Prior to Sprint Nextel I was a semi-happy Verizon Wireless Customer. They had powerful service, quick load times and great  customer service – the only downside was they we’re a bit pricey. I also wasn’t a fan of the ‘Al-La Carte’ charges needed to power my less than acceptable Blackbarry Storm.

My story begins here:

I signed up with Sprint sometime ago… During my time as a customer I have averaged a monthly bill of around $120. To me; that’s pretty good – I am assuming this is why I am a ‘Sprint Premiere Customer.” I’ve been pretty happy with Sprint’s overall service, yet they seem to constantly fall below par when it comes to customer service; here’s why.

During my time as a Sprint Nextel Customer – my BlackBerry Curve has failed 3 times. Sprint continues to refuse a swap unless I want to pay the full price due to the current ‘economic troubles…’ so they suggested that my phone be replaced a 4th and 5th time prior to them agreeing to swapping me out. That’s a hell of a lot of visits to the Sprint Tech Store which is roughly 45 mins  from my house, my time is money and I have already spent way to much on Sprint troubles…

Sprint has agreed to lose  me as a customer; not directly but their refusal to fix my problem. I have  said this verbally to them; I even told them I was going to vent my frustrations publicly via my blog.. that’s ok, who reads my blog anyway?

Let’s see what  my actual worth is to Sprint Nextel and why it’s probably not the best business decision to let me go over a phone…

• Average Monthly Rate: $120.00
• Estimated Spend over past year: $1,400
• My Customer “Value over 2 years”: $2880
• My Customer “Value over 5 years”: $7,000

The chances I would stay a good standing Sprint Nextel customer for 5 years is promising, especially if they land an agreement with Google to support the Nexus One…

Sprint Nextel has shown me that my value as a good paying customer isn’t worth a swap into a phone that works. They would rather sacrifice a ‘Premier’ standing customer  for a simple phone swap that couldn’t cost them more than $300/max.

Welp – since Verizon dropped rates on their everything plans, switching back is looking better by the day.