[sean_pook]

Hi there,

I'm really stumped. I've heard a lot about companies doing their very best to hang onto valued customers...so I was surprissed when I cancelled my tmobile contract last month.

Since 1999 (One-2-one then) I've been spending between £50 and £150 a month on my mobile. Other than being cut off 7 times when trying to get through to the cancellation department there hasn't been one "why do you want to leave"? or "what can we do to help you stay"? Absolutely nothing.

Is this common? Do they have so many higher paying customers that my £100 average is insignificant?

Just really curious I guess.

Cheers

Sean

[Ben]

Well, purely assumptions, I'd say either the agent you got through to couldn't be bothered, or T-Mobile have currently burned through their acquisition/retention budget and so you weren't wooed.

Damn shame though!

Out of interest, why did you leave? iPhone 3G? ;)

[sean_pook]

I guess it may be the latter...they've had 5 weeks to call me back now.

Funnily...I did get a marketing call from someone there two weeks back asking if I was interested in some add on toy. As soon as I said I had cancelled he said 'ok ok, sorry. thanks for your time' and hung up. So I dont think he was calling to keep me.

I actually left due to them miss-selling things. I've got a flexi tarif. I was pretty miffed when I discovered that I'd be charged quite a lot for 08XX calls which the sales person said wouldnt be the case.

Anyway I signed my wife up last summer. four months later she got a huge bill for voicemails. I called to find out what was going on because voicemail is free on Flexi 'Oh no sir that's not been the case since Jan 07'. 'So why didnt the sales advisor point this critical change out when he knew i was ordering this off the back of me having had Flexi for 2 years'. 'Oh I dont know but he should have told you'.

My intention was to get a refund for the charge because the tarif had been miss-sold. However, I was shocked whent he customer service team leader said 'Thanks for pointing out that we'd not been charging your wife for voicemail calls for the first four months of the contract. We'll send you a new bill for those'

Well...I wasn't a happy bunny and wrote to various directors saying if this wasn'ty fixed then not only would my wife walk away from tmobile (not much of a threat) but I would too (again obviously not enough of a threat because they did nothing).

Hence I'm now with Orange. It's very weird having a new mobile number after 9 years.

Ironically TMobile and HSBC were the last remaining companies I was conciously loyal to and in the last three months they've both annoyed me to such an extent as to want to move. No more customer loyalty for me...I'll go with whoever has the best deal from this point on.

[Ben]

Wow, they actually corrected their mistake and billed you for the calls? :o That's horrific!

Orange is an interesting choice... frying pan -> fire comes to mind! :D Still, all the UK operators have their strong points, in terms of tariffs and in other areas too.

[Hands0n]

No more customer loyalty for me...I'll go with whoever has the best deal from this point on.

A hard lesson learned. Thanks for sharing.

As a general rule, it is absolutely pointless being loyal to any company at all. You might want to develop a relationship with the local corner shop or suchlike. But to a large corporate you are nothing more than a constituent to a figure on a Finance Director's spreadsheet.

Most service companies try to resist churn - it could be in your case that the change in T&Cs by T-Mobile to change the charge for 08xx calls prompted T-Mobile to anticipate customers churning and not bother to offer resistance. After the 30-days notice is up you will probably find that T-Mobile start up their retention policy again.

[gorilla]

I sympathise, and have had similar experiences. I'm not loyal at all, and just in case anyone reading this does not query insurance quotes, get on to that pronto! I nearly halved my renewal this year and that was after I got a really competitive quote the previous 2 years (only been driving for 2 years).

Re phone companies, haggle. Ask for discount, push for free handsets or addons. It's like the old adage, if you don't ask you don't get.

Any reason why you didn't get your PAC and take your number to orange?

[Hands0n]

I lie about my insurance quotes :D I tell some complete hogwash about getting a £75 or whatever quote cheaper from *fill in blank here* insurance company. It tends to work nine out of ten times :D They don't always meet the quote, but come close more often than not. It saves all the hassle of actually ringing around.