PlusNet contract renewal / retentions

Just been engaged in my annual / biennial DSL renewal discussion with PlusNet, which has in the past been a fairly painless process.

This time, however, it's all change.

I'd envisaged haggling them down from their own website-advertised £18pm inc line rental with £50 cashback towards Sky's £15pm with £75 cashback.

But no - the offer was £22pm, no cashback incentive, but with the usual reduction if I chose to take out line rental saver. So over the year (with the line rental saver) that's £234 with PlusNet vs £105 with Sky (who also offer caller display for free). So it's about £8 a month more than my previous PlusNet contract started out, and more than twice what Sky are asking.

Just wanted to make sure everyone is in the same boat on this, and I hadn't simply got some customer retentions guy who'd already done his numbers for the month.

Is this the standard now?

I don't think there is a standard. I got a fantastic deal at my last renewal but it was on the second attempt. Try again another day.

Cheers Kevin - I'll definitely give them another go.

The guy I spoke to told me that company policy had changed, and they no longer matched new customer offers, not even their own.

But even if they won't budge on the ADSL, I'll see if they'll give me a new customer deal on fibre, which would avoid the rather dolorous switch to Rupert Murdoch...

Out of interest, whenabouts was your last renewal?

In reply to a post by gordon_k:

Out of interest, whenabouts was your last renewal?

June 2016.

No harm in telling them how much you would have to pay Vodafone for FTTC if you were to migrate. Well that is what I plan to do next August.

I didn't get such a good retention deal this October compared to last year's retention deal of free BB +LR with PN which was a price match which they no longer do

My 20CN exchange is market A so as far as PN are concerned I live outside a low cost area so don't get their headline grabbing cheap broadband deals, the retention deal offered was BB at £9.99 a month + LR with PN on a 24 month contract, after some haggling etc etc I could only manage to get the contract term reduced to 12 months for the same monthly cost, I phoned on 3 occasions and that was the only deal I could get from 3 different members of the COT.

Thank you for the info. At the moment I have free BB for 18 months at a Market 1 20CN exchange. Forewarned is forearmed!

An annoying issue was that I purchased LRS too far in advance, a mistake not to be made again, I couldn't cancel LRS as the number of days to do so had passed but the new LRS start date was around a month away.

I did eventually phone them again, and did get offered a slightly better deal.

£20pm inc line rental (with the option of £30 discount for 12 months LRS)
18 month contract

The retentions guy confirmed what the previous guy had said, they weren't able to match the new customer offer (which factoring in the £50 PN cashback is an £86 difference).

However the deal they were willing to offer me on a switch to 38 Mb fibre was £23pm ilr, which is the same as their new customer fibre deal.

Edited by deleted (Mon 28-Nov-16 13:40:55)

So then in 12 months you either at full whack on the phone or get hooked in for six months at the end of the broadband contract.

All standard trickery .

What Sky package was that? I was talking to them a couple of weeks ago. I'm already a Sky HD customer and am upgrading to Sky Q. I asked what they could do if I went triple play (phone/TV/broadband). I was told they could (in effect):

* Charge me at least £5pcm more than I'm paying if I stay with Plusnet and Pulse 8.
* Possibly supply me with a static IP address but they wouldn't know until the service went live and I actually asked for it.

Maybe I was talking to an idiot but it seemed like my current setup with Sky just for TV and PN for broadband, Pulse8 for line rental is a better deal and a better package. This is for their 80/20 package and several times they tried to persuade me to go to their lower package. Not even specifically for pricing. I just got the impression they don't like selling it.

Weird.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

What Sky package was that? I was talking to them a couple of weeks ago. I'm already a Sky HD customer and am upgrading to Sky Q. I asked what they could do if I went triple play (phone/TV/broadband). I was told they could (in effect):

* Charge me at least £5pcm more than I'm paying if I stay with Plusnet and Pulse 8.
* Possibly supply me with a static IP address but they wouldn't know until the service went live and I actually asked for it.

Sky certainly seem to be promoting their DSL service in preference to fibre at the moment.

The deal I'm talking about is their current Black Friday / Cyber Monday special
http://www.sky.com/shop/broadband-talk/broadband-unl...
which looks like a loss leader to my untrained eye.

Don't appear to be offering any deals on fibre, PlusNet's current offers beat them hand down. But as I chucked out the TV several years ago (one of my better decisions) and get pretty good DSL speeds (close to the exchange) fibre isn't a huge draw for me...

Edited by deleted (Mon 28-Nov-16 16:19:40)

Thought I would comment here rather than start a new one. Have phoned twice this week and the deals are lousy!

Last year I got free broadband with the line rental this year the line rental is up and BB is £3.99. With allday calls and the added insult of paying for CLI it comes to a hint under £30pm.

So much for competition!

They failed to get back to me, so I'm now withnSky. It's a no brainer really.

I wonder if Plusnet will ever wakeup?

It's a shame really.

I liked the way they would offer existing customers (who pressed them) the same deal as new customers.

Sadly, it seems I'm back to the switch provider every 12 months or so, to get the best deal.

Least the switching process seems a bit easier now - for which I guess some thanks should go to Ofcom.

In reply to a post by hk11:

They failed to get back to me, so I'm now withnSky. It's a no brainer really.

I wonder if Plusnet will ever wakeup?

I did think about sky, but to be honest i did not like the look of their router and by all accounts it is not the best and I am not sure if you can use your own. Also after paying the connection fee, over 18 months I would save just over £50, which yes ok it is a saving, but is it worth the bother?

While i have a couple of problems with plusnet, most of the time it have been fine, I did think about Vodafone, but the hassle with their router makes it not worth while.

i will stay where i am for the time being, but still my a eye out on other services.
TBH, I do not really want to give Murdoch any more of my money, I have now TV and at least with that I can cancel when i want.

I am using the router I got with my previous but one ISP?

I gave up with the one Sky supplied and the phone support is a joke!

Update.

Have just renewed with line rental in advance and a 18 month contract for ADSL is £2 per month.

I just wish there was both consistency and real competition in the process.

Meldrew

Edited by deleted (Wed 11-Jan-17 12:24:26)