Get a Free Car From Your Cable Company

How would you like a free car?  Your cable company just might be offering it to you and you don’t know it.  This year Time Warner cable changed its name to Spectrum.  I am not a customer (yet) so I don’t know what happened.  What I do know is that Verizon sold off it’s home services to Frontier, and they are now my “cable” company.  With FiOS I have Internet, TV and Telephone.  Admittedly the telephone is only for my home alarm which I can replace with a cellular alarm for $9 a month, so I am not sure why I even have a home phone number.

Anyway, bill creep kicked in this month.  Bill creep is where those “special deals” start to expire.  They expire at different times so your bill only goes up a little each month.  The good news is Frontier sent me an email with a new offer, just $79 a month for faster internet and all the channels I had.  The difference is this month, I was paying $179 a month for those same services with slower internet speeds.

Of course I jumped on the deal.  I logged into my frontier.com account and just as the email said, I got this screen:

Frontier Screws its customers
Sweet Deal – NOT!

So I clicked the buttons to try and buy, but there weren’t any, so I clicked the “chat” button.  The person said “The best I can do for you is $188.72 a month”.  So I ended the chat and called in for the $79 deal that was on my screen after I logged in, and got the same “The best deal for you sir is $188.72” response.

So let me get this straight.  You send me an email offering faster internet with HBO and a $400 Amazon gift card, you put it on my home page when I log into your website, and then tell me the best deal is $188.72 per month?  How is that a “deal”, and why is a $79 deal in my inbox and on my login page?  That is just plain bad marketing.

So I called Spectrum, and they offered all the same channels, DVR boxes and increased my internet speed for $114.32 per month.  So I called Frontier one more time only to get the same answer.

The first rule of business is “The most important customer is the one you have.”  The cable and cell phone companies whine about the lack of customer loyalty and “churn” rates and yet they offer $79 deals to new customers and stick it to the long term customers.

So Frontier was effectively saying, we don’t want your business after you paid your bill on time without question for over six years.  We would rather you go to our competitor and save enough money to lease a Fiat 500.  So, I did.

In two years when Spectrum does the same thing, maybe I’ll go back to FiOS.  What a stupid game.

Maybe you are thinking, “But its only $80 a month and switching is such a hassle.”  $80 a month is $960 a year.

So let me get this straight, once every two years you don’t think it is worth taking a day off at home to save $1920 on your cable bill?  You can lease a Fiat 500e for $69 a month.  Your cable company is costing you a car if you don’t switch.    Wouldn’t you rather have the free car?

I do, and did.  Sorry Frontier, your business plan is horrible, I would never advise my clients to follow this path.  See you in two years…. Unless Spectrum breaks the cycle that is.

#Frontier #Spectrum #stupidmarketing

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