Do Virgin actually want to retain customers?

[kyleburton]

I've been with Virgin 18 months and my contract is up next month. They only cabled the area around 2 years ago otherwise I would have been with them longer.

I got in touch as my contract was up, and the deals they offered me to stay were rubbish, even worse than the offers for new customers! I was offered £34 a month for 200MB Broadband only, a new customer can get that with weekend calls for £2 less, or £29 a month for 100MB, which is £3 more than a new customer. Apparently, those are the best deals that the retention team can offer, so obviously I told them to screw off and cancel my contract.

Rather than try and convince me to stay, I was then just bombarded with how bad BT and TalkTalk are. Quite frankly, rather than convincing me to stay, that just made me want to leave more!

[Ernie_C]

You are misunderstanding. Existing customers should not expect better than new customer prices to renew.

If the reasonable prices you have been offered are not acceptable to you, you will have to go elsewhere.

[kyleburton]

I forgot to add, I was actually offered a better deal through WhatsApp than I was through the retentions department.
Pretty much what I'm paying now but with a 6gb o2 sim card included, but apparently that offer never existed and wasn't on my notes, despite me reading it to her verbatim from the WhatsApp chat.

It was honestly the attitude of the person I spoke to in the retentions department tipped me over the edge and made me cancel.

[goslow]

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@kyleburton wrote:
I forgot to add, I was actually offered a better deal through WhatsApp than I was through the retentions department.
Pretty much what I'm paying now but with a 6gb o2 sim card included, but apparently that offer never existed and wasn't on my notes, despite me reading it to her verbatim from the WhatsApp chat.

It was honestly the attitude of the person I spoke to in the retentions department tipped me over the edge and made me cancel.

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And now that you have cancelled you might (possibly) get another call from retentions with a best-and-final offer. Whether or not that actually happens, or would be of interest to you, is up to you to decide if such a call does come through.

VM's selling mindset is still firmly locked into selling bundles of services. I get the impression, reading the many topics like this on here, that VM is not too bothered about losing broadband-only customers in the general 'churn' of customer turnover. VM's interest seems to be in acquiring multi-product customers who will pay more per month.

[kyleburton]

If they did get back to me with a better offer, I would consider taking it, but it depends on the price. 

I think I'm probably going to go pick up a 4G router and stick in a Smarty sim card for the time being given that I get pretty good 4G/5G speeds here, and I don't want to be tied into an 18/24 month contract for the same speeds with the likes of TalkTalk/Vodafone

Does anyone know if there's a minimum amount of time you have to be away from Virgin to become a new customer? I remember hearing it was either 30 or 90 days

[goslow]

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@kyleburton wrote:

If they did get back to me with a better offer, I would consider taking it, but it depends on the price. 

<snip>

Does anyone know if there's a minimum amount of time you have to be away from Virgin to become a new customer? I remember hearing it was either 30 or 90 days

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If you do another call back from retentions, it will be a best-and-final offer so already have in mind what will be an acceptable figure to you in case the call does come through. Ideally try to record any conversation and/or get the agent to read back the details of any offer (in the hope it will be recorded by VM), just in case any VM 'confusion' arises with what was offered and what you are actually given.

As for the period before returning as a new customer a recent post from June from a VM forum team member (at message #2)

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Managing-Your-Account-Cable/Mis-sold-disaster-via-Virgin/m-p/50...

advises 90 days but there have been other topics advising different times

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Managing-Your-Account-Cable/Changing-to-a-new-customer-deal-or-...

suspect that a lot of VM 'randomness', and the need to make a sale, may also be involved in the actual time period required. The 90 days is the one I have heard mentioned most often on here.

[newapollo]

Hi @kyleburton 

Log into My Virgin Media and check your marketing preferences.

Once logged in click on Update Settings, then on the next page click Marketing Preferences.

You have no chance of receiving a callback from outbound retentions if marketing is set to Off.

There should be clickable radio box to turn it on on/off just below the Don't miss out section.  Make sure you click on Save Changes if you did have to alter that.

[Harley2017]

I think your insight is failing you…..

[Anonymous]

I do hope that the VM customer service agent was not told to "screw off"  (or worse). There is no excuse for abuse. 

[Gareth_L]

Hello kyleburton.

Thanks for your post.

Sorry to hear the offers given were not enough to persuade you to stay.

Sadly as a forum team we are not able to help with packages changes, new deals etc.

As much as we do want to help its beyond our support scope.

Gareth_L