Sprint shareholders vote for power to call meeting

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shareholders in Sprint Nextel Corp (S.N) voted on Tuesday to give holders of 10 percent of shares outstanding the power to hold a special meeting, indicating they wanted a stronger voice.

While shareholders voted in line with the company on other proposals, including the election of 10 directors nominated by the company, Sprint said about 77 percent of votes were in favor of the shareholder proposal on special meetings that the company opposed.

One shareholder used the meeting as a platform to complain about everything from advertising to customer service at Sprint, which has been steadily losing customers in the last few years, including its biggest ever loss of monthly bill paying customers for the first quarter this year.

Chief Executive Dan Hesse told shareholders during a Webcast of the annual meeting, held in Overland Park, Kansas, that Sprint had been making good progress with improving its customer service in stores and in call centers that handle customer telephone inquiries.

But one person who identified herself as a Kansas-based shareholder begged to differ and told the audience several of her friends were unhappy with Sprint's service.

"They still have numerous complaints with your customer service," she told Sprint at the meeting.

She also went on to question Sprint's advertising strategy and asked why she received no direct-mail advertising from Sprint, but plenty from its rivals AT&T Inc (T.N) and Verizon Wireless, owned by Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) and Vodafone Group Plc (VOD.L).

Hesse said he was planning to resume direct-mail advertising, which Sprint cut last year to save money.

"I didn't even know until recently that this was part of our cost-cutting," he told the audience.