Future of SERO
 

I have been informed by co-workers, who I have referred to the SERO plan, that they have attempted to upgrade to the Palm Pre and was told that they would have to upgrade their plan to use the Palm Pre. They stated the SERO plan would not work with the Palm Pre. Something to do with a business plan. What data services is the SERO plan lacking in? Also, if this is true, this may be a way for Sprint to ween SERO customers off of this great plan. If customers want to use the latest and greatest phones, they have to loose the SERO plan. Is it me or is the wrting on the wall?

Re: Future of SERO
 

This is nothing new. Pre,pixi,hero,moment,instinct(all versions) will need an EP plan to be activated on. People can hold on to their plans as long as they want but wont have the ability to get some newer handsets. This does not only apply to sero customers either. There are old F&C and F&F plans that wont work with those phones either.

Re: Future of SERO
 

I just went through this myself. It seems to be an OS thing as well. All or most of the WinMo phones are SERO compatible. I just purchased a Touch Pro 2 and activated it on SERO, yet as mentioned above, the palm pre was not in the list of phones I could add.

Re: Future of SERO
 

This is just sprints way of forcing people with sero into a higher priced plan for the latest phones with TP2 being the exception to latest.

Re: Future of SERO
 

Sprint needs to earn money so they have to... "push" their customers into their preferred direction.

Re: Future of SERO
 

I don't blame them because Sprint is losing money out the bajoobers so to speak. Sure if you are a SERO customer it's no fun but what else can you do?

Re: Future of SERO
 

well do i like i did. get the simply everything referal plus with any mobile for 59 a month, and u can use whatever phone u want.. I gave up my sero 500 plan.. and dont regret it for a minute.. now my wife and daughter still have sero 500..

Re: Future of SERO
 

I just moved my 2 SERO 500 plans to a Sprint Everything Plus Referal family plan, and added 3 lines for my rugrats. Works out about the same cost if I had added 3 more SERO lines, but also added Any Mobile, Any Time, etc. Should work out in the long run, and you can use any phone sprint offers.

Re: Future of SERO
 

Everything Plus only beat SERO if you are signing up as a group of people or family in some sense but i still haven't and probably wont ever find any deal for single individual that will beat SERO, when you count the ability to use data.

Long live SERO...

Re: Future of SERO
 

Well what do you expect. There are too many people that took advantage of the the low rate plans. Dont complain you have been paying some of the lowest phone rates around for years. Yes they did screw themselves by letting people that did not deserve the plan to get it and now its biting them in the ***. So dont ***** and complain about it. Be happy for paying low prices while you could. I deal with this all the time in the retail business. Discount codes are put online that are for employees or family members only. They end up getting used by everyone and then when its time to take away the discount they will ***** and complain. They should not have even gotten it in the first place. They do not allow it on the new phones because they cost that much more. ATT and Verizon get the money back in there rate plans to cover for the more expensive phones. Thats my rant.

Re: Future of SERO
 

The issue is that Sprint enticed customers to subscribe to their service because of the great their plan (SERO), now I agree that WE have been getting over on them, however, if the plan gets phased out, they have to expect to loose a lot of those customers as well.

Lets face it, their coverage is nowhere near as vast as AT&T's or Verizon's. I specifically signed up to them because of the SERO plan. I will seriously have to weight rather I would remain or go to other competitor.

This is not the time for them to nickel and dime it's customers. They are already laying people off and now they may alienate customers instead of trying other innovative ways to provide better service w/Out raising costs.

Re: Future of SERO
 

They never enticed customers to the SERO plan. It was for employees. So your willing to go to another provider and spend 40 or 50 more a month on a plan? They are not alienating customers, these customers shuold not have even had the SERO plan from the start. Just be happy you saved alot over the past few years on a SERO plan. I have not had any coverage issues with Sprint. Alot of people I know have ATT and the iphone and they complain about dropped calls all the time.

Re: Future of SERO
 

It was not for employees,S-print E-mployee R-eferral O-ffer was for family and friends of sprint employees. They only needed an employees email address to sign up. At one point it was open to the public and they didnt need that much,only a promotional email address. Employees get a better deal than sero. Now when they want to TOL one of their Advantage lines it will be converted to a sero plan or when they stop working for sprint they can switch to a sero plan.

Edit: SERO is now considered an employee plan because they are technically the only ones who can get it. But thats not how it started out.

Re: Future of SERO
 

I think for me also, it has to do with customer loyalty. Yes, loyalty does depends on getting a great package. Would you try to raise the price and hope for the best that some of your clients would stay anyway or would you let the customers keep the good packages that they have and make the small profit from those customers very slowly over time? I don't think in this ultra competitive market they can afford to lose any more customers. Beside, I ve been with sprint since 2002 and probably wont ever switch unless they start taking everyone off SERO or limit the phones so much (i am a WM phone type so as long as i can use most of the latest WM phone). I believe that I am should be entitled to something at least for customer loyalty.

Re: Future of SERO
 

It was basically made for certain group and many people abused it. So anyone throwing a tantrum about this and never really qualified for it... just move onto another carrier and stop complaining, seriously. If I had a SERO plan, I would have gotten an HTC Touch Pro 2 and lived with it. But since I don't and I'm on Verizon, I'm probably getting a Motorola Droid.

Re: Future of SERO
 

Not sure why you quoted me cause I didnt start the thread. Nobody on any site has seen me whine about sero plan restrictions either. Im loving my tp2 on sero and couldnt care less about droid or a pre.

Im still trying to figure out how sero was "abused". Where did sprint say that?

Re: Future of SERO
 

I'm not whining about saving money. The simple fact is that an I.T. put me on to the plan. They work with phones and he had a hookup. Technically, you could say it was a referral, just like the plan was created for.

Granted, Sprint didn't advertise the plan, but they did open it to the public for a period of time. They also ADVERTISE about paying people who refer new customers to Sprint, via $25 and up to $50 debit/credit cards. So they are getting something out of it, free advertisement.

I did not say I would immediately jump ship, I did infer I would have to consider it. As a consumer I have that right. I was with Sprint when they were providing the home service and got 10% cash back for every $100 spent at the end of the year in the late '80s. I am not trying to get anything more than what was advertised and contractually agreed upon by Sprint to provide me.

The fact that they are excluding long time customers from being able to access new phones or features, w/out paying for upgrade or new plan is what I have a problem with. As long as I don't change my plan, it should be grandfathered in. I know relatives who had accounts (customers with AT&T since the 70's-Back then I believe they were Bell) where they were paying 25 cents a minute for phone calls. They were old and set in their ways so they never changed the plan. I didn't see the phone company call them and say, you are giving us too much money. You may want to sign up for this cheaper plan. Obviously, if they had called, they would've qualified to receive the lower cost, but where is the loyalty of the company, to look out for their customers. Oh yeah, they are in the business of MAKING MONEY.

I agree their is something to be said for loyalty, companies such as Sprint should also have the same mentality rewarding long term customers, i.e. Retention department giving crazy discounts for "Loyal cusotmers". They should actively look for customers such as the above example I provided to reward customers who have been with them instead of if they don't contact us, we'll keep taking more money then they have to spend. I know this will not happen becasue they would have to provide employees to search for these customers, which puts more of a financial strain on their company.

My point was if I wanted to buy a new phone, Sprint should not exclude me from doing so. Lets face it, I am not asking for a free phone. I am willing to buy the phone, at a reduced cost of course, with the understanding that they have me locked in as a paying cusotmer for another 2 years.

Re: Future of SERO
 

Well said ...