T-Mobile lays off over 67% of its highly regarded customer service crew
UPDATE: T-Mobile has reached out to us to make the following statement: "To make our best-in-class online support team even more effective and collaborative for customers, we are bringing our previously geographically dispersed online support team (T-Force) physically together into five designated Customer Experience Center locations across the country. As online support remains a priority and we plan to stay fully staffed, we hope as many of our employees as possible stay on with us. To support them, we have offered relocation packages. Those who are unable to move are eligible for alternate roles at T-Mobile. We will provide those who choose to leave the company with transition support and anticipate very few departures."
T-Force is what T-Mobile calls its customer support crew that can be reached on Twitter and Facebook. Separate from the rest of T-Mobile's customer service team, T-Force offers help to T-Mobile subscribers that is fast and accurate. However, all good things must come to an end and according to a post on Reddit that has been independently corroborated by The Mobile Report, a large percentage of T-Force employees have lost their jobs.
The Reddit post, written by "Scheming_Potato," says, "T-Force is being reduced down to 5 US Call Centers, effective immediately. This impacts frontline and management in all of the impacted sites. They recently did a large round of hiring for the Specialist role. They are essentially replacing tenured and experienced Specialists with new hires out of Call Centers. If you’ve noticed an increase of a Messaging-type experience (the people you talk to in the app), that is why."
The post continues, "T-Force as you know it has been dying for over a year now with a series of employee and consumer [service] policy changes. There have been rumors going around for a long time that several executive leaders in the company hate T-Force for some unknown reason. T-Force was a department created and nurtured by former CEO John Legere, and it broke boundaries in the social space. That era is over."
If the post is correct, the number of T-Force support centers will drop to 5 from 17. The changes take place effective immediately. A Reddit post from a verified T-Mobile employee explains how some T-Force workers found out that they were let go. Redditor "carmenellie" wrote, "Please be kind to the T-Force folks who are working today. Communication about this was terrible, most of our leadership is offline, many logged in to work today to find themselves locked out of the system, and the ones who remain are incredibly confused and distressed."
One affected former T-Force employee told The Mobile Report that T-Mobile gave him two options. He could either relocate to a nearby call center with T-Mobile covering the costs of relocating via a lump sum payment, or he could accept the layoff and be given a severance payment. The payment consists of two Paid Time Off payments (PTO) which would include paychecks up through August 4th. In addition, the severance includes 10 shares of T-Mobile stock valued at approximately $1,322.
The laid-off employees have until June 12th to decide whether to relocate or take the severance package. With T-Force down to five service centers and as many as 1,000 employees leaving the unit, T-Mobile customers might not get the customer service from T-Force that they have become accustomed to. This past April, T-Mobile reduced its live chat support hours from 24 hours a day to 6 a.m. – 12 a.m. Central Time.
At one time, T-Mobile was very proud of its customer service. In the summer of 2018 then CEO John Legere announced the Team of Experts, a local-based customer service unit that was supposed to treat T-Mobile customers like rock stars.
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