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tberg
join:2001-08-23
Greenville, SC

1 recommendation

tberg

Member

Good Retention experience

I've been a very satisfied uVerse customer since October 2009. I've had the U200 and Max Plus service since the beginning.
I decided to call and ask to talk to Retention since I keep getting peppered with Dish, DirecTV, and Charter ads where the prices look better.
She looked up my account, saw I had no late payments, etc. She then offered me U300 and HD service with Max Plus for $35 off my current pricing for the next 12 months. I had to agree to a 12 month contract (with a penalty of $15/remaining month for dropping out early). If I move, there is no penalty.
I told her I liked that and would go for it. She then gave me an additional $35 off my current month's bill.
So, just for calling and keeping with AT&T for 12 more months, I've got $455 less payments, 100+ more channels, and HD. I'm glad I made that call.

ArgMeMatey
join:2001-08-09
Milwaukee, WI

ArgMeMatey

Member

said by tberg:

So, just for calling and keeping with AT&T for 12 more months, I've got $455 less payments

Sounds like a win-win to me. Just curious, how much revenue are they going to book from you over the next 12 months?

It's clear that they want to keep TV subscribers, but based on my retention experience, they are not all that keen on people like me who only want internet. They offered me something like $5 off per month for six months, or cutting me down to a 3 Mbps plan for the same price I was paying for 12 Mbps.

On the other hand, I'm up for renewal with Big Cable in about a month and it's great to have a competitor with a good intro rate that will, with luck, convince them to match for another 12 months!
tberg
join:2001-08-23
Greenville, SC

tberg

Member

said by ArgMeMatey:

said by tberg:

So, just for calling and keeping with AT&T for 12 more months, I've got $455 less payments

Sounds like a win-win to me. Just curious, how much revenue are they going to book from you over the next 12 months?

I dropped from $134/month to $99/month. Plus 100 more channels and HD.
burns113
join:2002-07-13
Louisville, KY

burns113 to tberg

Member

to tberg
I'm about to make that call myself, my introductory rate is up next week (2/6). I'll be good keeping my bill as is, not really much they could try to upgrade (U450, phone, max plus). I already ran the alternative numbers compared to my promo rate:

Cable is a couple bucks more
Dish and Cable internet and phone is $25 less
Directv and Cable internet and phone is a couple bucks less

Truth be told if I dumped ATT I would probably research ditching everything and just going with internet service from cable. I'm not too keen on slapping a dish on the house and no way would I ever go back to cable TV.
mitchflorida
join:2004-09-01
Deerfield Beach, FL

mitchflorida to ArgMeMatey

Member

to ArgMeMatey
The competition is keen for TV service, with att, cable, dish and directv all looking for business. it easily costs them $400+ for a new customer with install and equipment.

There are usually only two high speed providers in an area, cable and telco. I expect those prices to go up soon. We have something new called OMGFast, but not too much about reliability, which is key for me.
o2cool8
join:2002-04-19
Cary, NC

o2cool8 to ArgMeMatey

Member

to ArgMeMatey
said by ArgMeMatey:

said by tberg:

So, just for calling and keeping with AT&T for 12 more months, I've got $455 less payments

Sounds like a win-win to me. Just curious, how much revenue are they going to book from you over the next 12 months?

It's clear that they want to keep TV subscribers, but based on my retention experience, they are not all that keen on people like me who only want internet. They offered me something like $5 off per month for six months, or cutting me down to a 3 Mbps plan for the same price I was paying for 12 Mbps.

On the other hand, I'm up for renewal with Big Cable in about a month and it's great to have a competitor with a good intro rate that will, with luck, convince them to match for another 12 months!

Depends on the market I guess, I had 18mb for $53 and I called to see if they had a better deal since comcast is advertising 20mb for $30 for a year, they came back and gave me 24mb for $31.50 (50% reduction), for a year. I have internet only.
mitchflorida
join:2004-09-01
Deerfield Beach, FL

mitchflorida

Member

I am also in South Florida. Where can I see that offer? I just see $30 for six months, then it almost doubles.
o2cool8
join:2002-04-19
Cary, NC

o2cool8

Member

I called and asked for retention, and then I told them I had an offer from Comcast for 20mb for $30 a month, per year. Its not on their website.
rainypickles
join:2004-07-01
Castro Valley, CA

rainypickles to tberg

Member

to tberg
add my two cents.

had service since may 2010 U200 with elite (6mbps) and called in. "retentions" made the system think i wanted to cancel. and eventually going through prompts, i said "disconnect."

said i wanted some offers or discounts. bill was at $136. she offered an upgrade to max (12mbps) and bill reduction to 105. i took it.
perryrpj
Premium Member
join:2006-06-14
Bedford, TX

perryrpj to tberg

Premium Member

to tberg

Good Retention experience also

Thanks for all your experiences.

