allaboutadvocacy.com

Rule #1. Don’t fire customers

As an advocate for advocacy, one of the most shocking things I saw last year was Sprint’s announcement that it was going to “fire” about 1000 customers for being too high maintenance. Now, granted, some customers are unprofitable and some might complain too much. But a mass firing? Of vocal complainers? Who are already frustrated with Sprint’s service?

Yeah, this one’s obvious. And not surprisingly, six months later, the “price of badvocacy” became very clear and very tangible via an unplanned announcement Sprint Nextel had to make Friday. The bottom line: Sprint Nextel lost 885,000 customers during the quarter — and now has to lay off 4,000 staff, cut a bunch of contractors, close 125 retail locations and eliminate 4,000 third-party distribution points.

Of course, Sprint’s bad performance isn’t entirely attributable to bone-headed customer service decisions. But I’m sure every Sprint employee must be wondering: Will the brainiacs who fired those 1,000 customers now be on the firing line themselves?

[Disclosure: Weber Shandwick represents Verizon Wireless. I don't work on the account, and I share this not to attack Sprint, but to remind other companies of the "price of badvocacy" as they make their own daily business decisions.]