One of the great (and easiest) ways to save money on your cable and internet bill is to simply call up your provider and ask for a promotion. I detailed this process in a previous post when I was considering cutting the cable. Fast forward to a little over a week ago and my latest promotion ended. The same tired routine begins with calling Comcast to continue my deal, only this time, I am not offered a deal. No problem as it’s probably just the person I am dealing with. I decide to call back again in another day. After that call, still no promotion. After many more calls, I finally get a representative that tells me that Comcast introduced a new policy in that they are no longer offering “rolling promotions” to customers. It makes no sense, but I’ll do my best to explain it.
A rolling promotion is when I get a six month deal on my cable bill. When the six months ends, I call back in and get the same promotion extended for another six months. After those six months, the same thing. According to the rep, the reason for no longer doing this is two-fold: first, customers complain about the variability of their monthly bill and second, Comcast isn’t making enough money on the services it provides.
Let me break this down for everyone. Basically, the average person out there gets a six month promo and doesn’t mark down when this promo will end. At month seven, they open up their bill to find it skyrocketed and calls to complain. Comcast doesn’t want this to happen so the logical solution is to end rolling promotions. Of course, this doesn’t take into account that Comcast raises its prices on a regular basis so your bill usually varies month to month.
The second reason is even better, that Comcast isn’t making enough money. And they wonder why everyone hates them. For the year ended 2011, Comcast only increased free cash flow 30% to $7 billion on revenues of $55 billion.
Comcast claims they are no longer offering these promotions for the benefit of the customer. I think that Comcast is going to change its mind quickly and start offering the promotions again. The reason being is technology. I read stories every day of people cutting their cable service and not regretting it one day. With the internet and some content providers, you can get most everything you want without the need for cable. When I look at my viewing habits, I rarely watch non-sports in real time. It’s usually at some other time via the DVR, so there is no need for me to have the latest episode of Modern Family right when it airs. As time goes on, more technology will make this even easier to do.
The one thing that has kept many people on cable company’s payroll is price. The bill might be a little high, but with a promotion, it is more acceptable. Put another way, paying $100 per month is worth the time I would have to use to research other ways of watching TV. It’s opportunity cost. But now that the bill is going to be closer to $200 per month, many more people will be thinking twice about ditching cable.
In the end, I was able to get $5 knocked off my bill. The current price sans the promotion that I pay is acceptable to me. But if they start increasing prices and still don’t offer promotions, I’ll most likely be leaving.
Readers, have any of you been able to secure a rolling promotion with Comcast recently?
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
I actually called last week and going on a new promotion that cut my bill down $20/month. It wasn’t as much as I wanted so in a few months I am going to call again and threaten to leave.
You’re certainly one of the few lucky ones Sean. You should probably start a side gig calling Comcast for other people to get their bills reduced or sell your technique. You’ll make a killing!
Comcast didn’t offer me a rolling promotion when I spoke to a customer service rep to re-up my 6-month deal. The first time around they transferred me to a retention rep and they gave me a new promotion good for another 6-months. Knowing I was going to have to deal with this again, when the new 6-month promotion ended, I called again and spoke to the rep. I basically said there is no reason to transfer me to the retention dept…just renew my promotion (as they will) and make this easier on both of us. They refused to do it and then transferred me to the retention rep. By that time I was furious and just canceled my package with them and moved to another carrier (even though the retention rep offered me a new 6-month promotion).
It’s ridiculous to have to jump through hoops every time with these companies and 6 months just isn’t long enough. My new carrier locked in my rates for 2 years; although it was a few dollars more each month than the 6-month promotional offer from Comcast, I figured it was easily worth the increase as it was going to save me plenty of time and hassle down the road.
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When I spoke to the rep, Comcast is going to try to start locking customers into long-term deals to keep the prices from fluctuating. But then at the end of the contract, I’m sure the price will just go up, which ironically, IS THE SAME THING THAT IS HAPPENING NOW! You just have to step back and laugh.
Oh Comcast – they are a company of virtue aren’t they?
We had similar problems too when trying to re-negotiate our monthly bill too – but had the same outcome. I love their reasons though- wow.
