Retaining customers

Has anybody out there got a good deal out of plusnet when they said they were going to leave?

I want to change to fibre, but if I stay with plusnet I wont get any deal on the price and I will be locked into another 18 months. With the way that plusnet customer service is going I dont want to be tied in for another 18 months, and i dont like the way they have kyboshed the upload speeds either.

If I change to somebody else, such as BT, I can get a deal were I get cashback and only have a 12 month contract.

Why would I stay?

Plusnet only offer best customer deal if agree to 18 or 24 months contract. No special offer deal will remain on monthly to monthly contract only once your fibre minimum contract had ended.

Edited by adslmax (Thu 11-Feb-16 18:50:24)

EDIT > This reply ment for pompey_steve, appologies Max it was a slip of the finger

Have a look at Topcashback for a cashback if you fancy BT fibre, only 12 month contract AFAIK

Customer support via India can be tricky but other members (one of which I think was Batboy) have indicated that some support is available from UK and they might be able to pass on the phone number if you think BT fibre will be suitable for you.

Edited by Apprentice (Thu 11-Feb-16 19:39:31)

yeah I have had a bad experience of BTs phone-based customer support through my parents, where they made a complete mess of the changes my parents wanted.

However, it was sorted by them registering an online account (with my help) and sorting it out online, where you seem to be able to do a lot of stuff with a half-decent system. This is the saving grace of BT. I;d hope I wouldn't have to speak to anybody on the phone.

Edited by pompey_steve (Thu 11-Feb-16 20:41:48)

Why Indeed.

I moved from plusnet to BT last Oct, no way could plunset top the savings with BT (when I switched they were doing £190 cashback and £100 Sainsburys giftcard - so basically paid for Infinity 2 for the 12 months).

As for support., well in 11 years in this house I've called ISP support once, so I'll take my chances for a decent saving. (I did have a phone line fault last year whist still with plusnet that was dealt with entirely online)

Do what ever you feel is best, all these larger providers are going to offer you saving to get you to join them, but look at how much you can save over the contract not in the first few months. I still have 6 months to go on my contract, not sure what I will do after, to be honest Plusnet have not been too bad and if i am going to stay with a large provider then i could certainly do worse and is certainly the closest I want to be with BT.

If I change i may go back to my old provider if they sorted things out, not sure if i could go back to 10Mb/s, which is the only thing stopping me, but then when it was working, I was happy with that and customer service was spot on. It is not always about money unless you have none.

For some years it's been my annual ritual to phone Plusnet to ask for for my MAC and get a good deal. Now that we no longer have MAC based migration I don't know how this will work.

It may well be that the only way to get the best prices now is to move around regularly.

In my case there's an additional factor. Over the years I've recommended a lot of people to PN. For perfectly valid reasons, as for long periods PN has been as good as most and better than many for average users. Hence I have a referral bonus that's a substantial discount on my bill. I don't think it's possible to keep that bonus if I leave PN and it outweighs just about any offer I'm likely to get from another ISP.

Give Plusnet the chance to make an offer, as they are not allowed to make a counter offer after you start a switch. Unless things have changed, you keep your referral fees going into your bank after leaving, or at least to the best of my knowledge that is how it once was. I am sure someone will confirm that one way or the other.

I too used to think that you kept the referral bonuses if you left but they changed the terms and conditions a while ago.Can't say I'm surprised.

https://www.plus.net/features/referral_terms.shtml

See clause 6.

"6. Should you decide to leave the service, any outstanding credit earned by your referrals made with this scheme is not eligible to be converted to monetary value and taken with you. My Referrals discounts are non-transferable between account-holders."

If you returned to PN the terms don't say what would happen.

I still get referral bonuses from PlusNet and I left about 4 years ago...

As Prof says give them a ring. I am with BT and each year just ring them up and ask what discount they would give me to sign for another 12 months. Currently getting £10 off my broadband and £3 off of TV - good enough for me.

It's possible that they changed the terms after you left. It's an interesting point in contract law, about unilaterally imposing adverse changes. While you're still with them it's only marginally adverse. If changes were imposed after you've left you it would definitely be adverse.

