, and this “customer-first” stance blended well with the executive’s often humorous attacks against competitors.

In the era of John Legere, customer service was of paramount importance to T-Mobile

Furthermore, Legere was quite knowledgeable about phones, which made him part of our group. Legere reached out to customers in a manner you wouldn’t expect Verizon’s CEO to do.

And before anyone could notice, T-Mobile was on top of the world.

Verizon and AT&T were gradually building their 5G networks based on their mmWave signals, which are short-range signals that travel short distances.

T-Mobile, on the other hand, made a move to acquire Sprint’s 2.5GHz mid-band spectrum that many believe is why it became the leading 5G provider in the United States.

In his last days at T-Mobile, Legere focused on customer service as a customer pain point. Legere announced the Team of Experts in 2018, promising to end the days of Muzak, automated menus, and robots. It looked as though the move had been a success, with T-Mobile’s customer satisfaction score (Net Promoter Score) up to 60% following the launch of Team of Expert.

After a short period, carriers began to receive customer questions via text, and turnover dropped by 48%.

Bloomberg reported that the company’s market share gains have slowed down.

According to the report, after Sprint merged with AT&T on April 1, 2020, customer service scores began to fall from a “considerably higher” rating that customers have given the company years back.

Earlier this year, Consumer Reports reported that T-Mobile had “slipped from above average to just average.”

Also, T-Mobile’s score among the three major US carriers was down from best to worst, according to American Consumer Satisfaction Index.

The annoying customer service activities that T-Mobile’s competitors engaged in to gain low customer service scores are exactly what T-Mobile does according to interviews and social media posts conducted by Bloomberg with consumers.

Issues, previously quickly resolved, are now taking a long time to resolve. Customers, even those who have been with the company for many years, are losing patience.

An ex-T-Mobile customer once tweeted that, “Your poor customer service and network decline forced an 8-year customer to move 8 lines to @Verizon…since the merger with Sprint and the new CEO taking over, the company now resembles the old awful sprint (sic). Nice work.”

Again, Carlos Recinos, a former employee of T-Mobile, tweeted, “As an ex-employee for the company I can say that is sad to see what happened to T-Mobile but it was expected. When you say your focus is customer experience but you chase the dollar (merger), you will pay the consequences. They were doing great but dropped the ball.”

Nonetheless, T-Mobile still had the highest score in the latest J.D.

It had a power wireless phone survey score of 819.

In comparison to last year, their score was down 33 points. This decline represents the largest of the three major U.S. carriers.

Callie Field, T-mobile’s chief customer experience officer attributes the breakdown in customer service to the Sprint acquisition and the pandemic.

“It had a bigger impact than I anticipated,” she said of the pandemic. The managing director of Power’s technology, media, and telecommunications, Ian Greenblatt, said.

“T-Mobile might be the victim of its own successful marketing, of setting a tremendously high expectation.”

After the Sprint merger was finalized, a former T-Mobile representative said the company shifted its focus from customers to money”

Diana Cordoba, a former T-Mobile salesperson based in Orlando, Florida, sums up the rise and fall of customer service at the carrier.

Legere’s “Un-carrier” branding would excite store representatives, she mentioned.

It was a lot of fun working at that store, she recalled, and even a number of my friends moved to the location.

But with Sprint, Cordoba claimed, “They stopped putting their customers and employees first and started caring only about money like every other corporation.”

Mike Sievert, Legere’s successor, told Bloomberg in an emailed statement, “We are delivering the best service in this industry by any objective measure. The combination with Sprint isn’t hurting the elements that made the company stand out before. Our culture is a big part of what differentiates us and it’s thriving and growing through a merger and a pandemic.”