I’ve had many friends and family with the same experience.
Wow. Thankfully we don’t have Comcast as they’re not in our area. We have DirectTV and they’re not much better. Their bills tend to be fairly difficult to disect and makes it confusing to understand.
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My sister and brother-in-law have DirecTV and they also mention about the difficulty in understanding the bill. My sister always complains that whenever her favorite show comes on, the signal goes out.
I finally just gave in and slowed down my internet speed to recude the price. The lady wouldn’t give me a promotion, BUT, she did say that you can ower your bill with reduced internet speed, then call back to “change” your plan a month or so later, and get the newest promotion. I haven’t tried it, but the customer retention lady told me to do it!
And yes, I always talk to customer retention when I threaten to cancel my cable unless they reduce the price
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That is very disappointing, but I have never heard good things about Comcast. I wish there was a way to get more competition to drive prices down for cable. It is just too expensive.
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I used to be a Comcast customer, but had HORRIBLE experiences with them. It’s unfortunate they aren’t giving new customers promos anymore, but my current provider DISH sure is. I got a friend set up with DISH on the referral program, and they got a TON of goodies. I also just got the new Hopper, and this DVR is amazing. I heard about it from a DISH coworker, and it actually lets you record up to 6 live HD programs at once. PrimeTime Anytime automatically records all the PT shows on the bi four networks each night, and DISH is giving out really good deals on this baby. After having Comcast, the Hopper, and DISH are like dreams come true.
I had the same situation with Comcast this week. My promotion expired. I called and s/w a customer service rep who told me that she can’t offer me another promotion. She advised that Comcast doesn’t offer promotions anymore. She went on to advise me that I actually had second promotion on my account that was expiring in March and then my bill would increase another $20.
I told her that I needed another promotion or I would have to cancel. She told me that I should cancel service then. So I did. They transferred me to their retention department who wouldn’t give me a promotion either. I told her to cancel and she did. There was no attempt to save me as a customer at all. I guess Comcast is willing to accept the risk of losing customers over their new policy.
I am off to another carrier or perhaps, just use technology, as a previous entry suggests.
Isn’t it crazy how they refuse to even try to keep you as a customer? I don’t know their financials, but as long as you aren’t losing money on a customer, why not give them a discount to keep them happy? Heck, with all of the money they make on other customers, they could take a loss on a few by keeping them on board with discounts.
Keep me posted on what you end up doing.
Same thing just happened to me. My promotional internet only rate expires on the 18th of the month. When I signed up the CSR told me that I could simply obtain a new promotion by just calling back and asking for it at the end of my current promotion. Well so much for that. After realizing I wasn’t getting any where with this person, I asked to be transferred to cancellations. When I explained my situation to the next CSR, they simply said “Okay, would you like me to turn off the service on the 18th then?” That was it! I can’t believe they didn’t even try to retain me as a customer. I am thinking about calling back and requesting new service in my wife’s name. Not sure if that will work or if I have to wait a certain amount of time. If anybody has tried this or has any tips they would like to share, that would be great. I still have DSL service, but I really don’t want to start using it again.
I’m not sure if trying your wife’s name will work, but it’s worth a shot. I’ve made a reminder to call back each month to try and get a discount but haven’t gotten one yet.
I dropped Comcast Triple Play when they refused to give me anything after approx 8 years with them. My experience was the same as the writer’s.
And let’s not forget I was on hold 45 minutes or more on 3 occasions regardless of when I called. Worse yet, the rotten rep in Mn. disconnected me when she didn’t want to hear my complaint.
What I didn’t expect were the lies and misrepresentations I got from DIRECTV after agreeing to sign up with themand rgteir partner Century Link.
I think I went from “the frying pan to the fire.”
Screwed either way with these damn monopolies.
Comcast is horrible , bad service , bad reps, bad techs and rude to boot.They went up on my service 2 times in less than a year ( 100% increase ) and at the end of the day told me to like it or lump it . Well I think it’s time to lump it. I really do hope they go broke. What more can I say. I hate this blood sucking company. Oh, did I forget to tell you about all the missed appointments ?