Discounts

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You really just have to threaten them with switching in my experience. Then you can often get the same discounts.

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I think it’s designed that way because Sales VP’s get bonuses based on new sales, not retention.

So there is an unspoken market force that causes service companies to churn customers. Senior executives want you to leave because the competition is doing the same thing.

All competing companies sales teams benefit from churn as long as all companies work to alienate their customers and make them switch services.

When I ran an isp I had a customer complaint about new sales being cheaper than loyal customers get forwarded to me. I realized my mistake and cut prices across the board so loyal customers paid the same as new promotions. But very large companies are an old boys club. The CEO isn’t going to piss off his VP of sales so the game goes on.

GingaNinga

same with employees

GingaNinga

At least with telecoms speeds are fast enough now (in my area)that it just doesn’t matter which provider I use so I always go with the discount guys now and its great.

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It costs more, but those are indirect costs associated with marketing. Most executives only look at sales and expenses and don’t think in indirect costs, regardless of how many business people try to explain. So the costs are marketing, we either cut the costs or we cut the budget, but not change what we are doing. Or they don’t care, because of the above collusion mentioned in another comment, or because they want to spend on marketing for their golf buddy, the marketing CEO.

Does it drive me insane, as someone who has a marketing and accounting degree, and had to explain it a bunch of times? Yes. Also most high level executives make up a fantasy version of how the business is being run and feel anyone who doesn’t agree is inherently wrong.

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Every 6 months without fail whichever car insurance company I am with raises my rates. My car depreciates in value the whole 6 months and is now less valuable and therefore less costly to replace and yet they raise my premiums. So, every 6 months I have to play this game and switch to another company. Then when you call them to cancel they act disappointed and ask why you want to cancel. Duh!!!

Kalkaline

Some have figured out that you can threaten but they still won’t budge banking on the status quo bias to keep you with them. Even when faced with competitor pricing they won’t give a discount. Don’t even give them the warning, just leave. Be a well informed consumer.

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Congratulations, you’ve discovered the only negotiating power consumers have ever and will ever have: voting with your wallet.

Let’s normalize real customer loyalty again by sending a strong message that continued business is not to be taken for granted.

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Don’t know how that happened but my bill keeps decreasing and they just gave me an extra 25g of data so I now have 110g for 25$+tx I’ve been with the same provider (Koodo in Canada) for years and change plan to get a better one every now and then but it’s usually more data for the same price and I’ve got a 20$ rebate on every bill for some reason…

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Spectrum capped my threats at 4 years. They refused to negotiate so I cancelled. And committed to that decision.

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Same with phone plans. You either get 50Mb/s for cheap or a fancy “5G 400Mb/s!!!” for three to five times the price that ends up being 100Mb/s in reality anyways

GingaNinga

I can’t stand telecom companies, I bounce around all the time. They ALWAYS have terrible customer service too.

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Been 8+ year at the dame ISP. Last year they raised the prices by 11%. Changed providers and pay less for the first year with 4x the download speed. Shortly after I terminated the contract they called me to give me a special offer of 6 months free… I told them I already have a new ISP.

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If they use the phrasing “new or returning customers” you can just cancel your service then sign up again.

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Hello, I would like 25 grams of data please!

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Profit graph needs to go up or stakeholders get mad.

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As a programmer with more than a decade of experience, I got a variant of this principal watching newly-minted and utterly useless CS graduates get hired with a salary higher than mine. Only remedy was to quit and go work somewhere else.

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Aboit ten years ago I had XM Radio in my car. Came for free for the first year, then renewed me for $30 for the following year as part of the promo of getting the car. I occasionally used the service for Comedy Central radio and a couple other things, but was largely playing audio off my phone from Spotify/MP3s.

After those two years an XM rep called me since my subscription was about to expire. They wanted $15/mo or $150 for the year. I laughed and said the most I’d pay would be $50 for a year. They tried to argue with me before I cut them off and told them “Look, here’s the deal. Either you find me some special that brings the price down to that rate and get some money from me or you get no money from me since I’ll be canceling my service. You’re selling a service that I don’t need and has limited benefit to me that my phone hooked up to my car can’t do.”. After a few minutes they found me a special and got approval from their manager. That wound up being my last year of using the service.

It’s dumb how much publically traded companies try to squeeze their" customers" and staff to drive up value for their true customers, the share holders. It’s such a short term view on life and value.

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They’ve got a deal that’s three years for $99 but you have to really push them to offer it to you. They say it’s for new customers only but it really isn’t.

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The reason some companies do this is because they make a loss on every new customer offer they give out, but it’s designed to just get their custom in the first place. If they offered the same discounts for existing customers, they would go out of business.

Though if you hassle them enough, you can get something close to a new customer offer.