T-Mobile CEO Says Other Carriers Don’t Have The Balls To Tell The Truth

Image via Flickr/ Thomas Hawk

T-Mobile CEO Says Other Carriers Don’t Have The Balls To Tell The Truth

John Legere, the CEO of T-Mobile, is calling other carriers out again with new plans and deals that seem almost too good to be true. In July, during an interview with Bloomberg TV, Legere was asked about the complaints made by other carriers regarding T-Mobile’s plans to allow customers to upgrade their phones twice a year. The other carriers had griped “off the record” that this plan was too costly to support and they had complained that T-Mobile was cramping their profits. Legere simply smiled at the reporter and the words that came out of his mouth may very well be a nugget of truth to hold on to.

Legere said, “You know what? It’s the best part of what you just said. I’ll tell you what hurts them, is the fact that they’re telling you off the record that they don’t like this variable about serving their customers, because frankly they don’t have the balls to say it.”

He called the other carriers out in the interview, noting that T-Mobile was making strides in improving customer service, while competitors complained about serving customers. While the telecommunications business is not typically a place to find an arrogant, trash talking CEO, perhaps Legere is exactly the type to shake up corporate America and impress consumers with his brash disregard for traditions.

Tradition Thrown Out The Window

Legere has been known to break traditions since he came onboard with T-Mobile a year ago. He wears a pink T-Mobile shirt almost always, when he is in the public eye. He keeps his hair shaggy, and wears a silver necklace. He has spent his time at T-Mobile calling AT&T, Verizon, and other competitors by name and constantly stating that T-Mobile is not your average wireless carrier.

T-Mobile Advertising

T-Mobile is unlike the other carriers in its advertising methods as well. For more than ten years AT&T, Verizon, and other carriers have flaunted their networks as being the largest, fastest, and most reliable networks in the country. T-Mobile’s advertising makes no such claims, and while AT&T and Verizon have dominated the market for the last decade, that could change soon. It’s becoming more apparent that T-Mobile is a force to be reckoned with, as the size of the network has increased in recent years. It’s coverage is widespread enough to hold a major market share and the network is just as fast as its competitors. With ads like the one below, T-Mobile is gaining popularity with its branding as the “UnCarrier.”

T-Mobile Affordability

Legere is doing more to lure customers to T-Mobile than just giving them comical advertisements. The company has initiated a new plan that allows customers who have a tablet that runs on T-Mobile’s network to bring the it in and get perks. For the cost of a sim card, T-Mobile will give you 200MB of free data for the life of the tablet. While this is not a huge amount of data, it is enough to lure customers in and get them to spend on larger packages.

The company is also offering a new monthly purchase plan for tablets, such as the Nexus 7 and the iPad Air. With payments starting as low as $16 per month for the Nexus 7 and only $26.25 for the iPad Air, this could bring thousands of new customers to T-Mobile in the coming months.

The future looks good for T-Mobile and having an unconventional chief at the helm may be exactly what the company needs to boost it to the same levels as its larger competitors.