Eleventh Entry: November 10th. I’ve decided to part ways with my Cre@tive Design Internship to focus primarily on my Internship with Sprint. The hours are more flexible with my schedule and most of the work is very hands on. I’m learning a lot about finances and market research. Kevin had given the Team a task to survey people in the park on what they expect from their Wireless carriers, and were asked to rank the Carriers based on what they know so far. Sadly, to say Sprint wasn’t at the forefront of their answers. A lot of the damage was due to a poor network build out of the LTE services, which caused a large shift in perception. This outdoor mission lasted about 2 hours, in which I had to then relay the information the head of Market Research in the department, Anna. She took a look at the results and mentioned how it lined up with what the company had suspected.
Ever since Marcelo became CEO, there has been a large focus on trying to gain subscriber growth, but that would be very difficult if customers felt the service was unreliable. A lot of the new game plan, has to do with how people on the front line shape the consumers, i.e. the Retail Locations and Customer Care. Both aspects of the business interacted with the customers directly and decided whether or not the customer will recommend your service to a family member or friend. If you have a person who is willing to promote a brand, chances are you will have a better chance of growth – even without Advertising or Commercializing plans or new devices. The Team spent the past 3 days focusing on perception on the consumer level. Almost 12 hours collecting data. Some people couldn’t understand why AT&T and Verizon customers were being offered “Half Off’ rate plans, but T-Mobile customers were not. They felt it was unfair and that T-Mobile was in fact the true rival to Sprint since they past Sprint earlier this year. They’ve had the largest spike in subscriber additions in 8 years. In wrapping up my meetings yesterday, Kevin advised that I was at 61 hours so far, and could easily achieve 100 by December if I kept the meetings consistent. It’s not necessarily an easy thing to accomplish, but I’m determined. My last few weeks have been – Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 10 AM – 2PM. I’ve made arrangement with my manager to schedule me for closing shifts and sacrificing my lunch break to make this possible.
