All Services Are Negotiable

Saturday, July 15, 2006

33 Minutes...

That's all it took for me to just re-negotiate my cell phone agreement. My wife and I were tired of our old plan. We're loyal customers, and it would clearly be more hassle for me to attempt to switch providers and then get a good contract. Why not just see if my current provider was willing to deal?

Knowing it wouldn't help to go into the conversation without the details of my current plan, as well as a comparison of current plans and introductory offers, I spent about 20 minutes online, checking for the latest deals. Then I reviewed my statement from the cell phone company for the last month, which lists the subtleties of my current plan and my account overall. Then I made the call.

If you can believe it, the provider's customer service call tree dropped my call three times before I successfully connected to a live person, but rather than giving up, I just kept calling back. And rather than bashing the poor customer service rep who finally received my call over the head with it, I just filed the knowledge away as leverage in case I needed it.

I spoke with a very nice woman who clearly valued my business. In an attempt to avoid as much miscommunication as possible, as well as having her offer me additional useless services for more money, I started out by telling her that I am inundated with very competitive offers, and stated exactly what it was that I was looking for. I was transparent about the fact that I'd rather stay with my current provider, but that the other offers on the table made leaving seem attractive.

The CSR was very understanding, but subject to the limitations of the software the company uses to add and upgrade customer plans. Basically, it didn't provide her the ability to do much in the way of subjective credits to my account. I simply pointed out to her that I'd been a loyal customer for about five years, and she went out of her way to get creative about giving me some help.

As a result of our efforts, I ended up with 300 additional anytime minutes, a $6.50 discount off of my current monthly rate, a two-hour earlier nighttime start time, and no new service contract.

No new contract!

That's huge! Most providers require a two-year contract these days!

Not bad for an hour's worth of surfing the web and chatting it up on the phone.

1 Comments:

  • Dr. Van Nostrand, you are doing with a blog what I've always wished to do for consumers---unite them! Whether towards one endeavor, or many singular ones, the effect is to empower us all in a significant and satisfying way! Thank you. I look forward to more money-saving and negotiating tips.

    Twist of the Wrist aka "No Seatbelt"

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 6:40 PM  

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