Haggling on your broadband and mobile bills...

[Edwin]

Thought I'd drop a few pointers based on my recent experience. Got Virgin Media down from £82 to £65 to £55 in 2 stages over the last 18 months (ending up on a higher service tier than when I started). Got EE down from £17 to £7.50 a month. Got O2 down from £15.50 to £11 a month. In both cases, for the same or better data/minutes package.

Small victories, but since the saving's every month it adds up to a nice amount over time.

Anyway, here's what I did:

A) Kept an eye out for new customer deals that were better than what I had (Virgin) and an excuse to talk to them (a price rise with a free cancellation clause) and/or competing deals at other providers that were better than we were paying (EE and O2).

For the mobile deals I looked in this regularly updated thread for the very cheapest deals http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/hukd-sim-only-thread-cheapest-sim-only-deals-free-sim-offers-2481975 regardless of provider.

I also checked which networks were behind the virtual mobile operators (Tesco, Asda, Plusnet) so that I could say to EE ("You provide the XYZ service behind the scenes, and they're charging £Y whereas you're charging £Z). Here's the list of which network powers which operator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Kingdom_mobile_virtual_network_operators

B) Hopped onto Live Chat. (I've had very mixed success haggling on the phone, but I'm 4-for-4 on Live Chat) - sometimes it takes a bit of finding, but all of the big providers seem to have a Live Chat alternative buried somewhere on their sites.

C) Discussed the deal I'd noticed (new customer, or competing) while staying at all times very polite and friendly. Suggested that I was willing to leave the service at the price I was paying then because it simply didn't make sense to keep paying that much when other alternatives were cheaper. In the case of the new customer deal at Virgin Media, I appealed to their sense of fairness towards long-standing customers (and also namedropped a couple of competitors, Sky and Plusnet)

D) Gradually worked them down to a deal that looked reasonable (you're not going to get blood from a stone, so at some point it's time to stop pushing - but don't necessarily accept the very first offer - go with "That sounds good, but it's still a little more than I'd feel comfortable paying. Is there anything you could do to improve on that?" or something similarly non-confrontational to keep the conversation going) and then "eagerly" accepted it, with prolific thanks (all chats are kept on record, I believe, so it never hurts to be a "delighted customer" in their file)

E) If I wasn't getting anywhere, asked to be put through to the "Cancellations team". It's amazing how quickly the story changed once they sensed they might actually be the one to lose me.

In each case, the time invested was between 30 and 50 minutes. I deflected various attempts to give me freebies/extras instead of cutting the bills, in favour of a simple reduction.

BTW, it's worth noting that (although it sounds daft) you might be able to get a better deal by switching to a different package, even if it includes more options. It seems they have limited capacity to apply discounts to existing contracts, but a lot more flexibility when it comes to winning "new" business (even from existing clients).

Note: you may also have to agree to a minimum contract term (e.g. 12 months) to get the discount. It's up to you whether you think it's worth it.

Happy haggling! Please let us know if you have similar success.

 

[Murray]

This is a bit unrelated but related

The other month I bought a nice new acoustic guitar, did some shopping around, a music shop was selling the one I wanted on Ebay at the same price as their site, I rang and asked if I bought if from their site could I have it for the price they would have got from Ebay minus the fees

Saved £35 or so

 

[deluxedomains]

As the old saying goes "if you dont ask you dont get"

 

[martin-s]

Once you've run your own business, you realise pretty much everything is negotiable.

 

[bonusmedia]

The loss they make on you (in the hope you'll submit to inertia and become profitable in future) is subsidized by all the customers paying way over the odds because they've never switched. Not that that's your concern

Most consumers just don't have the inclination/savvy to do this.

A while back the next big thing for the price comparison industry was NGIs (I think New Generation Intermediaries?) where you give them your account login info and they look at your actual usage, then find the best package, and potentially even switch for you.
This really makes a lot of sense, most people overestimate their usage and most people choose a bigger package than necessary to feel safe they won't go over the limits.
Problem is, no-one feels safe handing over their login info - despite the security being better than some banks.
Classic issue where geeks build things that make sense to other geeks but completely miss validating the market.

