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Customer Service: Can I Get Some Service, Please?

Mark Halula, who runs a flower shop in Omaha, understands customer service. For him, Sprint PCS gets a failing grade. When he exceeded his credit limit by $11, Sprint left him a phone message notifying him that his service was being cut off. He talked to a Sprint rep who said he'd have to pay $15 to reactivate. He did. Still no service.

He called Sprint again and learned that it charges a $5 transaction fee, leaving him $1 over his credit limit again. When he asked to speak to a supervisor, the rep said she needed "a valid reason" to transfer him, and hung up. "I called back and talked to a different rep, who was embarrassed and said, 'I can't believe this,'" says Halula. "He credited my account and [my phone was soon reactivated]."

Of all complaints filed with the U.S. Better Business Bureaus in 2003, cell phone companies accounted for 18,323 (an improvement over 2002's total of 21,534), in a group of more than a thousand industries. Only car dealers attracted more complaints. According to the BBB, consumers frequently cited difficulties with customer service or confusion over billing or plan details.

Will switching carriers improve the situation? Not likely, says Lewis Ward, IDC senior wireless analyst. He adds that creating "bigger and better call centers is the [right] move"--but don't hold your breath. Carriers probably won't spend money on call centers because research shows that service alone isn't enough to make people switch carriers. The BBB's Charles Underhill disagrees: "With number portability, consumers are less tied to one carrier, and the companies can no longer count on an exponential increase in the number of new customers," since so many people already own cell phones. Ultimately, being persistent will likely yield the best results.