RULE 1 - Look after your existing customers.

abouttobebanned

Why do so many mobile phone companies ignore this rule? I'll take meteor as an example. I've been a bill paying customer with them for the past 2 years and at Christmas I contacted them to cancel my bill. The straw that broke this particular camel's back was an email i got from them telling me that i could win an i-pod if i topped up by x amount..i of course don't top up, they take my money every month...so I can't win any ipod. More importantly though, on bill pay, unlike credit phones, I can't text O2, vodafone, 3 etc...for free. Just meteor to meteor. When I rang them to tell them my reasons for leaving, wanna know what they said to me? Couldn't I buy another sim card and use that as a meteor ready to go phone. Unbelievable. And now they've lost a customer, just because they didn't look after their best customer - the bill paying one.

abouttobebanned

I wish we could bypass the first few replies of any thread on boards...

To answer your question, i really believe the offers on BILL should at least match those on rtg

krudler

abouttobebanned wrote: »

I wish we could bypass the first few replies of any thread on boards...

To answer your question, i really believe the offers on BILL should at least match those on rtg

If its free texts you want on bill o2 give you 350 mins and unlimited texts for €50 a month without a contract

keeluz

What was your "reasons" for leaving. You only mentioned 1 (you prefer Meteor's PAYG tariffs?).

Sounds like a rant!

jordainius

abouttobebanned wrote: »

just because they didn't look after their best customer - the bill paying one.

Rubbish. Bill pay customers are not entitled to better treatment. Treat them all the same. You do realize that the vast majority of mobile phone companies are prepay??

So if anything, from a business point of view their best customers are the prepay ones, as there are more of them, its easier to attract prepay customers from other networks (as they are not tied down by contracts)

Davy

abouttobebanned wrote: »

Why do so many mobile phone companies ignore this rule?

I don't think they set out to do this. Maybe you were dealing with someone who wasn't their best asset, maybe an off day, or didn't understand! Whatever their is loads of reasons. All you had to say was, you wanted to cancel and move to pay as you go. No need for reasons.

abouttobebanned wrote: »

More importantly though, on bill pay, unlike credit phones, I can't text O2, vodafone, 3 etc...for free. Just meteor to meteor. When I rang them to tell them my reasons for leaving, wanna know what they said to me? Couldn't I buy another sim card and use that as a meteor ready to go phone. Unbelievable. And now they've lost a customer, just because they didn't look after their best customer - the bill paying one.

You could have used their free webtexts to send texts to non meteor numbers. Plenty of free apps that you can find more info on boards that only cost about 2cent to send a text.

abouttobebanned wrote: »

I wish we could bypass the first few replies of any thread on boards...

If you don't want peoples honest opinions maybe you shouldn't post.

abouttobebanned wrote: »

To answer your question, i really believe the offers on BILL should at least match those on rtg

Maybe you should have just said that rather than having a bit of a rant. You did sign up for billpay and must have been happy for 2 years. When your contract is up all you need to do is tell them you are not renewing and you want to switch to their pay as you go tariff.

abouttobebanned

Davy, you're clearly just arguing with me for the sake of it, I get the feeling that you don't have an opinion either way about the thread subject but just took a disliking to its author.

To answer Mr S's question...When i signed the contract for my bill there was no such offer for free texts to all on RTG so i didn't have a great deal to compare it to.

Keeluz, my reason for leaving was as simple as that, being a RTG customer is more beneficial than being a bill paying customer.

towel401

Mr.S wrote: »

But you signed the contract knowing that free texts to all networks wasn't included, you can't really expect them to change their offers, just because you don't like it?

the long contracts are bad news. in england now there is a huge push for 30-day things like bill pay lite. unless you want to delude yourself into thinking you're getting a cheap phone you don't sign up to these long contracts

Jonathan

abouttobebanned wrote: »

To answer Mr S's question...When i signed the contract for my bill there was no such offer for free texts to all on RTG so i didn't have a great deal to compare it to.

Well weren't you the silly sausage for signing the contract in the first place?

billbond4

I think your forgetting Rule 1 of business, "dont give a toss about your existing customers."
I had many experiences with BoI and Vodafone not giving a toss about me a long time customer and so I just give them the two fingers and move, eventually when they start to make a loss they might actually do something, oh but wait you have no customers.
Thats just my experience.

whiterebel

Unpopular as it may be, I agree with the OP. I've a mobile phone contract at least 12 years now, have been with VF, O2 and Meteor in that time. Sales peoples eyes light up when you are contract, and in the beginning it made sense as the prepay rates were astronomical compared to postpay. Over the years though, that difference seems to have been eroded, and with the deals now on prepay I think there's not a lot to choose. Apart from, as someone pointed out, the cheaper phone. It does seem to me that postpay provide the netowrks with the guaranteed spend every month, which leaves the prepay as the profitable cream on top.

Random

I agree in that i'd like to see things like free any network texts on bill (o2 have it now on some plans, let's hope others follow suit).

At the same time though, what gives us the impression that bill is any different from prepay? What makes you as a bill customer worth more than a prepay one?

paulm17781

Initially the networks made very, very little on prepay and the idea was to build network share and try to move people to post pay, which was far more profitable. Since '99 I've seen prepay tarriffs drop hugely and offers increase, I would say there is far less progress on post pay.

Personally, I prefer a post pay phone, business reasons, yet looking around at the minute, I also see far more reason to go prepay. As the OP said, look at the sales people's eyes when you sign up post pay, they get commission for these, not for prepay.

OP, I totally agree with you.

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

whiterebel

Random wrote: »

I agree in that i'd like to see things like free any network texts on bill (o2 have it now on some plans, let's hope others follow suit).

At the same time though, what gives us the impression that bill is any different from prepay? What makes you as a bill customer worth more than a prepay one?

Guaranteed MINIMUM spend every month for 12 or 18 months. No such guarantees with a Prepay. I put it this way, no sales person in O2, VF, Meteor or CPW has ever suggested I should go on Prepay, but they do suggest a more expensive plan on post pay, or add-ons.