I am a sales rep for one of those companies. First, if your promo offer is for, let’s say 6 mos, then you call customer service 5mos 3 weeks into your promo. Tell them that “I love the product but (insert competetor here or name previous service provider) will beat the price I am paying with you guys if I go back. I will keep the service I have if you can keep my price the same.” They will either transfer you to a ‘retention center’ or say that they can/can’t do it. If they refuse to assist you, ask to speak with a manager. If you are asked for the competetor’s price have a price of about $5 dollars less than what you pay, handy. This should work 99.9% of the time. You can also request that your bill remain the same through the time you are their customer.

Now, if you have had service for a while, the same rules apply. Find the pricing and discounts if you become a new customer with a competetor. Ask that if they match it you will continue to stay with them.

If you get some (stinker butt) service rep on the phone, you can always hang up and call back right away. But, be sure to get their name. (I have trained many in customer service and do this for bad service and exceptional service.) I NEVER get angry… as a rule of thumb… more flys with honey .

The best time to do it is when you are a new customer in a promotional offer period. And for me personally, if a company doesn’t value me as a customer and try to keep me, it is bad business practices and I will switch in a heartbeat.

Just a note, based on this from the blog…

Blog… “With a 10-minute phone call, I just saved another $105 ($60+$45) off of retail. And from the way she talked, it seemed like the computer has already pre-approved each customer for certain levels of discounts.”

My response… The savings can be better and no, the computer doesn’t ‘pre-approve you’. It is up to each customer service rep to look at the current promotions (usually new customer or retention guidelines). They are often stackable promotions. For example, if I am selling a package for about $140, I can offer things like $45 off for 3 or 6 months, and free HD and free movie channels and free reciever and free install and more, all at the same time. It depends on what current promos the company has. I start with the normal price and one by one find what free thing the customer wants… one after another to sweeten the offer. I have met people who say ‘what are all your promos?’ and I tell them and let them choose. My check is the same regardless of what the client gets for free, so I always offer them as much as I can (not everyone wants free HD) and then tell them when to call in and say the script above to keep their pricing the same. I don’t consider myself a sales rep, rather I am a ‘making people happy with my product’ rep.

Blog… “If you’re paying full price, free money may be sitting there waiting for you to claim it! You don’t even need to employ any verbal ninja skills or Jedi mind-tricks.
I’m sure other cable providers have similar promotions. You can compare your currently available offers from Comcast, AT&T, TimeWarner, Verizon, etc. at BroadbandNational, using your address and phone number.”

My response… Cut and dry, most providers work the same way.

Happy Saving Everyone!

I don’t know how some of you lucked out, but I wish I did.

Now Jennifer above doesn’t care about money because she clearly just pays whatever someone chargers her. For me, I am just a cheap bastard and refuse to pay for something I don’t really need. So I have Over The Air TV and I buy the minimum for internet. I do need email for work and to keep in touch with family, but that’s it.

For about one year, I was paying roughly $108 including taxes for HD Cable, HBO, Showtime, and Broadband Internet w/ speed bump. After that first year ended, they raised my bill to $182 including taxes.

I called Comcast and selected the option to cancel my service. They CSR took my information down and asked why I wanted to cancel. I said well, the price of my services jumped up from $10 to $182. I think that is too expensive and I don’t watch it enough to warrant paying that much money every month. He told me that they were running some promotions that would allow them to offer a lower price to bring me back down around what I was paying before and asked if would be interested in doing that. I agreed.

He set me up with the following HD Cable, HBO, and Broadband Internet w/ speed bump for roughly $108 including taxes for the next 12 months.

I read this article and most of the comments and decided to go to comcastsupport.com/chat, and told the CSR about DirectTV’s “Choice” package (and embellished a little, saying they offered me HBO, Showtime, and Cinemax FREE for 12 months, along with their standard FREE HD for life incentive. After 2 minutes of “checking,” the CSR was able to lower my Cable package to $29.99/month (which is the new customer rate) and also gave me free HBO and Showtime for 6 months. She even specifically told me to contact the online customer support again in 6 months and they could give me another promotion.

I didn’t even have to pay full price for a certain period of time — it’s effective immediately and I’ll see a credit next month for the increase on this month’s bill. Score!

Thanks for the push to contact Customer Support! I’ll be trying the same thing for Internet in a couple of hours =]

My new Comcast bill per month is less than $95 — which is less than it was originally!

