Virgin Media Retention thread

fayraz

Was paying £95 per month for:

XL TV with Sports Collection and Asian channels (1 x V+ HD, 1 x VHD)
XL BB 20MB
XL Phone

Got a call from retentions after I called to cancel and they offered me:

XL TV with Sports Collection and Asian channels (1 x Tivo, 1 x V+ HD, 1 x VHD)
XL BB 30MB with superhub
XL Phone
30 day rolling contract

For £99 per month.

DAVO55

THIS IS FROM A SITE I FOUND AND LOOKS GOOD :j
The simple answer – yes it can! Today I achieved a ~60% reduction in virgin media costs by removing just the Movies, Sports and altering my phone line package. My original bill was around £127 per month which included the following services:

• 20Mb broadband
• Phone line + talk anytime/unlimited
• 1x V+ Box with HD
• 3x additional V boxes
• “TV XL” package (all channels)
• HD package
• Movies
• Sports

My bill is now £54 per month and includes the following services

• 20Mb broadband
• Phone line + talk evenings and weekends
• 1x V+ Box with HD
• 3x additional V boxes
• “TV XL” package (all channels)
• HD package

Whats the secret?
Doing some research online I gained some insight into how the ‘retentions’ team try to keep customers. The retentions team are the people you get put through to when you call customer services and press the “I’m thinking of leaving Virgin media” button. I’m led to believe . that these people are given incentives for every customer they persuade to stay with the Virgin media service. They can use reductions in your monthly bill to persuade you to stay, however im told that the more they reduce your monthly bill by, the less of an incentive they get. I’m also told that if your are adamant and disconnect all of your services, they get no incentive at all. This means to me that when you call the retentions team and they have listened to your reasons for wanting to leave, that they will make several ‘offers’ to try to get you to stay.
How to go about it
First, call Virgin (150 from your phone) and navigate the horrible menus until you get the the options for ‘I’m thinking of leaving virgin media.’ Don’t worry about being on hold in a long queue for ages, and don’t worry about speaking to someone who is clearly in another timezone, speaks 2nd language English and is reading from a script – Virgin media realise how annoying such things are so immediately put any customer who is thinking of leaving directly to a UK call center (based in Tee-side apparently). No hold music, no foreign sounding person professing their name is ‘Terry’ or ‘James’ and no having to go through the customer service persons script before you get to explain your concerns. Simples.
When speaking to the retention agent, its always best to start off the call with a list of your complaints about the service. This will gain you a sympathetic ear and usually some apologies. Just getting on the phone and saying ‘I’m leaving unless you reduce my bill’ is not likely to work (or if it does, dont expect much of a reduction). Im going to make the assumption that if you are reading this, you have already have complaints about the service. My complaints with the service (as well as some common complaints that many people seem to have) included

Once I had listed my complaints, the agent was sympathetic but did go onto a little sales pitch about how the complaints were “confusing” as VM offer the best ‘fibre optic’ broadband service. At this stage I told the agent that while that may be the case, it certainly was not my experience of the service. I then told him that Sky had offered me a better ‘all in one’ deal of Phone, Internet and TV which nearly matched the virgin media package in features; but did not include movies, sports and only had unlimited calls in the evenings and weekends. I told him this package was offered to me at £45 less per month than I was paying Virgin media and that at this stage, it was up to Virgin to not only match it, but offer me assurances to the quality of service received if I were to stay.
By now we are about 10 minutes into the call and the agent has offered me a reduction in my bill to £75/month, retaining most services but removing movies and sports as well as switching to free calls in the evenings & weekends (instead of free calls 24×7). This matched the SKy price for the HD and 4 boxes and I would have switched to this on the spot, however the catch was that we would need to now renew our (currently month to month) contract for an extra 12 months. Given the problems we had experienced I was reluctant to do this however the agent said this was the best they could do.
Now this is where some tactics came into play – I asked the agent for pricing of keeping the TV XL (all channels) package, the HD package, no movies, no sports, keeping the V+ box and keeping the 3 additional boxes and removing broadband and telephone. The price offered was £42 per month which seemed very reasonable for 4 HD boxes and nearly every channel, while also opening the door to broadband and phone options from other providers. I then said that given we were removing services only, that could the agent confirm that this would not be a new 12 month contract and treated as a downgrade only to which he replied ‘yes it would.’
Before I could talk any further the agent interrupted me and said “I’ve just had a check on another system and I can offer you everything you have now, minus movies, sports and talk unlimited for £54/month as long as you agree to stay for another 12 months.” Paydirt. A near instant ~60% reduction in my telephone, TV and broadband costs for a 20 minute phone call and some perseverance. Losing movies, sports and daytime free phone calls (which none of us actually used anyway) should have only brought the cost down by £20 (ish) per month, based on the pricing breakdown from our last bill, and the new price they offered was much better than Sky.
The things I learned from this were

