Blueyonder: No deals for existing users!

[Aja]

How come Telewest / Blueyonder give special deals to new Broadband customers but do not extend the same courtesy to their existing users. I'm on a 1Mbit Broadband, phone and basic Cable TV package. I pay around £40 per month for this and I've been with Telewest for years. I was thinking about upgrading to 2Mbit and noticed on their site that a new user signing up for the 2Mbit package gets free installation, a discount for ordering online, and the first months' service is free of charge. The existing user who wants to upgrade to 2Mbit gets .... ziltch.

The deals are meant to help fulfil their aim of getting new customers, pure and simple. It's frustrating when it appears that loyal existing customers are getting nothing - I've had it happen to me plenty of times, with NTL and others - but there's little you can do about it, except perhaps phone them up and have a moan. If you threaten to leave convincingly enough they may just give you the deal to make you stay. However seeing as this is a deal for new subscribers only they will probably insist that you agree to a new 12-month minimum contract.

[scrotnig]

Originally Posted by Aja

How come Telewest / Blueyonder give special deals to new Broadband customers but do not extend the same courtesy to their existing users. I'm on a 1Mbit Broadband, phone and basic Cable TV package. I pay around £40 per month for this and I've been with Telewest for years. I was thinking about upgrading to 2Mbit and noticed on their site that a new user signing up for the 2Mbit package gets free installation, a discount for ordering online, and the first months' service is free of charge. The existing user who wants to upgrade to 2Mbit gets .... ziltch.

Thing is, chances are you'll have had a deal when you first joined.

If it was feasible to simply write to all existing customers and off them a deal, then they may as well lower the prices across the board.

Telewest are in business to make a profit, and the deals they offer to new customers are literally a means to attract new business.

Sure some customer might leave because they can't get the same deals but you can bet the revenue lost will be a fraction of the amount that would be lost cutting prices for everyone. Remember we're talking cable companies here who don't make any money at the moment.

People need to remember that companies are not in business to give good customer service or to promote loyalty or to be fair or to treat everyone equally, they are in business to make a profit, pure and simple.

[Neil]

Originally Posted by Aja

How come Telewest / Blueyonder give special deals to new Broadband customers but do not extend the same courtesy to their existing users. I'm on a 1Mbit Broadband, phone and basic Cable TV package. I pay around £40 per month for this and I've been with Telewest for years. I was thinking about upgrading to 2Mbit and noticed on their site that a new user signing up for the 2Mbit package gets free installation, a discount for ordering online, and the first months' service is free of charge. The existing user who wants to upgrade to 2Mbit gets .... ziltch.

Would you be prepared to commit to another 12 month contract?

[Raistlin]

Ahhh, you may not get a discount when you "upgrade" but you also don't have the hassle of taking a day off work to wait for an installation engineer that doesn't turn up, only to find out after he's gone that the bl**dy service doesn't work anyway, and then spending 6 hours (maybe 7) on the phone on hold for CS to get the whole damn mess sorted out.

I know which side of that deal I would rather have

[Aja]

Extending the offer of one months free service to an existing customer who has fullfilled his contract and wants to upgrade makes good business sense to me. First, it says we value you as our customer and would like to keep you as such. Second, It is an added incentive for me the customer to upgrade rather than continue using the existing service. Third, they would not have to write to anyone, they would simply have to alter the deal on their website offering one months free service both to new custonmers and existing customers who want to upgrade to 2Mbit broadband. This only seems fair to me. Telewest/Blueyonder shouldn't take their customers for granted, ADSL Broadband suppliers are offering some very attractive deals at the moment and I for one am waiting to see how Telewest will respond ... interesting times indeed!

In answer to Neil's question no I would not sign another 12 month contract, I've been with them 4 years

[Raistlin]

Sorry Aja, where are my manners?

to CF

All companies do it - it pi**es me off to see sky constantly offering free installation and deals to "brand new customers only". The same with ntl.

[scrotnig]

Originally Posted by Aja

Extending the offer of one months free service to an existing customer who has fullfilled his contract and wants to upgrade makes good business sense to me. First, it says we value you as our customer and would like to keep you as such. Second, It is an added incentive for me the customer to upgrade rather than continue using the existing service. Third, they would not have to write to anyone, they would simply have to alter the deal on their website offering one months free service both to new custonmers and existing customers who want to upgrade to 2Mbit broadband. This only seems fair to me. Telewest/Blueyonder shouldn't take their customers for granted, ADSL Broadband suppliers are offering some very attractive deals at the moment and I for one am waiting to see how Telewest will respond ... interesting times indeed!

In answer to Neil's question no I would not sign another 12 month contract.

