Sprint trying to restore website after technical snafu

Sprint Nextel said it is working to restore all functionality to its website. Some functions have been down since Sunday. The glitches happened while Sprint was upgrading the site.

The carrier, which has prided itself on its customer service improvements, stressed that major portions of the site have been up and running all week, including the Sprint Store, its new homepage, its Community section, coverage maps and store locator.

Sprint spokeswoman Roni Singleton told FierceWireless that some customers are still experiencing intermittent access to parts of the site. The part most impacted is My Sprint, which allows customers to manage accounts and pay bills, among other functions.

"The upgrades are part of a series of changes to the site that we've already made in order to enhance the overall online experience for customers. This current release is quite complex and involves new platforms and extensive testing," Singleton said. "Because of the complexity of upgrades, we've unfortunately encountered some issues, including capacity. We did extensive testing prior to launch and the issues we've encountered did not exist during the testing phase."

Singleton said she did not know when the site will be fully restored, but that the carrier is working "around the clock" to get the issues fixed. In the meantime, Singleton said, Sprint has been communicating updates to customers via Twitter and Facebook. "We've also tried to keep open communication with the members of our Community site on Sprint.com." she said. "Lastly, we introduced alternative methods for customers to access service information like minutes used, bill amount and call details via Facebook and iGoogle widgets."

This is not the first time Sprint has experienced problems with its site. Last May, Sprint apologized after technical issues caused the My Sprint function to crash.

For more:
- see this Kansas City Business Journal article
- see this Sprint Connection article

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