I don't ever recall being informed of the changes. Whether they would have merited being able to leave without penalty as a result is another question.

If I left PN, having formed a contract with them long before the changes, I have no idea whether they would enforce the changes.

For now I'm happy enough with PN not to leave but it's been a close call on a few occasions, notably immediately prior to the BT takeover when PN were in a real mess. But I've been with them since 2002, my first and only BB supplier, and on the whole I've been happy.

I moved from PlusNet to BT for FTTP for various reasons that I will not go into here. PlusNet told me that I would lose my referrals but they continue to credit my bank account with £6 every 2 months. I did downlevel the account to email only so I pay them nothing.

Another reason for me to say with PN is that I use the free web space that was offered many years ago. Yet another thing I'd have to deal with and pay for.

I left in August 2015 and still get my referral payments. It does need to be carefully organised as a new "direct debit" was set up in order to pay it to me. I did it through one of the forum reps.

The email advising the payment is about to come includes something suggesting I recommend them to more people, to increase what I receive.

Take a look at the final sentence of Para. 1 of your link.

As has been surmised, it could be Para.6 is new, but it shouldn't apply to you I wouldn't have thought. Para 1 ending would.

I would like to know for sure if iI loose the referral fees, as I have fair amount, and (as posted earleir) I am about to leave PlusNet.

( because they won't extend my deal and the cust. service is worse then non existent - if they had none I wouln't have wasted time trying to contact them !)

I used to share PlusNet BB with next door neighbour as my place didn't have phone line, I had obtained quite few referrals, but he then cut me off. He then changed to different ph/BB, but still get paid for MY referrals by monthly cheques. Don't know if that still the case....?
Regards,
Martin

thanks for all your help gentlemen.

I've sat down and done a spreadsheet of the costs over 1,2 and3 years and BT is really only cheaper for the 1 year or so and over the longer periods the difference is only something like £20

So it sort of comes down to whether I want to stay and what plusnet can offer me to stay.

I left in November 2015 and still get referral payments (credited on the 1st of the month).

Had a little hassle sorting out final bill and switching to email only account but sorted in out in about 6 weeks.

Ian

With the way that plusnet customer service is going I dont want to be tied in for another 18 months, and i dont like the way they have kyboshed the upload speeds either.

I don't know whether PN would offer you a 12 month contract for fibre BB as they don't advertise it, however you can only ask the Customer Options Team not customer services for a price and length of term match to say that of another ISP and see what happens.

PN COT > if it hasn't changed try 0800 013 2632

Edited by Apprentice (Sat 13-Feb-16 11:08:13)

Had to have a little chuckle when I saw the title. My brother in law recently rang to discuss a retention deal as he is out of contract for his telephone provision and in June his fibre contract will finish. He was offered a 24 month contract for both and both more expensive by a pound or two than he is already paying????

New customers get 6 months free (IIRC from recent ads) whereas they want him to pay more than he is contracted to. I told him that if it was me I would consider it as an insult to my intelligence. It's as if they want to get rid of existing customers and are only interested in new ones - beats me.

beats me

Plusnet have to pay for bandwidth...

I'm on a market 1 (A) 20C exchange using on average 100GB/month, Plusnet did not offer me any discount after my initial sign-up deal ....ie. full price on market A circa £17.49/month for ADSL +line rental on top.

IAn

Exactly - more of a rejection policy than retention.

New customer - "come on in have it free".
Exisitng customer - "no sorry pay more, in fact we'll offer to let you pay moire straightaway by starting a new contract early if you are dim witted enough"

I get the impression that PN staff are more interested in new signings than keeping existing customers. As 'churn' is a problem for all ISPs I conclude that the salesdroids are paid for new customers, not for the existing ones

In reply to a post by pompey_steve:

I've sat down and done a spreadsheet of the costs over 1,2 and3 years and BT is really only cheaper for the 1 year or so and over the longer periods the difference is only something like £20

I just worry about costs over the minimum contract term. But then I'm happy to move again once the contract is up, other prefer to stay with their ISP.

BT seem to be offering the prepaid £125 prepaid mastercard again, as well as some good Quidco Cashbacks (I assume as that you have a BT line but not broadband you would be eligble?)