T-Mobile is reportedly putting pressure on its employees at a time when it is losing loyal customers.
During the third quarter of 2025, the phone carrier saw its postpaid phone churn, with the number of customers canceling their phone service reaching 0.89%, according to its latest earnings report. This is 3 basis points higher than the churn T-Mobile reported in the same quarter of 2024.
The growing customer loss follows the company’s decision to raise monthly bills in late 2024 and early 2025, affecting customers on legacy phone plans. It also made sweeping changes to phone plans, such as removing taxes and fees from pricing and automatically moving customers to new plans.
To win back customers, T-Mobile has launched several offers in recent months, including free phone line promotions, competitive trade-in deals for iPhones and Samsung Galaxy devices, and generous benefits through its T-Life app.
Now, T-Mobile has a new offer for customers; However, this time, the company is reportedly using it as a performance metric for its sales reps.
In November, T-Mobile launched its first credit card in partnership with Capital One, which includes no annual fee, 5% rewards on T-Mobile purchases and 2% rewards on all other purchases. The new card runs on Visa’s network, and T-Mobile customers can get $5 off their monthly bills when using a card with auto-pay enabled.
T-Mobile is reportedly asking employees to sign up as many customers for the card as possible and has added the goal to its “On-Carrier Leaderboard Ranker,” a ranking system that measures employee performance, according to Mobile Reports.
Additionally, T-Mobile reportedly assigned customer accounts to one of three status categories. The first is a “priority,” where customers are “pre-approved” for the card, and employees are instructed to send them an application link to sign up, even if the customer doesn’t ask.
The second position includes a button labeled “Present T-Mobile Visa via SMS link only on request”. This prompts employees to click this button to send the application link, but only if the customer requests one. However, employees are reportedly sending applications to these customers to meet sales targets.
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The third situation is when customers do not have this button attached to their account. In these cases, employees are asked to show those customers a QR code they can scan to sign up for the card if they’re interested in applying.
Because of this new initiative, customers should expect sales reps to be more aggressive in getting them to sign up for a new T-Mobile card, especially since their job security reportedly depends on it.
A recent post on social media platform Reddit by a user claiming to be a T-Mobile employee also revealed that sales reps risk being fired if they fall below the bottom 25% in terms of customer signups.
“Basically if you’re down 25% from here, see you later,” the employee wrote in the post.
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In the post, the employee said they hadn’t seen their district manager “so scared” since an internal meeting on Sunday revealed the information to their team.
This isn’t the first time T-Mobile has pushed employees to push a new offer to customers. Last February, T-Mobile launched a new in-store system called Magenta Welcome, which requires store employees to encourage customers to download the T-Life app.
Employees are reportedly being tracked and rewarded for using T-Lif customers. For each account, they earn a maximum bonus of $10, and if they fail to encourage a certain number of customers to sign up for the app, they reportedly face consequences.
T-Mobile has taken steps to tie sign-ups for its new credit card to employee performance metrics as it quietly conducts layoffs.
The phone carrier laid off an undisclosed number of account executives and sales managers in December. This month, it also laid off workers in several other departments, including end-user support, resource planning, consumer and retail, manufacturing, and sales and business.
In a statement to TheStreet on January 20, T-Mobile said there have been “some changes” at the company this month, but did not share how many employees were let go.
“Being an on-carrier means growing in ways that fuel ever-expanding products and services, deepen our relationships with our customers, and enable us to respond more quickly to a dynamic marketplace,” T-Mobile said in a statement.
“As the next step in our growth, we are making some changes while continuing to hire to ensure we have the right focus, structure and momentum to transform the industry through innovation and our long-standing focus on customers,” the company added.
T-Mobile’s recent job cuts follow a troubling trend in which many companies nationwide are reducing their workforces amid economic challenges and the rise of artificial intelligence, according to a recent survey by Resume.org.
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approx 55% Expectations of companies Conducting layoffs In 2026.
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in particular, 48% Said layoffs will definitely or probably happen at some point First quarter of the year.
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Also, 44% Companies say artificial intelligence The main reason for layingWhile 42% reorganization/restructuring and 39% He said that the budget is a constraint.
Source: Resume.org
“What we’re seeing is a rebalancing of the workforce,” Kara Dennison, head of career counseling at Resume.org, said in a statement. “Companies are laying off areas that don’t align with near-term priorities while aggressively hiring in functions related to revenue, conversion, and efficiency.”
It’s no surprise that T-Mobile has been conducting layoffs, especially since it replaced its CEO, Mike Sievert, with Srini Gopalan in November.
A month before becoming CEO, Gopalan said he planned to roll out a “digital transformation” at T-Mobile to address customer frustrations.
This reportedly includes making customers entirely dependent on its T-Life app to handle upgrades, new lines, and account activations. The announcement raised concerns among some employees, who feared losing their jobs as a result of the new initiative.
“The amount of friction and frustration we have with customers today because of our processes and the state of development in this industry is unprecedented,” Gopalan said on an earnings call in October. “We have a huge opportunity to change that with our digital transformation.”
T-Mobile has doubled down on consumer satisfaction amid increased competition from Verizon and AT&T, which are rolling out more free features and phone deals to attract new customers.
Cable giants like Xfinity and Spectrum have lured new phone customers by offering discounted phone plans bundled with TV and Internet services.
As the wireless market becomes increasingly competitive, T-Mobile faces the threat of losing many customers. According to a recent survey by Oxio, many consumers across the country are considering switching to more affordable phone plans outside of their current provider, especially as they struggle with rising monthly bills.
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approx 90% will be of consumers Consider the options On traditional phone carriers.
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Also, 85% Assume the cost is a The main factor In the mobile provider selection.
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Also, 46% Consumers rank low-cost plans as the main reason for switching providers, while 33% Prioritize good network coverage.
Source: Oxio
“Research shows that many consumers are looking for greater plan clarity and value — they want services they actually use,” Oxio CcxEO Nicholas Girard said in a statement. “We’re seeing strong interest in personalization, transparency and more control over mobile services.”
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This story was originally published by TheStreet on January 29, 2026, where it first appeared in the Retail section. Add TheStreet as a preferred source by clicking here.
