Case Study: Sprint achieves a customer-satisfaction turnaround and sub-2% churn with NICE Systems' Compass performance management

Customer Satisfaction Through Performance Management

Sprint, once known for strong service, faced a steep decline in the mid‑2000s: first‑call resolution lagged competitors by ~20%, average hold times exceeded seven minutes with 35% of callers hanging up, churn was double the industry rate, stores were closing and the company took a $29.7B goodwill write‑down. Leadership made customer experience a top priority and recognized their home‑grown performance systems and management practices were failing to deliver actionable, behavior‑focused insights.

Sprint implemented Compass and MyMetrics (built on NICE Performance Management), cleaned and consolidated data, reduced tracked metrics from 80+ to a focused set, launched Master Coaches, tied compensation to customer satisfaction, and held outsourced centers to the same standards. The results: customer satisfaction and first‑call resolution improved by over a third, calls per subscriber and Care operating costs fell by more than a third, billing adjustments dropped 75%, churn fell below 2%, performance variation tightened 42%, ROI was achieved within months to a year, and Sprint regained top industry rankings.

Sprint

Lonnie Johnston

Director, Call Center Analytics