Zen price Hike

I've just received notification that Zen are upping my price by 6.5% from next month despite the contract being under the Price for Life scheme.
Not particularly happy given how poor the Zen service has been recently. If they were as good as they were 10 years ago then the price hike wouldn't matter. I guess it's time to jump elsewhere

What's the reason given?

Guess your choice may be to stick with Zen and pay 6.5% now or move anywhere else and pay around 14% next spring.

I'm also on the lifetime guarantee and have had no notice of a price hike.
Very difficult to see how they can do this under the price guarantee scheme.
Have you asked them?
Phil

I've had an email about phone call charges increasing - but it doesn't bother me as the line is only used for my FTTC connection.

Likewise. No change on broadband/line rental, only call charges and I don’t make calls on that line. I didn’t think ‘price for life’ applied to calls, only service provision charges?

Nothing here either,as yet

I have, and they say it's because i'm a business (i'm not). Even if I was a business there is nothing I can find, or that they can point me to, which says the price promise doesn't apply to businesses.

It makes you wonder what on earth they were thinking when they came up with that scheme. But companies fall into it all the time... I haven't bought a new pair of Doc Martens for 10 years thanks to an ill-conceived "DMs for life" scheme someone came up with. i'm going to be buried in those babies.

Digging around on the wayback machine I found this snippet from the webpage about the Price for Life offer:


Lifetime Price Guarantee
We like to go one better than no mid contract price hikes. As long as you stay with Zen, we'll never increase your price - on all our 12, 18 or 24 month packages.

Also found the email they sent back in May with a (slow) link to their website (https://www.zen.co.uk/contract-price-promise)

The email states:

Upcoming changes to Price for Life

Over the last few years, we’ve been proud to provide all our customers with a Price for Life (also known as a Lifetime Price Guarantee) on our broadband packages. This is our pledge that for as long as you stay on the same package the price of your Zen broadband service will never increase.

As an existing customer, our promise remains in place for your current broadband package.

Since we launched Price for Life, the world has changed in ways we couldn't have predicted. Inflation is at its highest in decades and our costs continue to increase. To ensure that we can continue to invest in our people, the planet and to deliver a consistently high level of service to our customers, our Price for Life offer will no longer be available for new contracts.

Edited by kebabselector (Mon 12-Sep-22 14:42:56)

In reply to a post by jimbof:

It makes you wonder what on earth they were thinking when they came up with that scheme. But companies fall into it all the time... I haven't bought a new pair of Doc Martens for 10 years thanks to an ill-conceived "DMs for life" scheme someone came up with. i'm going to be buried in those babies.

Simple, it got them customers. That's what they were thinking.

They know people won't keep the same broadband package forever now, so they've withdrawn it for new customers, it is limited to current package for existing customers and voila, great marketing campaign gained them business for very little cost.

In reply to a post by comerford:

I've just received notification that Zen are upping my price by 6.5% from next month despite the contract being under the Price for Life scheme.
Not particularly happy given how poor the Zen service has been recently. If they were as good as they were 10 years ago then the price hike wouldn't matter. I guess it's time to jump elsewhere

Recontracted with them in Feb for 18 months on a deal negotiated with retentions which gave me a bit more speed which is useful for work.

Give them a ring, pick the thinking of leaving option and have a chat with them about it, always found them pleasant and willing to negotiate if you are pleasant and reasonable.

The "price for life" was among the main reasons I signed up with Zen in the first place. I could see this coming down the road earlier in the year, and figured that I could pay a slightly high £29.99 a month now and get a decent Zen service, or sign up with a bargain-basement ISP, pay a few quid less for a few months, but then end up paying £30+ for a worse service in short order when the price goes up by RPI +3.9%, likely to be a total of 15% or more.

I have no intention of changing package in the foreseeable future - there's no Openreach or other FTTP locally and in any case the 40Mbps speed is absolutely fine for my needs - so unless they renege on the offer, they are stuck with me paying the same price!

Incidentally, I have a relative on Uno who signed up in 2016 or so and is still paying the same price, even though they don't have a "price for life" or any similar guarantee.

So long as you are happy paying this price, Zen are making good money from you and they would be wise to keep you without ratcheting up the price. I think it's a win-win.

You're paying £24.99+VAT per month. The Openreach 40/10 FTTC and line rental costs them £12.71+VAT(*), and your backhaul and transit usage is negligible at this low speed. So you're a making them good profit - the setup cost and router have long been paid off.

(*) Actually that's the price for SOGEA. I didn't bother looking up the WLR+FTTC prices separately, but I know the total is the same within pennies.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

So long as you are happy paying this price, Zen are making good money from you and they would be wise to keep you without ratcheting up the price. I think it's a win-win.

You're paying £24.99+VAT per month. The Openreach 40/10 FTTC and line rental costs them £12.71+VAT(*), and your backhaul and transit usage is negligible at this low speed. So you're a making them good profit - the setup cost and router have long been paid off.

(*) Actually that's the price for SOGEA. I didn't bother looking up the WLR+FTTC prices separately, but I know the total is the same within pennies.

The cost of the customer is far more than the Openreach tail and the backhaul/transit... but sure...