Change to Battery Swap Program

[grayman]

I stopped in to US Cellular the other day to swap out my battery for a fully charged battery. I will admit that I actively abuse this program, but I think it was great benefit to USC customers. I have used it repeatedly when I forgot to charge my battery before leaving work and knowing that I will not be near a charger for an extended period of time. I honestly think I probably swap batteries at least once a month, if not more often.

Anyway, when I stopped in for my swap, the customer service rep explained that effective May 1st, USC had changed the battery swap program. Swaps are now limited to 4 per handset per year.

I was not pleased with this change. I calmly explained that I feel like this change removes any real benefit from the program because if I am limited in how many times I can swap my battery, I will hesitate to take advantage of it since I might need a battery swap more at a later date. I did acknowledge that I understand that it was not her idea to change the program, but wanted to share my issues with the change.

At this point, she said (and I am assuming it was straight from a talking point supplied by USC) that the purpose of the battery swap program was more about replacing a damaged or poor battery. This actually made me angrier.
From the USC website "Battery Swap, only from U.S. Cellular

 

[boxer1832]

Plan price increases, battery swap program restrictions, failure to actively support/feature certain phones (Desire and Electrify specifically) leads me to think that USCC is falling behind in customer service. If they were to start charging for incoming calls, texts, pictures I would be looking elsewhere.

 

[tritiumman]

This changes the contract/contracts customers signed. USC now has to let you out with no ETF.

 

[grayman]

This changes the contract/contracts customers signed. USC now has to let you out with no ETF.

AT$T is looking better every day!

I am pretty sure that the battery swap program is an additional feature that is not a part of my contract, so any changes to it would not trigger any termination provision that would allow me to avoid an ETF. Regardless, I am still quite satisfied with my USC experience and don't plan to switch any time soon. I am just frustrated with this change to what I considered an awesome program and extremely disappointed in the BS explanation they are feeding to employees to pass along to customers. I have now passed on at least 3 opportunities to swap out my battery because while I was concerned about my lack of charge, it was never an emergency and I didn't want to use up a swap that I might desperately need at a later date.