BT renewal of contract - beware different offers from different people

jubilee12

Just called BT to discuss renewal of my mum's phone contract.

Current contract: £29.49 per month for broadband/line rental/unlimited anytime calls

Renewal offer on website: £52

First call to BT to haggle: offered 36.48 in total
Haggled down to 23.99 broadband and line rental, 9.99 anytime calls
Advised new customers pay 24.99 broadband and line rental

Told them we'd think about it
Called BT back: told 26.99 broadband and line rental is lowest they can go
They can't go down to 23.99
Advised them of discrepancy
'Oh, I'll have to talk to my manager' - then went to BT answerphone

Third call to BT: advised of discrepancy
Our best offer is 23.99 landline and rental
Advised new customers pay 29.99, not 24.99

Asked if we could have £5 off bill in view of being given wrong information, nope.

Has anyone had similar experience?
Just imagining if my mum didn't have us to help her out...

JJ_Egan

Retentions give offers .
Those offer change and are not misinformation .
You failed to take a the price offered .

See multiple posts for all ISPs how to get a better deal .

jubilee12

Hi, thanks for your reply.
I'm not sure I understand - offers change within the same ten minutes?
That also doesn't explain two different figures quoted for new joiners.

JJ_Egan

To a certain extent yes . A lot depends upon who you speak to and how far they are willing to go to cut you a deal .

mac.d

JJ Egan is spot on, it very much depends who you speak to. Certainly front line customer service won't be able to offer you anything decent and insist they can't go below what they've offered, retentions will give better offers but again it can be dependent on who you speak to, and possibly is related to their own internal targets?

Can't remember the direct number for retentions, I know its been posted in one of the BT threads.

Croft12

jubilee12 wrote: »

Just called BT to discuss renewal of my mum's phone contract.

Current contract: £29.49 per month for broadband/line rental/unlimited anytime calls

Renewal offer on website: £52

First call to BT to haggle: offered 36.48 in total
Haggled down to 23.99 broadband and line rental, 9.99 anytime calls
Advised new customers pay 24.99 broadband and line rental

Told them we'd think about it
Called BT back: told 26.99 broadband and line rental is lowest they can go
They can't go down to 23.99
Advised them of discrepancy
'Oh, I'll have to talk to my manager' - then went to BT answerphone

Third call to BT: advised of discrepancy
Our best offer is 23.99 landline and rental
Advised new customers pay 29.99, not 24.99

Asked if we could have £5 off bill in view of being given wrong information, nope.

Has anyone had similar experience?
Just imagining if my mum didn't have us to help her out...

My understanding is that they can see previous offers made to you (assuming staff note in on your file - they had with me) I'd never ask for money off the existing bill except for an actual line fault problem. It just looks cheeky.


Does you mum need Anytime? I've been told if you don't make >1hr of calls/month its not worth it (thats 1hr outside the free weekend calls period)


If you think you have deal take it - if not did you get prices for other providers. Did you speak to retentions?

jubilee12

Yes, I did. Apparently they couldn't see previous offers.
I'm confused, because when I call e.g. home insurer, car breakdown cover, go through the same haggling and request for reflection time, when I call back they can see my first offer and honour it.
And there isn't a disagreement between different staff on what the offer would be for a new starter.
Sorry guys. I appreciate your advice. But their service doesn't feel right to me.

Takmon

jubilee12 wrote: »

Yes, I did. Apparently they couldn't see previous offers.
I'm confused, because when I call e.g. home insurer, car breakdown cover, go through the same haggling and request for reflection time, when I call back they can see my first offer and honour it.
And there isn't a disagreement between different staff on what the offer would be for a new starter.
Sorry guys. I appreciate your advice. But their service doesn't feel right to me.

Their job is to try and get the customer to stay with them for the highest price they can get them to pay.
Your job is to research what deals are available to get an idea of a good deal and negotiate from there. Different people you speak to will offer different deals based on how serious they think you are about leaving.

If you checked the BT website you will see they offer standard broadband for £24.99 a month to new customers and fibre for £29.99 a month to new customers so both prices were correct depending on what service they were talking about. But you really should have know all this before calling up.

Also it's worth pointing out telecoms and TV service etc have far more room to negotiate because the margins are not as tight as insurance. You usually get the best deal by really pushing them and if you say you need to go away and think they know your not that serious about changing provider so you may not get as good a price.

jubilee12

That's good advice, and yes, I did say I'd go away and consider other providers.
You're right that it's important to know the different prices in advice. I did research them. I understand the different prices for different packages. In each conversation we were talking about upgrading a specific package - so quoting different packages wasn't relevant.
I've had another conversation with BT. The member of staff said I'd had very poor service, that I shouldn't be offered different prices within the same hour, and they're going to get the complaint looked into and call back with a goodwill gesture. I'm happy.

Bungaroosh

Takmon wrote: »

If you checked the BT website you will see they offer standard broadband for £24.99 a month to new customers and fibre for £29.99 a month to new customers so both prices were correct depending on what service they were talking about. But you really should have know all this before calling up.

Someone has just posted on a neighbouring thread that they have got 80Mb fibre, weekend calls AND BT Sport for £21.99! Master haggler!

JJ_Egan

I would want actual proof of that .
Unless its plus line rental which is circa £20 pm .