• It seems that the first bill reduction offer the retention agents give (after about 10 mins on the phone) will match the price and package offer you received from Sky
• It seems the agents will not stretch to the ~60% discount offer until you persevere and have been on the phone for 20 minutes (get the wife on the phone to complain too, it seems to help).
• It seems retentions agents have some kind of drive to retain customers on a new 12 month contract and will offer a further large discount to stay on 12 months contract, rather than have you remove some services and stay off another 12 month contract
• It seems like a good idea to tell them you are keeping one service, but removing the others to reduce the costs. Doing so does not result in a new 12 month contract (im guessing this means they get less of an incentive) so they will likely come back with a better offer of discount if you do

HOPE ITS OK AND THANKS TO THE AUTHOR :beer:

liam8282

DAVO55

My bill is now £54 per month and includes the following services

• 20Mb broadband
• Phone line + talk evenings and weekends
• 1x V+ Box with HD
• 3x additional V boxes
• “TV XL” package (all channels)
• HD package

Does not seem to be that earth shattering, I pay similar but only have 1 additional box. You have got a substantial decrease in your bill due to canceling both the Sports and Movies.

lukey2k10

from previous posts, and taking in account my 11 yEARS loyalty i feel im being ripped off seeing as im paying £60 ( £55 - £60 ) for sky sports one, lowest tv ( basic free ) , lowest calls , 30mb internet.
come on £60? i think thats even more expensive than what new customers pay, or around the same price.
ive tried emailing doing the 2 im leaving " and tried emailing asking them that i want 30mb , XL tv , low calls and all sky sports but for a lower price than what new customers get when you build a bundle which in return both failed. Note - i only emailed so maybe phoning them is the way too go? any ideas? We want XL tv but on top of the £60 would mean us paying anither £16 and £8 for sky sportd and the XL tv!!!

and i see the most recent post behind me has quoted someone who is paying £54 . has 4 tv boxes compared too my one.
has XL compared to my basic free M . Just has 20mb internet to my 30mb, even though i have sky sports. that still comes too around me paying £46 without sky sports so surely i am being ripped off?

liam8282

lukey2k10 you are right, you need to ring them up, you get much better deals talking to them.

My current contract runs out on 12 Dec, so I am just biding my time until 12 Nov until I can ring and give my 30 days notice to leave.

It is all just a game, threaten to leave, get offered something to stay, reject it, wait for them to call you and get better offers from retentions....

scousers

on virgin media contract finishing soon pay £45 a month for

50 meg broadband
basic tv
unlimited calls is anyone getting a better price than me

bearacus

My current package is £47 (but bill usually comes in at about £55 with extra call charges)
Large bb
Large tv
Unlimited calls
Phone line

They have just offered me
Large bb
Xtra large tv
Free TiVo box no activation or setup fee
Sky sports package
Unlimited calls + 0845 numbers
Phone line

For £75 a month but £63 for the first 3 months
and£30 off my last bil on current contract

Should I take the offer ?

moocho

scousers wrote: »

on virgin media contract finishing soon pay £45 a month for

50 meg broadband
basic tv
unlimited calls is anyone getting a better price than me

as above i pay

XXL 50mb broardband
M+ (with extra package)cant remember what channels
phone

I still think it should be cheaper than what i get

All inc £36 month

so minus the unlimited calls im £9 better off

ShaunJUK

A package worked over many years of haggling with VM

L Phone

L Broadband

XL TV

Extras:

TIVO
Talk 0845 5

I was given the above with free installation and activation and I pay £51.65 a month

Do I still have a good deal?

Adam88_2

I've just signed up here just to share my experience of VM retentions which I would have to say is completely shocking.

I rang Virgin earlier today to cancel and said I was offered a better deal by Sky, they went through and did a check on exchange distance and estimated speed (6mb).

I currently have,

M TV (don't use at all)
Phone with weekend calls (don't use at all)
XXL BB (50mb)

The guy at first offered me 10mb internet on it's own for £21/month on 12month contract for £21 a month, I said even new customer's get it cheaper than that (£20/pm), he then offered it for £18/month.

I then asked what he would offer just for my existing broadband and he said £35/month, again new customers get offered better £30/month for first 3 months and then £35/month.

I would of been happy to sign up for another 12 months had I been offered £30/month just for the internet which isn't much of a discount seeing as you get it for £25/month if you take a phoneline. I just told the guy to cancel my services and he then arranged for my equipment to be picked up next month.