T-Mobile employee gives us exclusive insight into the carrier's fall from grace

From 2012 to April 2020, T-Mobile's CEO was John Legere. With his long shoulder-length hair, Legere hardly looked like an executive, especially with his daily attire which consisted of a magenta T-Mobile t-shirt and jacket, and his sneakers. Legere put customers first and was known for insulting the competition. But he liked phones a lot more than his rival CEOs and he made T-Mobile not only relevant, but turned the company into the fastest-growing and most innovative of the four major firms. 

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Legere also orchestrated T-Mobile's acquisition of Sprint which included the latter's hoard of 2.5GHz mid-band spectrum helping T-Mobile become arguably the 5G leader in the U.S. In 2019, Legere was named the best CEO in wireless for the fifth consecutive year. From April 2020 to the present, T-Mobile has been run by Mike Sievert and things have been going downhill as Sievert seems to have changed the focus of the company from helping customers to getting the stock price up.

This week I had the pleasure of speaking with a T-Mobile Mobile Expert (ME) who has been working with the carrier since 2014. We will keep him anonymous since he still works for the carrier. He told me that things were better under Legere and that many other T-Mobile employees believe that as well. Many of the current problems facing T-Mobile have to do with the metrics that reps need to meet in order to keep their jobs. This seems to have led several reps to allegedly misrepresent promotions, add lines to customer accounts without approval, and more.

Recently a T-Mobile rep left after seven years noting that things changed after the Sprint merger when Legere left. He cited a growing wave of "shady sales tactics" under Mike Sievert. This dovetails with what the ME I spoke with told me.

And while reps had to hit metrics in the Legere years, they are different now according to the ME. He says that under Sievert, the metrics are "opportunity based." And while he agrees with the assessment that under Sievert T-Mobile's focus has shifted from the customer to the stock price, he says that employees are feeling this change the most. For example the anonymous employee I spoke with told me that he has soured on the company ever since his base pay was cut.

The T-Mobile employee did have a suggestion to help end the constant stories we hear about reps committing fraud in order for them to make enough money to live on. He believes that a pay raise from the company could relieve the pressure on rogue reps. He also explained the difference between T-Mobile at the time it closed on the Sprint purchase and the fall that the carrier has since experienced.