About a month ago I noticed the internet bills at my stores were much higher than they should have been. The store that caught my attention was around $244.00 per month. At the risk of sounding snooty, I never really paid attention to the previous bills and just wrote the provider a check every month.
Calling the 800 number on the bill got me pretty much nowhere. I was prompted to push a bunch of numbers, say a lot of words and eventually made it to an operator who was basically useless. The only good that came from the call was a breakdown of the $244.00 bill which included internet, phone lines and TV. We only use one phone and don’t watch television.
Several days later I called again, this time ready to cancel my service. Well I wasn’t really going to cancel my service, my plan was to fib my way into a more wallet-friendly plan. Results of the call were fantastic and I ended up saving half for better service.
Every service provider staffs people who are internally called Retention Experts. To you and me they’re simply Customer Service members. It is the job of the Retention Expert to keep us as customers no matter what it takes. As I said, every service provider including cell phone and internet keeps these types of people staffed to keep customers from bailing.
After mashing a bunch of buttons and yelling at the automated attendant I was eventually connected to a first tier customer support person. She asked the same questions they all do about my day and why I’m calling. I flat out told her, “I want to cancel my service because I found a better price.”
With no hold time I was connected to what I was told was a different department. What really happened was my call was escalated to the Retention department. Within about a minute of being connected he told me how I could save money by staying with the provider. When asked who I was moving to I fibbed again and gave them the competitor’s name.
After a brief hold he came back with an amazing deal that included significantly faster internet, no TV service and 2 phone lines. My bill dropped disproportionately in my favor to less than half. We signed new contracts and now I’m locked in for years until I threaten them again.
While I had this guy on the phone I provided account numbers for my other stores that use this provider and basically duplicated the process. The second store saved about $80.00 per month and the third about $30.00. My other carrier wasn’t so generous, but I was able to save about $20.00 per month for the exact service. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but $250.00 to me is a fair amount of money.
Crazy as it sounds, anyone can shave money off their bills by simply telling a real person you want to cancel a specific service. It takes about 20 minutes out of your day, but with a little fibbing and frustration you could cut your bills in half. Let me know how much my little process saved you.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)
