AT&T vs Sprint

AT&T does not know anything about customer service. When I was on AT&T anytime I had an issue or told them I was thinking about switching providers they would threaten with early termination fees. They recently did this to my parents who have since switched to Verizon. The reason they switched was because they could not get any service on AT&T anywhere near their home. When they called AT&T to complain they were given the run around. My parent have high speed internet and there is a simple solution to this problem. But instead of offering a solution AT&T threatened them with early termination fees. I called AT&T on their behalf trying to get either a free or discounted micro cell (a device that offers phone service over an internet connection) and AT&T refused to discount or comp the device. I asked how they could possibly charge for a service that wasn't being rendered and ask the customer to pay more in order to be able to use the service they were already paying for. I mentioned that my parents would change service providers if they couldn't resolve the issue and I was threatened with the early termination fee. I asked to speak to a supervisor and the cycle repeated a couple of times until it was obvious that no manager was going to offer any kind of resolution.

Threatening customers with early termination fees instead of offering a resolution is not how you win customers.

Contrast this with Sprint.
My parents finally switched to Verizon and while in the store I am looking at the 20mbs + lte phones specifically the Galaxy Nexus from Samsung.
I was seriously considering switching so I called Sprint and told them that I was thinking of switching providers. The person on the phone asked if I felt my service with Sprint was in jeopardy to which I replied yes. Immediately a manager got on the phone and asked me about my issues. I told him that I wanted faster speeds and that the phone I wanted was not available on their network. He mentioned that Sprint would have their new LTE network rolled out by the end of the year and that the phone I wanted would be coming in a several months. I told him I didn't think I could wait that long and he reminded me that I would be grandfathered in with unlimited data on the new lte network if I could wait. He then looked at my upgrade availability and made me eligible for an upgrade months in advance and offered to take $80 off my next months bill. I just got it and it was $13.

The moral of this story
I am still on Sprint and my parents are no longer on AT&T.