Can I please speak with the Customer Retention Department....

[Matt Meiser]

We are (or I should say were) approaching the end of the contract on our cell phone service and have been out of contract on our DirectTV for a while. I've been looking at options including switching to save a little money. This week I learned that may not be the best way to save.

My first call was to Sprint to try and change our cell phone plan to one with fewer minutes since we rarely use even 1/2 the minutes we have, including my business use. They wouldn't do it without extending our contract 2 years which I didn't want because I could save a lot more long term by switching (but with having to go through a lot of hassle and paying early termination fees on our data card.) I asked for Customer Retention and they offered me a plan with MORE minutes than I had and cut my voice plan cost by $40 or in HALF.

The second call was to DirecTV. I didn't do as well there since Dish and DirecTV are pretty competitive and we don't have cable here. I showed the DirecTV rep that I could save $10 and get DVR in two rooms instead of 1 by switching to Dish. That resulting in a $10/mo credit to our bill per month for 1 year. They also offered me a free DVR for the second room but I would have had to pay a $20 shipping/handling fee. It wasn't worth it me since that would have also meant programming two DVRs and the second wouldn't get used that much.

About 90 minutes on the phone and the words "Customer Retention Department" saved me $600 over the next year.

I still need to call Verizon and see what I can do on our POS land line from the 40's that now costs us more than two 21st century cell phone lines. I'd drop it if we didn't need it for the alarm and DirecTV (which I could probably switch to my buisiness line since they don't incur toll charges,) and if we got a little better cell phone reception in the house.

[Lee Schierer]

The same tactic works with credit card companies when they want to have you pay a fee on the no fee card they sent you that is about to expire. We've paid off some debts from one card to the next while paying them off with no interest and no fees using the free credit card offers that come in the mail and then leveraging them to extend their initial offer by threatening to close the card.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I think the thing that burns me the most is "drop the price to induce new customers" thing. Local cable company advertises high speed cable access for $29.95. My company helps pay for my broadband but we pay 59.95 because that what it cost when we started with them. If it costs new customers $29.95 why not old customers? We have no annual contract in either case.....

[glenn bradley]

Good tip Matt. My cable internet is very reasonable. I took it as a promo and when the time came to raise the price I told them to turn it off. I don't take TV and my phone is only for the alarm system so they can't sell me all their cool packages. So they give me internet cheap or I don't take it (that's my story anyway, if they called me on it, I'd buckle).

[Matt Meiser]

We have "basic" phone service too. The bill is almost $50/mo. Work pays another $50 for the second line. Plus its noisy and Verizon refuses to invest in replacing the 50's vintage wire--their peoples' words.

[Jim O'Dell]

When I signed up with cable for internet, I was told it was 25.00/month for the base (386 down-128 up) plan, modem supplied. It was not touted as a 12 month special. Well, after a few years, it has gone up 5.00 per year, and now they want an extra 5.00 per month for the modem! So now I'm watching for Linksys to run their modem on sale. I saw it about 4 months ago through Fryes where it ended up free after rebates. I've watched every add since July, and they haven't shown it again at all.:( I'd go dish network and DSL and save some money with faster internet if I could talk LOML into the change in email address. She's not keen on that at all. But I'm not sure with all the trees at my house that I could get a dish signal. Time will tell. Jim.

[David G Baker]

Jim,
I have never had a problem with my Yahoo e-mail address. It has been great and portable as well, when I visit friends out of state that have Internet service I can keep up with my e-mail and stocks.
No matter what ISP I have I never have to change my e-mail address. At one time I had Microsoft's Hot Mail service but didn't use it for a while and they canceled my e-mail address. If you can convince your wife of the portability of Yahoo she may change her mind.

[Matt Meiser]

GMail is great too. I love the web interface. Until I tried it I never envisioned switching from Outlook. Now I can't imagine going back. And the GMail Notifier applet for the system tray will check your mail every few minutes and tell you when you have a new message--so you don't need to go there to see.

I found another little deal that will save Sprint PCS customers a little money. If you have a Sprint mobile phone, you can get a Sprint long distance plan that has no monthly fee, 50 minutes of free calling, and is 7 cents/minute for interstate and 12 cents per/minute for local toll calls. Since we virtually never use our home long distance except for sending faxes, this is perfect for us since we'll only be paying about 80 cents per month in taxes for the service instead of giving Verizon $5.79/mo even if we don't make a single long distance call, which frequently happens.

Its amazing what you can find by calling and looking. I'm now up to a $62/mo savings in our monthly communications bills and the only thing I've lost doing it besides a few hours of my time is that we no longer have an unlisted number. The only reason we had that is because my customers at my previous job were using it to find me at home on the weekends to ask for support and I had forgotten we were getting ripped off...errr...I mean charged $5/mo for that.

[Gary Whitt]

I think the thing that burns me the most is "drop the price to induce new customers" thing. Local cable company advertises high speed cable access for $29.95. My company helps pay for my broadband but we pay 59.95 because that what it cost when we started with them. If it costs new customers $29.95 why not old customers? We have no annual contract in either case.....

I used that line of reasoning on my DirecTV upgrades last year.

It worked.

Well, that AND I've had DirecTV since 1993 (when it came out)

:D

[David G Baker]

Matt,
Don't know if it applies here in Michigan but in California I had to pay extra for an unlisted phone number. I found out that you can have your number listed under any name that you want and it doesn't cost you anything. I picked a one of a kind name and the only calls I received were from people that I gave my number to and an occasional solicitor.