Cuts at Sprint See the Layoff of 330 Techs and Closure of 55 Stores

Roughly six months after Japan’s SoftBank acquired Sprint, there were announcements concerning the company’s plan cut costs with layoffs and closures. Sprint did not end 2013 on a particularly good note. Financially speaking, it looks like Sprint’s fourth quarter results had a net loss of $1 billion. Sprint also had an operating loss of $576 million. Oddly enough, this is seen as a 22 percent improvement year-over-year.

Regardless of how Sprint ended 2013, you know that when one company acquires another that some major changes are going to take place. This is probably even more true when the buyer is a bank. Sprint is making an attempt to streamline itself and work its way back to being profitable.

Despite the negative numbers, it does look like Sprint had a decent year. The company added quite a large number of subscribers, The Sprint Spark and HD Voice services have expanded to cover 14 markets by including Baltimore and Philadelphia. However, Sprint cannot just rely on the influx of cash from SoftBank it will need to show profit.

In an effort to cut some of what might be considered dead weight, Sprint closed 55 stores. I say “dead weight” because these stores were considered to be the worst performing retail stores. In addition to the closures, Sprint also laid off 330 technical consultants.

These technical consultants are the ones who have been responsible for repairing and refurbishing damaged devices. In a statement to Re / Code, a Sprint spokesperson said, “Those reductions come as the result of greater efficiencies that we’ve achieved through simpler pricing plans and improved customer service — which have resulted in fewer calls to customer service — as well as adjusting to changing marketplace dynamics.”

Although Sprint says that the cuts have been designed with minimal disturbance to the customer, it also closed down three call centers. This brings the total number of customer service job losses to 1,550. The feeling from Sprint is that while not every store will be able to service a phone, customers will be referred to a sister store that's within a 45 minute drive, so it should not be too much of an inconvenience.

According to Sprint representative Mark Bonavia, the company previously had 2,000 to 2,500 technical consultants across the country. In a comment to CNET, he said, "We wanted to drive traffic to service and repair centers that were strong, and close ones that didn't operate as well."

While Sprint is cutting operational costs, it is still moving ahead with its 4G LTE deployments, as well as pushing its Framily plan. It is true that financially fourth quarter 2013 results were grim however it did post 682,000 new customers for the period. It looks like the real loss it convenience to some of its customers.