T-Mobile Retentions

princessjessica08

AH! I thought there was something behind the christmas bonus this year :-D cheers

I knew they were trying to meet targets, but it does seem drastic from a customers point of view.

Liquorice_Twirls

Lawbunny - what you are saying does fit with sort of what they were saying to me at T mobile - just go onto this no minimum term contract with us and you can upgrade sometime in the next 6 months, you won't lose that right.

I couldn't really understand it as I was assuming if they were saying pay £75 towards a handset now, why would things change in 2 or 3 months?

But perhaps he knew that in early 2009 there might be greater flexibility on upgrades.

Still knowing this doesn't change things for me. I am not willing to be treated like this just so they can balance their books. I personally think it is a very dangerous game to play, and they might find that in the New Year, they have a lot less customers.

mulerider

lawbunny wrote: »

To put it simply, T-Mobile are struggling to meet their financial targets by the end of this year and so have had to make drastic cuts in spending, with most of it being vast restrictions on upgrades. Upgrades are no longer done on an independent customer by customer basis. There are set strict rules in place now, with the aim to encourage customers to wait until January to do upgrades, when the company has more money.

I was in a T-Mobile shop today looking at the new G1 and I overheard one of the sales people telling a customer basically what lawbunny has quoted above.

mulerider

Liquorice_Twirls wrote: »

Lawbunny - what you are saying does fit with sort of what they were saying to me at T mobile - just go onto this no minimum term contract with us and you can upgrade sometime in the next 6 months, you won't lose that right.

I couldn't really understand it as I was assuming if they were saying pay £75 towards a handset now, why would things change in 2 or 3 months?

But perhaps he knew that in early 2009 there might be greater flexibility on upgrades.

Still knowing this doesn't change things for me. I am not willing to be treated like this just so they can balance their books. I personally think it is a very dangerous game to play, and they might find that in the New Year, they have a lot less customers.

The networks don't care about retaining customers, the current O2 retentions thread 2 proves this so I wouldn't say it's just T-Mob. It does make you angry though, through principle I'm now taking out a new cash back deal with Orange or a new contract with Vodafone.

carrieparkinson

princessjessica08 wrote: »

most of T-mobiles call centres are in the UK, only really their department that deals with faulty handsets are in the phillipines (sp)

t-mobiles faulty handset department is in the uk.....:D

princessjessica08

ok sorry, but they have got a call centre out there anyways.........

nice people

lawbunny

Liquorice Twirls - the reason this is affecting your upgrade is T-Mobile are trying to cut spending so are refusing to subsidise handsets as heavily as they did before - as a result more and more customers are being asked to pay more towards their own handsets at upgrade.

Yes, this is the idea behind the Xmas loyalty bonus. In an effort to prevent losing vast numbers of customers due to the sub par upgrade offers they are offering customers a line rental discount for 6 months with the option to cancel or upgrade at any time within that 6 months, hoping that when customers do call to upgrade or cancel next year they will be available to offer better deals to retain customers. The Xmas loyalty bonus scheme is effectively an effort to tide them over until January.

Unfortunately, I do not have any ideas the exact date the upgrade policy should be getting changed next year (other than around January time), nor do I know what sort of deals they will be offering.


(also, the call centre in Manilla deals mostly with PAYG)

xJannax

Just been onto T-Mobile to talk about my upgrade/renewal which is up on 15th November. I was told that they are in the process of updating everything and new phones are coming out etc. So they have given me a loyalty bonus of £4.99 line rental for 6 months, not to extend my contract but just to say thanks for waiting until January. New contract will be when I phone up in January and get a new handset or some other offer they have, hope there's some good ones as I have been with them since One 2 One days.


Anyone had this offered to them, if so what do you think?

WCoyote

Hi,

It's legit, I have done this 2 years running now. They offered the same last year. You can still cancel contract, leave or upgrade sooner, as you only lose the discount for the month you're on. You can also get this through other retailers, not just direct.

mulerider

Basically they are over budget, nothing to do with loyalty etc. They are delaying upgrades for their own benefit.

T-Mobile tightens its belt
T-Mobile is understood to be cutting costs by deferring customer upgrades. It is offering customers a £5 discount off their bills if they wait until January for their upgrade.

It is old news for those connected with T-Mobile, as the operator has seen its acquisition budget drained as it approaches the final three months of the financial quarter for the last three years.

More evidence that the network is cutting costs was reported earlier this month by Mobile: T-Mobile outsourced one third of its finance team earlier this month, cutting 100 of 300 UK-based finance jobs.

The changes at T-Mobile indirect seem to be laying the groundwork for a revenue share model. It has rewarded for upgrades as well as connections since May. Fannon says: ‘Commissions have been built to reflect retention not new connections.’

When asked about a revenue share, Fannon says: ‘It’s something we’re looking at and will come in next year.’ He pointed out that the network had been using the ongoing model on its business customers since 2003.

He said: ‘It’s not new for us, we’ve got experience of what works and what doesn’t.’

But industry sources think the move to ongoing will not be seen in the imminent future. One industry expert asserted: ‘They won’t do that, that quickly, they’ll wait to see what happens with O2 and Orange commissions.’

T-Mobile may be wary of churn if it introduces an un-preferential model to dealers. O2 commissions have been received with hostility by the dealer community.

One dealer says: ‘The other networks must take heed of O2 commission, we’re personally not doing O2 and a lot of people have changed due to the commission policy.’Distributors