Most people have a very short attention span and an aversion to change. No-one ever went broke overestimating the human desire for an easy life

Fewer than 7% of consumers have ever even looked at a comparison site for broadband - mobile is something like 20%, gas/electric 33%, car insurance 70%

Deregulation of utilities was supposed to make everything cheaper by introducing competition, and in theory this works - but it relies on consumers being rational actors(!).

In fact there is a solid economics paper that suggests comparison sites have actually had the perverse effect of increasing prices - and will do unless/until there is better competition among PCWs themselves.

We're working on this

 

[Edwin]

MoneySavingExpert's Cheap Energy Club does a good job for gas and electricity - we've saved over £500 by switching a couple of times thanks to their recommendations. Plus you're not obliged to give vast amounts of info in order to do a comparison.
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cheapenergyclub

 

[CatchDrop]

With the gas and electric try changing consumption in Summer and Winter to account for the fact you might be using 5x as much gas for heating in winter, compared to the summer. Mine was annual gas 5000KWH/year for summer and 20000KWH/year in winter

 

[CatchDrop]

more accurate than us using 10000KWH on all gas quotations

 

[Edwin]

With the gas and electric try changing consumption in Summer and Winter to account for the fact you might be using 5x as much gas for heating in winter, compared to the summer. Mine was annual gas 5000KWH/year for summer and 20000KWH/year in winter

Why not just enter your actual consumption from last year? Should be on your bill(s).

 

[CatchDrop]

Because you will be using more energy for heating in winter, so you would benefit from a tariff for higher energy users during this period and vice versa in summer.

 

[CatchDrop]

We use 12000KWH per annum for Gas, but it is usually 2000KWH/month in Winter and around 500KWH/month rest of the year.

So we often benefit from a tariff with a lower daily standing charge for most of the year but in winter usually change to a tariff with a higher daily standing charge but lower unit charge based on usage.

 

[Edwin]

Is that really cheaper than a low fixed tariff from one of the challenger providers (ie not the big 6)? I can see how it might be as long as you're willing to switch twice a year...

 

[CatchDrop]

Yes I think it saves an extra £50-100 per year but does require monthly meter readings and up to twice yearly switching, unless prices rise and you're locked into a cheap deal.

We currently have gas from

Daligas, 18p/day and 2.25p/KWH

electric from

GB Energy, now Co-Op, 16.433p/day and 9.849p/KWH

but only a couple of months left on the fixes

 

[martin-s]

Several recent governments have got their approach to this wrong. By encouraging switching, all they've done is get the market to operate like car insurance and mobile phones markets do.

Ie, customers get stung by default - and are only treated fairly if they continually switch supplier.

There must be a better way!

 

[Edwin]

I agree, as things stand, switching can be pretty lucrative - and staying put is a mug's game.

 

[jbworldwide]

Several recent governments have got their approach to this wrong. By encouraging switching, all they've done is get the market to operate like car insurance and mobile phones markets do.

Ie, customers get stung by default - and are only treated fairly if they continually switch supplier.

There must be a better way!

There probably is in a moral sense, but they are thinking about margins and also the acquisition of new customers with tasty offers which are, of course, subsidised by existing ones. If you don't keep pitching to new customers with interesting deals and everyone around you is, you wont be morally bankrupt. Just monetarily so.

 

[ausername]

£50-100 per year doesn't sound like much money to go through the hassle of switching energy supplier twice and having 12 meter readings a year.

How much time does the above consume, because you need to put a value on your time. If that takes you say 10 hours a year then that's pretty much the equivalent of doing 10 hours work for as little as £5 per hour.

 

[ausername]

Couldn't both of you boost your savings by also going through Quidco or a similar cashback site, where you switch energy supplier or phone supplier and get paid to do so at the same time?

I suppose a few hundred quid a year could potentially be a lot of money if you shove it in a pension, get the government tax credit, and then benefit from a couple of decades of compound growth.... that's what I usually do with my little wins, subsidise my pension savings.