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New contract

thebigdriver
Dialled in

My contract is due for renewal early January.

Is there a phone number available to try and re-negotiate?

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

newapollo
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

Hi @thebigdriver 

You have 14 days to change your mind about the regrade so you could always give them another call 

Dave
I don't work for Virgin Media.
I'm a Very Insightful Person, I'm here to share knowledge.
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See where this Helpful Answer was posted

5 REPLIES 5

goslow
Alessandro Volta

The usual ones ...

150 from your Virgin Media phone or mobile, or 0345 454 1111* from any other phone
(* which may incur a charge depending on your call package)

Ringing first thing when the lines open is often recommended on the forums for the best chance of getting through with least delay.

Follow the 'thinking of leaving us' route. Before you call though, have a read of this recent topic

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Community-Natter/Costs/td-p/4888236

do some preparation in advance and plan your 'strategy'!

thebigdriver
Dialled in
Thanks everyone, I did sign a new deal, doubled b/b speed, no other changes apart from an increase of £21 per month.

Next time I will do my homework, and be prepared to walk away!

newapollo
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

Hi @thebigdriver 

You have 14 days to change your mind about the regrade so you could always give them another call 

Dave
I don't work for Virgin Media.
I'm a Very Insightful Person, I'm here to share knowledge.
Problem solved? Click to mark as a Helpful Answer, or use Kudos to say thanks
The do's and don'ts.
Keep the community welcoming for all. Please read the FAQ's
The Service you do for others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth - Muhammad Ali

Thanks for that I will do exactly that, and call them next week, maybe they will have some Christmas spirit

Unlikely there will be a season of goodwill, but it doesn't mean you can't get a good outcome.  Retentions staff are paid to do a job, and that's to get customers back on a fixed term contract at the minimum discount.  They do this day in day out, they're trained in how to handle negotiation, and they're paid incentives to get the right outcome for VM.  You or I negotiate a new broadband deal once every year and a half, so unless your day job is in procurement, then you need to make up for the unequal skills.

First thing, loyalty counts for nothing.  There's no emotion here, no obligation, no need to offer you a good deal simply because you'd like that, or you think you deserve it.  The agent will deal with perhaps fifty or sixty callers EACH DAY, every one phoning up and saying, "I'm a loyal customer, please can I have some money off?"  That's water off a duck's back to them.

Second thing, your only leverage is the threat of cancelling and the offers you could get elsewhere (which the agent may already know, or ask for details of).  It also matters that the agent believes you would cancel.  Out of those sixty callers, at least half will be saying they want to cancel, some mean it, but many don't.  If you really have no intention of cancelling then you need to be good at acting it out, because the agent will attend regular refresher courses on identifying customers who have no intention of leaving.  If they can keep a customer yet offer £3 a month less discount than they have the leeway to, that's £54 marginal value over the life of the 18 month contract, for say 9 minutes work.  If you think about how that adds up across the roughly 1.8 million calls put through retentions each year you'll see why it is worth VM acting in this way.

The agent will usually play on the speed advantage VM have for most customers.  You should acknowledge that, but don't let it become the lynchpin of an argument why you need to pay more than competitors - always bring any discussion back to what you see as poor value from VM relative to competitor offers "yeah, the speeds great, but it's still the total cost that puts me off - if I go with XXXX that'll save me £17 a month, and over the contract period of 18 months that's over three hundred quid difference, I can't afford to ignore that".  

Always, keep it polite and cheerful, the agent is doing their job, and you're playing a game.  They know that, you know that, but one of the rules is neither side allude to the fact that it's all for show, and all that matters is the best price they'll offer you against your clear message that you'll cancel if the price isn't right.  So the first offer they make can almost always be bettered.  A bit of human engagement often helps - eg acknowledging that they're working a weekend, or the dead days between Christmas and New Year, or asking if that's a Cardiff accent I hear? type of thing.  If you don't think the agent is moving in the right direction, then politely terminate the call, and ring back another day (within your cooling off period if that applies).  

Sometimes VM won't offer an acceptable discount, the customer cancels, and then during the notice period they get an outbound retentions call offering an irresistible price.  That's great if it happens, but you cannot rely on it happening, so only cancel if you really will take your business elsewhere.

Somebody always complains "it's not fair, they should offer everybody their best price", and I'll note here that isn't how the world works.  VM are not actually profitable, that's why they don't want to offer lower prices across the board, and if they lowered standard prices they'd initiate a damaging price war with BT, who are larger and would win.  It's a free market, if people don't like the price and package then they have the option to take their business to a company they prefer.  That's how markets do and should work.