So last time I’ve posted how frustrated I was with the Canadian cell phone industry. I decided to give Fido, the cell phone company I signed contract with, a call and see if they can lower my monthly fee. To my suprise, they offered me a special deal to keep me happy. Everyone can do this, you just need to learn a few tricks first.
I did some research first on RedFlagDeals, and I have noticed that Fido or Rogers will most likely offer the retention plan when someone calls to complain about expensive monthly bills.
They offered me this:
200 minutes day time, unlimited evenings starting 5 PM & weekends – $17.50
unlimited network calling between Fido and Rogers customers – $10
call display, voice mail, 2500 text messages – $10
6GB mobile internet data – $20
no system access fee and no 911 fee
The total per month now is $57.50. Very similar to what I was paying before. But now I have 6GB of data usage per month. Before I was paying the same price without any data. I have an iPhone 3G, so it was quite stupid not having a data plan. The $57.50 special retention plan with 6GB data is quite popular among Fido deal hunters on RedFlagDeals. I am very happy with this offer since I also got the new iPhone 3GS almost for free with my Fido Dollars. The only cons for this is I had to renew my contract and lock myself with Fido again for 3 more years.
Here is the trick. You don’t simply just call customer service and say your monthly bill is very high. They will try to convince you that it’s worth it. So the only way to do this is to make them think that you will break the contract and go with another company.
Regular customer service reps cannot offer you retention plans, only the retention program staff can. So you will need to tell your story atleast a few times. The shortcut to get to the retention program staff without saying a lot is to tell the regular cs rep that someone offered you a special $57.50 plan (or just make up a price) when you called earlier trying to cancel and you are calling back to confirm a few things. The rep will immediately transfer you to the retention program because he or she doesn’t want to deal with stuff like that. Once transfered, tell them the same thing. The retention staff may ask you why you wanted to cancel in the beginning. Tell them another company is having a promotion and you want to switch to save money in the long-run. They will most likely offer you a retention plan that is a good deal. Don’t accept it immediately, hesitate a little and pretent you are thinking. Lastly, accept the offer and start enjoying more minutes and features for less than what you paid before!
May 2012 Update: This method still works. With the amount of competition in Canada’s wireless market, giants like Rogers and Fido will do their best to cut you a deal in order to keep you.
While Wind Mobile and Mobilicity are offering unlimited plans without any long-term contract, you can mention their benefits when negotiating with Fido or Rogers. If you are good at it, you can get even crazier Fido deals or Rogers deals and get a top-of-the-line smart phone for free.
Rogers and Fido are still winners in terms of phone choices and reception, so try your best to get a deal from them with persistant calling and complaining.
What is your plan now? Do you have any success following the method posted above? Share it in the comments below!
