When I used SprintPCS, I called them for a technical problem and they offered to send me a new phone. Since the problem was (to my knowledge) based in my phone, and the tech seemed to agree, I figured that this was the most expeditious way to handle it. What I didn’t realize was that the phone replacement wasn’t being viewed as a replacement to maintain my service but as an upgrade to improve my service an therefore, grounds for an automatic contract renewal. It wasn’t sold to me as such. It was presented as a solution to my problem, not a means for SprintPCS to guarantee more money from me for a longer duration.
I sucked it up then, but from that point on, whenever I called them and asked for something, I asked “is this going to change my contract” and 4 times out of 5 (quite literally) I was told “yes.” They weren’t going to tell me, I was just supposed to assume. I know this because I asked this question in response to “Is there anything else I can do for you today?” IOW, the obvious script prompt for ending the call. I was not told. I was never asked if I agreed to anything, it was simply presumed, I wanted to make whatever (insignificant to me, but I don’t work for a cellular telecom) change or needed whatever fix, and therefore, my contract was renewed. I viewed each and every one of those transactions as a request for them to provide me with the service which I expected, nothing more. Their view was somewhat different, and they held the power in the situation.
Now I don’t know about anyone else, but I read my service agreement when I signed up for cellular service, then I put it into my files. But when I call them on any given day for some issue and they make an offer to me to solve my problem, I don’t believe that I should have to dig that multiple-page, fine print agreement out of my files and read through it again to ensure that my agreeing to have my problem solved doesn’t obligate me to anything. I believe that if my provider is going to create obligations on my part then that ought to be transparent to me, and since I’m talking to another human being in order to make this happen, and that human being has that information in front of them then they ought to tell me about it. It would be very simple to say “You realize that by doing this, it will require your agreement to renew your contract for X months from today’s date…” It would cost exactly nothing, and would not give any customer grounds for a complaint about an after-the-fact contract renewal that they did not expect. You know, because they didn’t memorize their service agreement, because 99.9% of the time, none of its terms have any impact whatsoever on their daily life.
(I don’t know about you, but I have enough to remember in my day-to-day life than the dozen or more arcane clauses in cellular phone contract. You know, like to pick up bread at the market, and to call my Aunt Margaret for her birthday on Thursday and to pay the paperboy. These are the things that are important, not whether or not a request to have something fiddled in my cellular service will trigger an automatic whatever and obligate me to whatever.)
I believe that the companies mishandle this for two reasons: first, telling people exactly what you’re going to do for them and what they must do in return, within a business transaction, is just a basic proper business practice. You act transparently with customers. If you’re doing something that will affect them, you tell them and give them an opportunity to agree or decline. When you don’t, when things happen outside of the customer’s knowledge but which have an impact upon them, it creates an impression that the company has not acted in a straightforward manner with them. That does not engender good will with the public, and that’s not good for business.
Second, and more to the point in these cases, the folks who work for SprintPCS (or AT&T Wireless, TMobile, Verizon, Nextel or whomever) know more about their service agreements and business practices than their customers do. While I can sit and read their agreement all day long, they understand it from a practical standpoint and can distill the terms down to “this is what this means for you, today, under these circumstances.” They may take it for granted that a change of phone number or a phone “upgrade” automatically triggers a contract renewal, but customers may not, and often clearly don’t, especially not months after they signed up for service and read – and then filed – the lengthy service agreement. And a contract renewal is not insignificant. It’s the kind of thing that people need to know about.
Yes, consumers should be more aware, but written contracts notwithstanding, this is a matter of open business communication. Customers want it. Cellular companies don’t, because the lack of it makes them money. The less they tell us, the more we “agree” to without knowing what we’ve agreed to, the more fees they can charge, the more contracts they can extend, the more customer inertia they can take advantage of, the better the bottom line.