From another former Clearwire employee
July 18th, 2007 | by Admin |Well, where do I begin. First, the idea behind Clearwire is brilliant! Internet with no phone lines and no cable connections! Awesome! Perhaps developing WiMax first would have been a better approach. The technology that everyone here is complaining about is called Expedience. Think or i in terms of the early cellular phone networks. So what everyone is bitching about is a first generation product. Once WiMAx is launched, (Salt Lake is on pce for an early Fall launch) try the service again. I will not go into the details of WiMax, you found this site so Google it and see for yourself.
Yes, Clearwire does oversell it’s network. It is not done intentionally. There is such a high pressure put on the Account executives to sell that often “BAD†sales are made. These are sales 5 miles outside the coverage area or places that the service is known not to work. This is where many of the seasoned markets find themselves now. They have hit a high penetration level and now truly find themselves in direct competition with cable or DSL. And it the market is oversold and speeds start to suffer cable and DSL have the upper hand.
It is to the point in this market where more people air the complaints to the AE’s then want to sin up for service. The bigger problem is that management could care less. The company used to have a different attitude! When Clark Peterson was the VP of Sales for the company thefocus was on the customer and making quality sales. In fact the company even cared about the sales reps. The majority of issues began when Jim Ryder was named the VP of sales. The company went from a customer friendly attitude to a make the sale at any cost atmosphere.
There used to be some market flexibility in waiving the ETF, post Jim. Now forget it, even if you are serving our country and have been deployed, nope, pay up. It also created a used car sales approach within the organization. I could not take it, I like to be honest and hated lying to customers about how great the service was. I am 500 ft away from an oversold tower, I get 5 lights and have a top speed of 400k to give you an idea! Management saw the tower issue ver a year ago and still has done nothing about it.
I could go on and on, but I can not. My new customer focused job is calling so I must go.
2 Responses to “From another former Clearwire employee”
By Steve on Jul 19, 2007 | Reply
Thanks for sharing.
The consumers have 100% of the power. We vote with dollar bills.
Clearwire has lost my business. Their dishonest business practices will stick with them them. Accounts of actual occurences will only be placed under the microscope more as the company gets bigger.
I’d advise them to change before they are big enough to the point that one scandal can send them spiralling down.
By Unsatisfied on Jul 23, 2007 | Reply
Yeah, they cant even disconnect an account. They could have booked an early termination but even botched that.