| Confessions of an Earthink Switcher I switched from Earthlink about 6 months ago, after being an Earthlink DSL customer for 6 years. I was paying $40 per month for a 1.5 Mbps/256 Kbps connection (Covad equipment/network on the backend). My ILEC offered 6Mbps / 384 Kbps connections for $29 per month... I didn't really need the speed (though it is nice when I occasionally need it), but $10 per month is $10 more that I have to spend on other fun things... The savings more than cover my Xbox Live subscription, for example... Anyhow, I digress...
I called Earthlink, who was offering new subscribers a lower cost package than I had. I told them I'd be happy to stay if they reduced my rates to the new subscriber rate... I was out of contract, so it's not as if I was trying to change the terms of a contract or anything... I wasn't mean or anything, and I explained exactly why I had asked to have my per month costs lowered... They wouldn't do it, so I told them to cancel my account.
Basically, my point is that if you're going to treat existing customers like second class citizens, then you're going to lose business. Those customers who, like me, were valued less than a new customer are going to have a lower opinion and are going to speak out about the company (like I'm doing now). It makes their job all the more difficult in attracting new customers.... Will they never learn? |
