Sprint Nextel Executive John Garcia to Leave

Customer Service is always a big issue for companies. If you have bad customer service then you are going to fail in the long run of running the company. I have heard that Sprint has improved its customer Service, but it is still no where near the standards where they need to be.

John Garcia, a top Sprint Nextel Corp. executive in charge of one of the wireless carrier's main business units, is leaving the company, a spokeswoman said.

Mr. Garcia is stepping down as head of the CDMA business, the unit that control's 70% of Sprint's customer base. The circumstances of Mr. Garcia's departure were not clear. The company spokeswoman declined to comment, and Mr. Garcia could not immediately be reached for comment.

Sprint has tapped Keith Cowan, president of strategy and corporate development, as an interim replacement for Mr. Garcia while it searches for a successor.

Sprint has had considerable turnover in upper management in the past year as it looks to revive its ailing business and catch up to rivals AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless. Dan Hesse, who took over as Sprint's chief executive late last year, has overhauled most top staff, adding a new chief financial officer, Robert Brust, while ousting executives such as Tim Kelly, former marketing chief, and Mark Angelino, former head of sales and distribution.

Last week, Sprint said it was offering voluntary buyout packages to some employees.

Sprint's other main business unit, iDen, is the result of its 2005 acquisition of Nextel Communications Inc. The rocky merger has led to increased subscriber defections and quarterly losses. Sprint has made progress in customer service, but its user base continues to shrink. And executives are concerned that the economic slowdown could become a bigger drag on earnings if more customers are unable to pay their bills.

As of the third quarter, AT&T had 74.9 million subscribers, Verizon had 70.8 million and Sprint had fallen to a distant third at 50.5 million.

Sprint sought to address concerns about its liquidity recently by renegotiating key credit agreements to give it increased flexibility to have a higher ratio of debt relative to earnings.

Mr. Garcia is well respected in the industry for his knowledge of wireless, especially Internet-enabled mobile devices that are getting increasingly complex.

He was previously senior vice president of product development, overseeing the company's pipeline of new devices.

Mr. Garcia also was president of Sprint's joint venture with several major cable operators, Pivot, which ran into bureaucratic and marketing challenges and was scrapped earlier this year. Cable companies have struck a new partnership with Sprint, agreeing to help finance a separate joint venture with wireless Internet provider Clearwire Corp.