There is certainly a case for customers who are upgrading to be offered something, but the customer would realistically have to agree to a new 12 month contract.

ADSL suppliers are indeed offering attractive deals but only to NEW CUSTOMERS.

Again, the bottom line is that companies are not interested in loyalty or how long you've been a customer, they are interested in MAKING PROFIT. Anything else they do is with making money in mind, nothing else.

[dev]

if they gave people who upgraded to 2mbit a free month, how many would upgrade for a month only then downgrade again? would you like to be kept at that tier for another 12months?

[Aja]

Originally Posted by scrotnig

There is certainly a case for customers who are upgrading to be offered something, but the customer would realistically have to agree to a new 12 month contract.

ADSL suppliers are indeed offering attractive deals but only to NEW CUSTOMERS.

Again, the bottom line is that companies are not interested in loyalty or how long you've been a customer, they are interested in MAKING PROFIT. Anything else they do is with making money in mind, nothing else.

First Thanks for the welcome Raistlin. Now, a customers' percerption of how he/she is being treated by an ISP is also important. If I feel my ISP is treating me fairly I will continue to do buiness with them, they will continue to make a profit from me. If on the other hand I think I'm being screwed then I'll walk .... no profit from me sorry! Troll any of the Broadband/ Internet forums, and newsgroups and you'll continually see those ISP's with bad reputations, they are mentioned over and over again and not by accident either. Similarly the good ISP's are easily identified, you'll continually see certain ISP's being praised for their services ... always the same names. So yeah it's a business but consumers aren't dumb and reputation is everything in this game. If I as a Telewest customer of 4 years feel I'm being treated fairly by them then I am less likely to accept the deal being offered by those ISP's peddling ADSL packages when it comes around.

[scrotnig]

Again I'll say it...it's all about profit. Company directors do not sit around in boardrooms discussing how loyal their customers are, they discuss how much profit they are making, and how they can make even more.

In most cases the actual number of people who would actually go ahead and and leave (as opposed to threating to leave) over not being given a new customer discount is pretty small in the grand scheme of things and companies accept that these people will go as it's cheaper than giving blanket discounts to ALL customers which ruins the business model.

It's simply attrition. The problem is that people have been filled with their 'rights' and 'power' by silly consumer programmes, people need to get real. This is a free market capitalist economy. Nothing is done in business without PROFIT being the ultimate motivation. Believe anything else and you're naive.

The best thing people can do is look for the best LONG TERM deal, not who gives you the most dicount in your first month. Check other things like standards of service, not just price. Find your deal, then accept that that is the price you will be paying instead of agreeing to it then getting all arsey that you can't have new deals that new customers get.

[Aja]

Well I don't think it's good enough, and I'm not getting arsey with you or anyone else here, so perhaps I what I should do is ask Telewest directly. Any response I get from them I'll post here.

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by Aja

First Thanks for the welcome Raistlin. Now, a customers' percerption of how he/she is being treated by an ISP is also important. If I feel my ISP is treating me fairly I will continue to do buiness with them, they will continue to make a profit from me. If on the other hand I think I'm being screwed then I'll walk .... no profit from me sorry! Troll any of the Broadband/ Internet forums, and newsgroups and you'll continually see those ISP's with bad reputations, they are mentioned over and over again and not by accident either. Similarly the good ISP's are easily identified, you'll continually see certain ISP's being praised for their services ... always the same names. So yeah it's a business but consumers aren't dumb and reputation is everything in this game. If I as a Telewest customer of 4 years feel I'm being treated fairly by them then I am less likely to accept the deal being offered by those ISP's peddling ADSL packages when it comes around.

The factor that you are missing in looking at forums is that some ISPs have only a few thousand customers whereas others, in particular NTL and BT, have over a million. People tend to use forums more when they are having problems so the big ISPs will have plenty of negative comment but the very small ones have very little but may have a larger percentage of their customer base who are dissatisfied with their service. It is extremely difficult when looking at forum posts to determine how many unique posters may be for or against an ISP as it is not unknown for poeple to register and post under several different usernames to add weight to their points.

[SMHarman]

I just went through the process on line and with the 3/30 and the extras I have it came to my current monthly bill. Mind you I agreed to a new 12 month contract a while back and they agreed to waive the phone line rental so you can negotiate a discount if you ask for a 12 m tie in.
£30 - 3/30
£7 - Upgrade BB
£9.50 - Upgrade TV pack
£5 - Disney
£1.75 - Call Divert
£15 - addn'l STB
£63.25

Current Bill - 64.49 - so over the next 12 months I am apathetic to the tune of £17.50