I was right in the middle of writing my Favorite Things of 2011 post, but this seems more important at the moment. Mostly because I’ve been promising it for ages, and I just had to deal with Comcast today.
So here’s the thing: your Comcast bill should never really go up, ever, from the time you move into a new place onward. As a note, when you change addresses, you’re essentially a new customer, even if you have Comcast already, meaning that you’re eligible for all sorts of nice promotions (like the ones you probably regularly get promotional mail about, or the ones on the front page of Comcast.com). Anyhow, want to lower your current bill? Try this:
1) Don’t call. Don’t e-mail. DO use the Customer Service Live Chat, where you chat online with a support analyst. Always and exclusively. Go to Account & Bill -> General Billing Questions -> Chat With Live Agent. The conversation will be more in your court where you can control the tone and flow, you can take your time with answers and have a plan of attack, and if it’s not going how you want it to you can simply try again with a new analyst. It might take a couple of chats, but you stand a very good chance of getting what you want (sometimes better). And the online reps have access to different promotions than the phone reps do. (As a note, you may be transferred to a sales analyst at some point in the chat, which is totally fine – they are often even more helpful and can dig up different deals too.)
2) Be unflaggingly polite. These are people you’re talking to, and it’s much nicer to get things off on a positive foot (rather than the antagonistic phone calls you may be used to). As soon as the analyst enters the room and you get their name, say “Hello _____, how are you?” When they ask if you can give them a few minutes to look up your account info, say “Sure, thanks for the help.” Etc. Feel free to be honest when you’re frustrated, but conversely be sure to thank them whenever it’s appropriate.
3) Start by telling them that you’re having trouble affording your current bill, and that you’d like to know if there are any local promotions that you may be eligible for to help you lower it. That part is key, since they can differ drastically depending on where you are, and for whatever reason that seems to get the reps to poke around in corners that they otherwise may not. While they’re looking into it, feel free to add that you (if you’re like me) regularly receive mail from them advertising lower rates, but are frustrated that as a current customer you’re not offered the same courtesy (since the advertised prices are almost always for new customers only). If the conversation calls for it I’ll throw in a “I’d really like to resolve this so that I can remain a customer.” Do your best to state your case and tell them where you stand before/while they’re looking for new promotions for you, because if they say they can’t find any they often won’t go back on their word.
As far as rough prices (at least for me in the Bay Area for the last ~five years), you absolutely shouldn’t be paying more than $29.99/month for Performance Internet (you can sometimes get the faster Blast! boost added on for nothing), and $39.99/month for Digital Preferred cable. And you can often go cheaper than that depending on what’s available ($19.99/internet $29.99/cable should be the goal). You can usually get a free 6-12 months of HBO too, or at worst $9.99/month extra for it (which I personally find to be worth it). While you can often get the HD-DVR box fee waived for a while after installation, it’s tough to avoid the $15.95/month after a point. So that included, you should be at a base price of about $85/month before taxes for the full setup of Performance Internet, Digital Preferred Cable + HBO, and HD-DVR rental (and NO contract/commitment). Ideally you’ll be well below that (especially if you’re a new customer, willing to accept lesser packages, or a particularly savvy negotiator), but if you’re paying much more than that (like many people I’ve spoken to) you’re doing something wrong and really need to tend to it.
4) Be diligent. You’ll likely receive a few different promotions at once either for a year or six months, so be sure to check in on them every five months or so (or even four to get ahead of the billing cycle) since some will likely be expiring soon. If you suddenly notice that your latest bill is notably higher because a promotion expired, don’t fret – just follow the above steps and they should bring it back down and prorate the billing cycle that you’re in. But if you get two months behind before noticing, it’ll be trickier since they’ll make you pay the overdue first month before negotiating a new rate for the second one (which is what I had to suck up and do today). And if you miss out on dovetailing promotions into each other it can be harder to fight it back down quite as low.
I recommend paying your bill online manually every month instead of using AutoPay so that you’ll always notice if anything goes up, and can then contact them as needed to keep the bill where you want it. They want you as a customer, and as long as your rep isn’t incompetent and/or lazy they should be able to dig you up some better rates. At the very least it doesn’t hurt to ask, and I can almost guarantee that if you do the bare bones of what I’ve said here you’ll at least lower your bill a bit.
Good luck, and please let me know how it goes.
Don’t you love when they screw up your bill but you still have to pay it on full and wait for a credit on next month’s bill?
Threatening to leave (Politely) usually works. When i moved from Comcast to Verizon, the comcast representative basically said “what can we do to keep you a customer?”
Skadave, I use that excuse every couple of months with the Comcast live chat people. Sadly, I don’t ever get very far.
Today I chatted with one person who just did the usual “I’m sorry, we have restricted access here.” nonsense and then I logged right back on again and had the person say “Would you like me to apply a $20/month discount for 6 months?”!
The only difference (I was nice, etc to both) was that on the second chat I came right out and said “Hey, I saw THIS offer offer online. Can you offer me anything like this to lower my bill?”
You are spot on, Nick. I’ve done this renegotiation process a couple of times a year over the past several years with Comcast in NJ, and it always results in maintaining an $80-$100 monthly rate for the boosted Internet + DVR TV service + HBO. I hope this post is read by other subscribers so they can similarly benefit.
Thanks, Nick. This worked like a charm for me. I was able to save $15 for the next 6 months and get faster internet. I set a reminder to do it all again before it runs out.