I recently (about a fortnight ago) contacted Vodafone on the expiry of two of my contracts with them to see what, if anything, they might be prepared to offer me by way of an inducement / incentive to stay with them.
Their proposal to to try retain my custom (two contract phones & three pay as you go phones) was as follows:
To reduce the allowance on both contract handsets of 600 free minutes by 50% to 300 minutes and reduce the existing line rental per handset from £12.50 (inc VAT) to £10.00 (inc VAT).
It became clear what was at play when he suggested that I downgrade the family pack from the group of six (there are five in my immediate family) to the group of four (yes, you read that right) for £5.00 (inc VAT) – it had obviously escaped the chaps notice whilst "reviewing" my account that I am currently getting the group of six for no cost at all.
Effectively, in real / monetary terms, he was “offering” to halve our existing free minutes allowance and knock one of our family off the free calls package in an attempt to retain our custom.
Working on the assumption that the chap with whom I had spoken originally had perhaps had a drug dependancy or been under the influence of some type of hallucinogenic narcotics at the time when I spoke to him by way of a follow up I contacted their cancellations dept yesterday (May 5th) to see if they had taken note of my concerns raised in relation to this practice.
I was amazed that the chap with whom I spoke was able to make an even more intelligence insulting "offer".
His offer was two "FREE" Nokia X6 handsets (one for each expired contract) with a revised price plan.
Currently the price plan for each contract hand set was as above (£12.50 (inc VAT)). So, for £25.00 all in, I was getting 600 free minutes and unlimited texts on each handset and free calls between all five Vodafone numbers under the £7.00 Vodafone Family pack which I negotiated for free 18 months ago.
The Vodafone chap identified that this was "Not the most suitable price plan" as I was using roughly only 200 minutes and sending approximately 20 texts per handset per month and he was "Totally confident" he could "sort a better deal".
"Fair enough" I thought, he suggested that a
300 minute plan with unlimited texts would suit me better. The only issue was that he wanted me to pay £25.00 per month price plan per handset!
(I should point out that the free 500mb of mobile web & internet which is included in the offer on the £25.00 deal is of no additional value to me as I already have this on my current plan)
This is, of course, also
available to new customers with
no record of customer loyalty - as is the case with me stretching back over 10 years (seven with these numbers). To add insult to injury he also then suggested that I avail of the £7.00 family pack to be able to call between numbers for "Free" (since when did a £7.00. subscription constitute "free").
So, in effect, what he was proposing was a 50% reduction in the number of free calls and a jump of 100% in monthly price plan (per handset) and a single (additional) £7.00 monthly subscription for something I am already getting for free.
Lets do the maths on this over the 24 month plan as proposed:
24 x 7 = £168.00 (for something I'm getting for free)
24 x 25 = £600.00 (for half of the free minutes I currently get)
So the bottom line is that Vodafone think that I will be happy to forego 14400 free minutes per year ( that's 240 hours or 120 free hours of calls per phone) and pay them an extra £768.00 over that period in order to stay with them just because they use the phrase "Free handset".
You couldn't make it up.
I'm disgusted with their apparent ineptitude and the fact that they think that their customers might be gullible enough to fall for this type of clap trap.
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