Thanks all, these tips worked like a charm. I didn’t have to pay my first month of jacked up bill, the rep immediately adjusted it. This only took me 5 mins and was very easy.

I never paid full rate of the combined HSI & digital cable for 5 years. Sometimes it’s the HSI that’s discounted heavily, sometimes it’s the cable package. Combined, they’re both about $100/mo as opposed to the $160+ regular rate.

Just keep calling every 6 months before the promo is over. We haven’t had to use the “satellite switch”-spiel for a while, but it’s there if we need to use it. The reps have been friendly and helpful, and if not, hang up and try again. One rep even said, “you got two young kids, huh? Ok.. let me give you parents some nice bonus channels for the two of you” — and we got free HBO & Showtime for a while.

After reading the comments, I noticed two trends: 3 years of service and paying full price for a few months. After each promotion period, I usually paid for the full rate anywhere between 1-3 months then called and was given the 19.99 rate again. Today, however, they would not budge. I threatened to cancel, asked them why they wouldn’t cooperate, and all I got was attitude from the retention rep.

I think if you’re a customer for a long time with a promotion rate, you at least have to pay the full rate for a few months for them to seriously consider giving you the deal. The rep I spoke to said the computer would not give her the option. I’ll call back in a month or two and see if anything has changed.

Also, reps seem to be sympathetic to things like “my hours were cut and I’m having trouble paying the bill.” Today, I just asked for a promotional rate again and they weren’t so friendly.

The catch, its only for six months, after which I have to call again, but hey to save $55/month, I can spend 20 minutes on the phone. And, the Comcast Rep was very personable and was a pleasure to talk to.

GET COMCAST CABLE TV THEN! or HOME PHONE, you would be surprised how useful your home phone will be once you have one and how lower your cell phone bill could be.

Another trick to save money is to bundle your products. if you currently have a home phone service with another company and have Cable TV and Internet with comcast then GET THE THIRD PRODUCT WITH COMCAST! It will be a lot cheaper in the long run when you bundle. Same talking if you have 2 products with someone else then get the THIRD product with them as well, doesn’t have to be with comcast just someone so you can save money!

We were paying $116/mo for their 3 service promotion for 12 months. When it ended, the bill skyrocketed to $180/mo. I made the call and asked for a reduction. The lady basically told me she could reduce me by $5/mo. I laughed and told her that my next call would be to disconnect after I check with their competitors.

At the time, this was my only option since I didnt have DSL available and my only other move would be to Dish or Direct TV. I had no other options for high speed internet.

That evening I spent some time researching dish options, rates, etc and was armed and ready to disconnect or downgrade. I told my wife that we could simply reduce our “Communist Cast” service from 6mg to 1.5mg and keep the internet phone. This is an everyday $50 package through comcast. We dont do heavy downloading …. so 1.5 mg is still plenty fast for most general web browsing. We could then sign up for TV through Dish or DirectTV

I called and was quickly connected to a real helpful guy with comcast. I told him that I was calling to lower my monthly rate. He placed me on hold for several minutes while he searched their current offers. He came back and offered me a monthly bill of $106 ($10/mo less than I was already paying), I keep the 6mg internet service, phone and he even threw in free showtime. He even did it retroactive so that my last “higher” bill was applied as a credit towards the new rate. I was happy. I asked him if this was a 12 month offer or an everyday price. He told me to call back in 12 months and do the same thing.

I believe that one must first pay the high bill for one month …then call back and complain. If you wait 2 months, comcast knows that it isnt that important to you and may not offer a better deal. Also, since they provide my internet service, I dont know if they have the ability to see what sites I’ve recently visited. If so, while I was on hold, he could have seen that I was all over the dish network and direct TV sites the previous evening.

Just 1 week later, ATT came knocking on my door to tell me about their new high speed TV/Internet/Phone service in my neighborhood. It wasnt previously available. Now I know I have additional options when the 12 month special is up with Comcast.

One thing is pretty key with these large companies… they have call centers all over the world and it can be hit and miss trying to understand who you’re talking to. I was actually TOLD by a local Charter rep to hang up and call back if I didn’t like the service I got, because I likely would get a different country and call center altogether!

Interestingly, with Charter, the different call centers seemed to have different offers sometimes too. It might be worth it to just call a few different times to see what you can get. It also helps (in general, just speaking with customer service) to make sure you have the name AND location of who you’re speaking with to refer to later.

I don’t know how all you folks got so lucky! Oh well. I’m going to suck it up and pay full price for a few months and then try again.