I'll try to lay it out as it went down.

1. This was the Friday during the outage week.
2. I've been a customer since 2008, and had noticed my bill continually rising, to ~$155/mo. for U200, no HD, maybe an HBO/Cinemax promo I forgot to cancel, 12 down/1.5 up (?), Motorola VIP 1216 DVR, 3800HGV-8 router, (1) TV, (1) internet pc, no cell, no landline.
3. U-verse has always been great for me. Much better to go straight to Tier 2 and speak to someone who's native language is English. I must have (9) of their cheap remotes because mine keep going out, I have them ship me (3) at a time.
4. I didn't really want to muck with switching, but, knew I was leaving a lot of $$$'s on the table. And....Dallas/Ft. Worth, I've got Dish, Direct, DSL/Roku, Time Warner I could toss at them.
5. I called, and commiserated that I'm sorry they were getting so many people trashing them because of the outage, and that wasn't why I was calling, cuz I figure things happen. I immediately asked for my next (3) bill due dates, which I was given.
6. I explained that I had always been happy with U-Verse, but, because of the economy, I just had to go cheaper with one of the other carriers, and I knew there was no way they could bring the price down enough. I was told they might....but, I said I knew they couldn't and I didn't want anything extra....just needed the bill due dates.
7. Then, we started talking, and I pulled out the competitors, but had not decided yet. We were both very polite during it all.
8. Up sell--Nope, gotta be lower price, but I know they can't come close. When we were done, I think I'm going to be paying ~$90-$95/mo. with a 1 yr. contract. They upped to U300, HD, Showtime package.....I said I'd like 18 down....OK. Nope to cell. Offered to save me $12/mo. on landline. Nope to VOIP. Still saved me $6 to keep straight landline. All the above for 1yr., but landline month to month, and was reminded that I would get $20 credit because of outage.

Yes, I did have the competitor card and played it hard. All in all, I think a fair deal all around. Questions--Links or answers please. Largest hard drive I can pop in? 320GB now. I'd like to go to 1TB. Anything else worthwhile to look at upgrading on the router or DVR?

Thank y'all for your time. I hope this helps, and any suggestions are welcomed.
tberg
join:2001-08-23
Greenville, SC

tberg

Member

said by perryrpj:

Questions--Links or answers please. Largest hard drive I can pop in? 320GB now. I'd like to go to 1TB. Anything else worthwhile to look at upgrading on the router or DVR?

Thank y'all for your time. I hope this helps, and any suggestions are welcomed.

I believe 500GB is the largest drive you can install. It won't recognize anything larger.
burns113
join:2002-07-13
Louisville, KY

burns113 to tberg

Member

to tberg

Re: Good Retention experience

I made my call, my introductory promo having just ended. I called, told her that my promo rates had just ended and I wanted to bring my bill back down. She was nice but said there wasn't anything she could do aside from removing services. I said "so you can't match what I can get from competitors?" and suddenly she's taking $41 off of my bill and she lowered my phone from unlimited to the 250 (I hardly use it) and saved another $10.

Only thing they could really try to upsell me on is a cell, but didn't even try. Overall, I'm good, we'll see what happens in another year. I kind of hate their billing how I have a balloon payment this month and will have almost no payment next month, but what can you do.
DarienRedSox
join:2013-02-10
Darien, CT

DarienRedSox to tberg

Member

to tberg
I was not so lucky this time around, called and was told nothing that they could do for me at this time, other than give me a few premium stations that I would not watch anyway, then he told me that I call back in 6 months to see what they would do. In addition to one of my promos ending the rates also went up on my TV, and a new cost recovery fee was added. Cable is coming this Friday to install. Almost every day now AT&T is calling me about those premium stations that I don't want anyway.

joako
Premium Member
join:2000-09-07
/dev/null

joako to tberg

Premium Member

to tberg
I called the ATT-2020 hellline and they asked for some password I never set on the account. So why argue, I headed over to bbb.org and expressed my displeasure. Just got a call from AT&T and they had already applied a $32 credit for 12 months and they reset the passcodes while I was on the phone.