I sent this to my broadband supplier tonight:

"I have been a customer for 9 months now and have become increasingly irritated by the amount of new offers that have been advertised for new customers with no consideration of offering the said new services to existing customers.

If you want to keep me as a loyal paid up member, it would be a good idea to include me and others like me in the roll out of new services (such as the heavily advertised free phonecalls and wireless box).

Look forward to deciding wether to stay or go come January."

Is this fair comment, or have we come to expect too much from our suppliers?

I'm thinking about any goods here, not just broadband...

Yeah that sounds pretty decent to me. Although I think that if you choose to take up a service, you choose to take it at the price that you got it for in the 1st place.

If you buy a candy bar for 20 pence, you cant go back to the shop 3 weeks later and say "Ive seen it on sale for 20 pence, i want a refund".

But go for it. i would :)

Originally posted by spyro2000
Yeah that sounds pretty decent to me. Although I think that if you choose to take up a service, you choose to take it at the price that you got it for in the 1st place.

If you buy a candy bar for 20 pence, you cant go back to the shop 3 weeks later and say "Ive seen it on sale for 20 pence, i want a refund".

But go for it. i would :)

The candy bar analogy isn't a very good one here spyro2000, Deavon has purchased a service which is no doubt billed at monthly intervals.

If you say, joined a gym in January which costs you £50 per month and you neighbour joined 2 months later at £40 per month you would feel cheated.

On the other hand though if Deavon has signed an annual contract that complicates the situation. Some companies and I suspect ISP's can be counted in this will need to review its pricing structure on a monthly basis at the very least. If the market is aggressive then price cuts to new customers is very common.

You have to remember that the running costs of a service are reduced the more people you have using that service (in most cases) and therefore new customers can get discounted pricing.

First 100 customers pay X
Customers 101 to 1000 pay X-20%
Customers 1001+ pay X-40%

Originally posted by serapis
First 100 customers pay X
Customers 101 to 1000 pay X-20%
Customers 1001+ pay X-40%

Exactly! The market model says go for new custom no matter what.

The 'shopping around' perogative has overtaken the 'keep your customers loyal' sensibility.

Therefore we become a more fluid and motile customer base... which is better for the companies involved!

Im not saying you are wrong Serapis, but Im just seeing it from the companies point of view. I myself would be phoning or emailing the company to get a lower rate.

But the way I see it is that when you take a service like broadband, you agree to take it at whatever special offer is on at the time (theres always some kind of special offer). So why should you be entitled to another special offer further down the line. Most special offers for broadband change monthly therefore if you dont like the offer for that current month, then you have the choice to risk waiting to see if there is a better offer the next month.

This PLUS the fact that mst these offers are for a 12 month basis, and anyone who gets to the 12th month will pay standard rates after their special offer period has finished, so would you say that these customer should then be able to have a further special offer.

If this is the case, then surely people can phone up their suppliers every single month, month after month demanding to be put onto the best special offer that is available for that month.

And this also works both ways. Lets say that next month there are no decent special offers, should customers on decent offers then be told that they need to be put on to a crapper offer because its a new month?

why should they do that for existing customers when they have your balls in a vice with a 12 month contract probably.

Companies that make offers available only to 'brand new' customers are running a risk. They must ensure that the number of new customers [attracted by these special offers] matches the number of customers who become disillusioned and leave the company. In any case, it's not something I would label as good practice and on balance it's a terrible method of customer retention [ie. letting new customers in the front door and other loyal ones out the back].

I find it's often worth pursuing the company in question and demanding that they offer you the same offers that are made available to new customers. I've found on a couple of occasions that I've gotten what I wanted.