Channeling his inner Jack Kerouac, Sprint boss goes on the road for listening tour
Sprint is struggling right now. Last year the carrier slipped behind T-Mobile to the No. 4 spot, and is currently going through the process of cutting more than $2 billion from the budget through a layoff program, decentralization of management and other savings measures. With that as the backdrop, Sprint is also undertaking a massive network improvement plan with an emphasis on adding density.
CEO Marcelo Claure, brought in to run Sprint by SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, is taking a grassroots approach to bolstering the company with the latest being a “listening tour,” which Claure is blogging about on Linked In.
Here’s the goal as described by Claure: “I’m traveling around on a national listening tour where I will sit down in restaurants, coffee shops and talk on the streets with customers from Sprint, and customers from our competitors such as AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. Even though we continuously measure consumer preferences and sentiment, I want to hear what they think about the wireless service they use every day. I want to have a conversation with them to probe deeper into their thinking.”
The first stop was Seattle. “I gathered with a dozen people in The Virginia Inn, a cool bistro just up the hill from the Pike Place Market. I had a great conversation with a couple of Sprint customers and about 10 others who use carriers such as AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile.
“One of the first things I learned is that I spend a lot more time thinking about wireless service than most customers! Probably not all that surprising considering my line of work. But I am puzzled how most people couldn’t imagine leaving home for the day without their smartphone yet typically devote little attention to the service that makes it work. Or really look into how they could save a lot of money.”
Next up, Claure hit Kansas City. Sprint is headquartered about 20 miles away in Overland Park, Kansas.
“Sometimes the best conversations are the ones that are the toughest. When I sat down with customers in Kansas City, it was clear right away that this was a tough group. It was difficult to hear that we had let them down when they were Sprint customers in the past. Some left because they didn’t have a good experience years ago. When they reached out for help, they didn’t always get good service. Sometimes our network was not as reliable as it needed to be. Others were reluctant to leave one of our competitors and give us a chance because of what they heard others say about Sprint. Their words stung. It would have been easy to grow defensive and stop listening fully to what they had to say. But sometimes the best thing a leader can do is embrace the conversation for what it is.”
He concluded the recollection of his Kansas City stop on a positive note.
“This experience made me think about something Bill Gates once said: ‘Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.’ When you have frank and honest conversations with your employees and your customers, you don’t have to guess what they want. And when you use that information to improve, you create satisfied employees and customers, the best ambassadors a company can have.”
