3 Retention Deals

sarahh112 wrote: »

Hi has anyone heard anything from the retentions team recently?

I got my PAC code last week and I haven't heard anything since.

I was really hoping they might offer me a nice deal on an iphone5 or a sim-only One plan

My fiancee got her PAC 2 weeks ago. She did have a missed call from Three, but no reattempts. As the original offers were so poor she has now joined Tesco Mobile on O2 (£10-a-month capped, HTC Desire C, 500 mins, 5000 texts, 500MB data)

My one month notice-time starts on Saturday. I phoned nearly a month ago to say I may leave and have had no phonecalls since. I thought I'd be bombarded!
Can someone tell me the routine (as the last time I upgraded you didn't give notice) as I'm unsure?
As I see it you cancel your phone a month before and they give you the PAC (after a bit of hassle) and then you have the full month to go elsewhere and get a better deal. Am I right?
I'm looking around at phones but am clueless as to which I should opt for.

Another quick question...What do people think of website based phone contract sellers, are there good and bad? I've always stuck to going to the network shop but wonder if I'd get a better deal!

Thank you!!

That should be (in theory) relatively painless as they cant keep you on the phone forever trying to retain you.

kaja86 wrote: »

when I spoke to another adviser he said I had to give 38 days notice for my PAC codes. Has anyone else been told this??

You are legally entitled to your PAC within two hours: http://ask.ofcom.org.uk/help/telephone/PAC

It seems that Three have somewhat misled you!

I've been getting the standard retention deal of £11pm with an Ultimate 500 tariff-

500 Mins
2000 3-3 Mins
5000 Texts
Unlimited Data (250mb data for £8pm)

with either an Alcatel One Touch OT903, Samsung Galaxy Ace or HTC Desire C.

The guy was adamant that the Ace and Desire C were £15pm on ultimate 500 retention deals but he was able to do it specially for £11pm only till the end of this week. Then it would be £13pm for "special offers", But £15pm for anyone talking to first line retentions)

Anyone been offered anything better? I was offered this after i got my PAC. From what i have heard Three retentions have had a managerial change and have tightened up on what they can do.

-Cannot apply bill credits of £10+ on accounts
-Cannot change sim only pricing at all unless it's an offer by the company as a whole (e.g new customers can get it)
-Cannot discount any phone on the One Plan (Unless it's an upfront cost/special offer)
-Can only discount certain phones. (usually low end ones)
-Call centre managers cannot override system pricing. (Basically, If you get offered a good deal they cannot manually add a discount or decrease the price further than that)
-Outbound retentions (the guys who call you back after you request for your pac) can't do any better than the deals i posted above^

At this rate it's cheaper to cancel and sign up with three through a cashback site or something.

The only deal i would say was somewhat good is probably the fact that the Ult 500 with Desire C for £11pm isn't that bad. But then tesco do the same thing for £10pm and cashback (but with 500mb data). Besides, if i don't take it now then it'll be £13/£15pm by the end of the week.

It's a risky strategy that Three are playing here. On the one hand it's good because they won't lose as much money and will be able to invest in other areas with the extra revenue streams + the fact that staff are being heavily targeted on disconnections means that they will force unsuspecting customers to sign up to a "special deal" instead of cancelling thus retaining customers by any means necessary without actually giving any worthwhile retentions deals and making people pay near standard price.

On the downside they've just thrown customer loyalty out the window and expect everyone to pay standard price for their tariffs which at least on the 3G side, can now be easily beaten. Well apart from One Plan ofc.

You can tell the management in the UK are tightening everything up, but it's going to have some consequences as well. I think what will happen is that a number of customers will leave, but it'll be outweighed by the amount of new customers signing up for their 3G and 4G tariffs which are competitive for new customers. Three will gain another 3 or 4 million or so customers in the next 3/4 years. And then they'll be sold off.
The signs are there.

I remember when Three were good with customer loyalty but i guess that's all changing now. They know that their propositions (esp the one plan or 4G free on all tariffs) are unbeatable and so they're doing everything possible to prevent money being lost, even if that means letting go of a few loyal customers who've been with Three for years.