Sprint Nextel spins out devices, customer-service enhancements

SAN FRANCISCO — Sprint Nextel Corp. prepped for the holiday shopping rush with a lineup of new devices, and a few customer incentives.
The carrier presented five new handsets based on popular trends. Two of the phones will be text-message savvy — the Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. Rant and the LG Electronics Co. Ltd. Lotus.
David Owens, in charge of consumer acquisitions for CDMA at Sprint Nextel, said the Rant, complete with a full QWERTY keyboard, will be in the same price range as a similar Sprint Nextel device, the LG Rumor at $50, but the Rant will be enabled with CDMA2000 1x EV-DO technology. The LG Lotus is a fashion device specifically designed to catch the attention of women, Owens said.
“It looks like a compact and is purple with etching,” Owens said. “[It’s a] square and when you open it up, it’s a clam and you get a full QWERTY keyboard. The look and feel will target females.”
Next is the Samsung High Note, a music-centered device with a slider-phone design. The High Note slides up to reveal a keypad and slides down to provide speakers for music.
“We know that people are using their devices for more than just voice,” Owens said.
The last two on the holiday shopping list include the HTC Corp. Diamond and brother phone, Touch Pro. The Diamond is a touchscreen handset, which Owens said, was built into the carrier’s lineup because they were so impressed with the user interface and its ability to run on Microsoft Corp.’s Windows 6.1 operating system.
“The Diamond is a product that will compete head-to-head with the 3G iPhone,” Owens said. “It has all the touchscreen capabilities you’re finding in the iPhone/Instinct type devices.”
The Touch Pro, on the other hand, will still retain all the touchscreen capabilities, but also features a QWERTY keyboard. But besides that extra tool, Owens said the Touch Pro is virtually identical to its sibling.
Trying to improve service
Aside from a few flashy new devices, the carrier is also hoping to improve the customer experience and the user interface on its phones. Owens said Sprint Nextel has launched One Click, a carousel-type service, displayed on the bottom right-corner of the phone screen displaying popular menus. It basically removes a step in the menu process. It can rotate around any menu items including voicemail, text messaging, e-mail, Web, a Google search link or other functions.
“One Click has default tiles and you can customize it to the things you want,” Owens said. “The whole idea is that no one’s done a phenomenal job in [this] and people are looking for a clean, common user interface.”
In other customer-satisfaction announcements, Sprint Nextel launched Ready Now as part of the carrier’s plan to improve customer service. When Sprint Nextel customers go into retail stores to buy new handsets, employees will sit down one-on-one with the customer to explain and demonstrate how the phone works. Owens said this will allow customers to fully understand their devices and give them the ability to fully grasp what their phone can do for them. With new device in hand, customers can choose to either learn the basics, a shorter, more elementary tutorial to set up voicemail, messaging, ringtones, etc., or they can opt for the advanced services training, which dives deeper into applications and services inside the phone.
Ready Now is literally, ready now and available in all Sprint Nextel retail stores.
In other plans, the nation’s third-largest carrier also plans to hone in on its push-to-talk business. In light of recent iDEN network issues and even rumors that the carrier might be selling the network, John Tudhope of the iDEN business unit said the carrier is focused on going back to the core of the PTT business.
“[Our] effort is to come out and bring some fresh new devices into the lineup and get heavy PTT users excited about this item lineup,” Tudhope said.
After launching PTT on its 3G CDMA network in June, Tudhope said the new PTT devices should come out in October. Going into detail on a new device, Tudhope said one handset will go into the sweet spot for blue- and grey- collar customers.
“It’s rugged and it comes in and replaces a current handset that has done very well in this space,” Tudhope said.
The device features another attractive feature, Bluetooth, something unavailable on the previous iDEN PTT phones, Tudhope said.