Sprint Offers Big Bonuses to Employees Who Prevent Customers from Fleeing

If you're planning to cancel your Sprint Nextel subscription in the next couple of weeks, you may find yourself with some added leverage while talking to customer service. According to Reuters, the carrier, which has faced a mass exodus of wireless customers over the past year, is doing everything in its power to prevent its current subscribers from jumping ship. That includes sweetening an existing bonus program for employees who are able to prevent this dreaded "customer churn."

A filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday reveals that Sprint has basically doubled the importance of stopping cancellations.

From Reuters:

A short-term incentive plan for company officers sets performance targets for the last three quarters of the year. Churn, or cancellations, counts for 40 percent of the target, while two measures of cash flow and earnings were weighted at 20 percent each and customer care calls were weighted at 20 percent.

In a February filing for the same incentive plan, the weighting of churn was 20 percent. In addition, 30 percent of the incentive was based on a measure of operating income, the number of calls for customer care was 30 percent, and a type of subscriber additions was 20 percent.

Sprint Nextel reported a $29.5 billion net loss this past quarter, due largely to an enormous value write-down of its Nextel unit. The company also lost 683,000 post-paid subscribers during that same period.