The costs of being a loyal customer
I wasn't very prolific lately when it comes to posts on hive. After my summer holidays in Turkey, we had some guests over at our house for about 4 weeks and we showed them around Switzerland. It was a great time but I was hardly ever online. Now that they have left, I have more time at my hands, and it's about time to write a post.
The problem of being loyal
I'm in general a very loyal customer. I have been with the same phone company for more than 20 years. I hardly ever change insurances or subscriptions when I'm happy with the service. This week however, I realized that this comes with a cost that I wasn't really aware of.
It started when I saw an ad of my telecom company with an offer that was way cheaper than what I was paying myself. So I started to research and I realized that I was paying about 30% too much for my internet connection. This got me a bit heated up and I decided to call the company presenting them the situation.
The phone call:
Me: hello, I'm calling because I would like to understand why I pay so much for my internet connection whereas you advertise at about 30% cheaper for the same service?
Company: let me see... well your contract is really outdated and you pay still the same price.
Me: ok, why did nobody offer to me to renew my contract for the new cheaper one?
Company: well this is an offer just for new customers, not for existing ones.
Me: so this means that I have to cancel the contract and go to the competition to get a cheaper offer?
Company: No, no, let me see what I can offer you... I can offer you the new offer with a permanent discount of 30%. Would that be ok for you.
Me: yes that's fine. Let's do it.
It took me 10 minutes on the phone to save 30% on my monthly costs for internet, without decreasing the speed or reducing the service. Just because I asked...
The only way to get things cheaper is to ask for it
After this experience, I took all my fix costs and first compared them with the market conditions and then called the companies. The results are amazing. In addition to the 30 CHF per month on my internet:
- I saved 72.- CHF per year just to run a bank account, while there is a free option where they simply don't send extracts per post.
- I saved 20.- CHF per month just by renegotiating the mobile phone contracts of my family.
- I saved 30.- CHF per month on the telecom contract of my business
- I saved 70.- CHF per month on the credit card terminal contract of my business
And I don't plan to stop here. I'm looking at every recurring cost item on a private and a business level and see whether I can save some more money.
The costs of being loyal
Companies, at least in Switzerland, try at all cost to get new customers and they neglect the existing ones. I wasn't aware of that and it made me feel stupid because for years I have simply paid way too much for all these services. Maybe it's worth to look at your contracts as well? To do the same thing, I suggest that you look at your existing contracts, then you compare with what the competition is offering and on this basis you try to renegotiate your contracts with your existing providers. It's often easier than to have to change things. It's definitely worth it....
With @ph1102, I'm running the @liotes project.
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