T-Mobile (TMUS) , one of the largest phone carriers in the U.S. with over 130 million customers across the country, has unintentionally been developing a tense relationship with its customers over the past few weeks.
Earlier this month, some of T-Mobile’s loyal customers threatened to switch phone providers after it was revealed that the company is planning to increase prices for its older phone plans (also known as legacy plans) sometime this year.
“You’re going to be hearing about us, for example, getting back to some of the adjustments of legacy pricing that we began last year,” said T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert during a recent company all-hands meeting.
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T-Mobile’s decision comes after it increased prices for older phone plans (One, Magenta, and Simple Choice) by $2 or $5 per line last year.
T-Mobile’s new in-store policy is angering customers
Now, T-Mobile is once again facing backlash from its customers, and this time, it’s over its T-Life app, which launched in January last year.
T-Mobile’s T-Life app is advertised as a “simplified experience” that allows customers to manage their own accounts and services, making them more self-sufficient.
Last month, T-Mobile even launched its new in-store system, called Magenta Welcome, which requires store employees to encourage customers to download the app, according to a recent report from The Mobile Report.
T-Mobile’s latest sales in-store policy has been frustrating customers.
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Employees are required to teach customers how to use the T-Life app, which can be used to upgrade phones or pick up devices from stores. Store employees are also instructed to use customers’ T-Life apps to conduct transactions.
According to The Mobile Report, employees are even tracked and rewarded for getting customers to use T-Life. For each account, they earn a maximum bonus of $10, and if they fail to encourage a certain number of customers to sign-up for the app, they allegedly face repercussions.
Amid this push for T-Mobile customers to download T-Life, some customers have taken to social media to claim that the app is far from simple to use.
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The app is even causing some customers to walk out of stores.
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One T-Mobile employee even claimed that the increased pressure they are facing from managers to get customers to download the app feels like “harassment.”
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T-Mobile tells a different story
The backlash comes after Sievert said during an earnings call on Jan. 29 that T-Mobile customers are “loving” the company’s new T-Life app.
“Customers are loving it,” said Sievert. “We said we’d see 40 million downloads by the end of the year, but we saw more than 50 million and with some incredible engagement numbers.”
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Despite the controversy, T-Mobile recently generated record profits during the last few months of 2024.
In T-Mobile’s fourth-quarter earnings report for 2024, it revealed that its net income increased by 48% year-over-year.
The phone carrier also added 903,000 new postpaid phone customers during the quarter and generated total service revenues of $16.9 billion, a 6% year-over-year increase.
“In our storied growth history, 2024 was our greatest growth year ever across multiple metrics, and we finished strong,” said Sievert during the earnings call.
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