New customer offers VS Existing customer offers are ridiculous

[manemzjum]

So I'm out-with my 12 month contract and I have had a look at Virgins website they are currently offering the VIP package for £79 for 12 months.

I contacted them about this offer but as usual this is for new customers only. Their counter offer was the same package only with 200mb broadband instead of the 350mb you get with the VIP package and I could get this for a great price of £105 EH NO THANKS.

As I am outwit my 12 month contract I can cancel my account at anytime so I'm just going to cancel my account give them the 30 days notice then I'm told I have to wait another 30 days I can then open a new account and get the 12 month contract for £79 or get my wife to open an account in her name sooner. 

Saving myself £312

TRY LOOKING AFTER YOUR EXISTING CUSTOMERS RATHER THAN SELLING US OUT FOR NEW ONES. 

1. Hello sir you have been with us loyally for 15 years we are prepared to offer you a saving of £10 per month as a good will gesture how does that sound.

2. Oh hello new customer who has never paid us a penny come join us we will give you our very top package at a saving of £52 per month we will just put the prices up on our existing customers to balance out our shortcomings. 

[Ernie_C]

So, you are aware of how Virgin Media deal with renewals for existing customers and disagree with this business approach. You, therefore, know exactly what to do.

[Pam9]

I appreciate its been nearly 2 years since this was posted.  We've reached the minimum term with unacceptable offers being made.  Was wondering, how long you had to wait for your wife's application for service to become live?

[John_GS]

Hi Pam9

Thanks for posting.

To become a new customer if existing now, you'd need to give thirty days notice to leave, then have no service at the property for three months before being eligible to return as a new customer

Kind regards,

[Anonymous]

unless someone else joins under a nother name. Emails and phone numbers will be lost though

[koozwaa]

So you give 30 days notice and leave.  Then someone in your house takes out a contract in THEIR name.  Do they qualify as a new customer as they haven't had an account with you before?

[Anonymous]

pretty much.

[JitteryPinger]

I had a call today from a retention's agent, asked me if there was anything he could do make me stay....I asked anyway,

Make me an offer for broadband, he did.... the standard price... £62 !

 I wasn't interested in staying anyway but always curious how long they will go, this was a new way to play the game.

[Morcki]

Getting on a community forum and angrily ranting about your price hike is an exercise in futility.  Just saying...

I too am coming to the end of my "new customer only" 12 month deal.  Instead of getting angry, I will calmly call the virgin media team and see what I can negotiate with them.  I have armed myself with the knowledge of the new customer only deals from other providers and will gladly go over this with VM's agents on the phone...  But calmly.

Has anybody ever told you that getting angry works against you?  Well it does.  Experienced customer-facing agents working for big comms companies have heard your like a thousand times or more, and will basically switch-off, let you get on with it until you burn-out, and you will be no better off at the end of it.

Just accept the fact that this is a game you have to play, no matter which comms provider you are with, and approach it as a negotiation.  Do you get angry at your car insurance provider every year?  I doubt it.  You either go somewhere that offers you a better price, or you call your current provider asking them to match those other offers.  It's the same thing here.

You would be surprised what savings you can make just by being someone that can have a "reasonable" conversation with the customer service/sales teams, who, by the way, have nothing to do with the decisions being made about these new customer only deals.  On that front, you can actually just blame ofcom, as pointed out by a very insightful poster earlier on in this thread.

[koozwaa]

Indeed.  I was calm, at all times.  You make poor assumptions.  The bottom line is that the industry seems to value disloyal people who have dumped their provider to move and hope existing customers either forget to renegotiate or accept a higher price.  This is the same with energy firms.  they could easily calculate the best tariff for a customer to move to after a fixed deal but don't and so the government brought in a cap.  The government need to make it law the existing customer should be able to get the same deal as new customers.

[vmsdrb59]

Basically, Virgin (and all the other providers) rely on people who switch and then can't be bothered to switch again because they're either too busy or they fear 'losing' what they've got, and so they pay full price for however long they then stay.

The whole industry is just a big roundabout of customers repeatedly switching with car-parks here and there for those who decide to stay where they are! 🤣

The mobile phone industry is exactly the same. 😞

There appears to be enough customers however who stay and pay full price to keep the system profitable and offset the 'new customer' offers. 

I contacted Virgin to try to reduce my monthly price (happy to accept less content and lower broadband speeds) but what I was offered was still over double what I can get by switching despite the assistant trying his best ( 🤔) ; so, sadly I'll be leaving Virgin Media. I've already switched my mobile phone after repeated price increases way above inflation so it's not a problem for me. 

Hopefully one day there will be a 'disruptor' who will upset the apple cart and make it cheaper for everyone 🤞