At last month’s Open Developer Conference, Sprint outlined their new “Open” approach which entailed a more hands-off policy when dealing with developers and applications, as well as voice and data services. Basically, Sprint got out of its own way while still maintaining management of all of these facets of the services it provides. Wireless carriers have learned that the more open they are with their software, the more innovative and creative developers can be when creating applications for their handsets, which keeps customers happy. While the top two wireless carriers duke it out both on television and in court, it leaves a little room for the struggling carriers, like Sprint, to garner a little attention for positive efforts. Sprint just made a major move in that direction by doing away with one of their longest standing, and most reviled fees.
For years now, Sprint has charged a conditional call forwarding fee. Sprint customers could set up call forwarding to field calls that came in while the phone was busy, or when the phone just wasn’t answered. Every time this occurred, the customer was charged $.20 per minute. Not per call—per minute. So if a Sprint customer is on the phone and lets a second call be forwarded to another number, say, their Google Voice number, and the callers leaves a three-minute message, that call just cost the recipient $.60. Now, imagine that Sprint customer who uses their phone for business, and who has a high call volume and has set up call forwarding to be more responsive to customers. That 20 cents a pop can really add up.
Sprint announced last month that it would do away with this fee in mid-November, and a couple of days ago, they did just that. Customers will not longer be charged that $.20 per minute to have calls forwarded.
While it’s a move intended to increase customer satisfaction, something Sprint has been striving for since CEO Dan Hesse came on board in December 2007, it’s also obviously an overture to Google. By not charging customers to forward their calls to Google Voice, more people are likely to use that service. They’re also more likely to keep their Sprint numbers and just use a Google Voice number as a backup rather than their primary number. It seems Sprint learned a lesson from the debacle brought about by Apple and AT&T blocking Google Voice from the iPhone, an issue that caught the attention of the Federal Communications Commission.
In addition to Google Voice, Sprint customers now also have access to the visual voicemail service YouMail, free of charge. With the conditional call forwarding fee gone, customers can take advantage of the many features offered by the service, including the ability to keep messages forever, and greeting callers by name or with a personalized message. YouMail still charges for their premium service, which starts at $1.99 a month, and is still more affordable than $.20 per minute. YouMail also offers mobile applications for the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android phones.
