Survey Warns Loyalty to UK Broadband and Phone Providers is Costly

A new survey of 2,000 UK people, which was conducted by consumer magazine Which?, has warned that those who stay loyal to a particular phone, broadband ISP, mobile, energy or TV provider are being “ripped off” by up to £725 a year because they don’t benefit from the same savings as new users.

The £725 figure mentioned above appears to be across all services and is based on the median savings of 1,169 people in their survey who haggled in the past 12 months. The savings after haggling break down to £316 for energy providers, £216 for broadband and TV or £120 for standalone broadband, £72 for mobile, £50 for car insurance, £40 for home insurance and £35 for car breakdown cover.

Overall Which? found that 42% of respondents had not haggled with any service provider over the past 12 months, which is despite the fact that 86% of broadband and pay TV customers who asked for a better deal were offered a discount or incentive (77% for Mobile).

Alex Neill, MD of Which? Home and Product Services, said:

“People who stay with the same energy, telecoms or insurance company year after year rarely get the best deal.

Customers paying the price for loyalty should ask their providers to reward them, or be prepared to lose them.”

We should point out that not all service providers are the same. Some adopt fairly standard pricing and avoid discounts, which means that haggling won’t get you very far because both new and existing customers will already be paying the same price. However most consumers tend to use larger providers, were first year style discounting is much more common and this can result in a wide cost difference between new and old subscribers.

Similarly the pursuit of the cheapest deal on a linear service like Gas, Electricity or Water is rather different to paying less for broadband, where the cheapest providers often tend to fair worse in ratings of service and support quality. In that sense a race to the bottom on broadband price is something that requires more consideration, lest your pursuit of a cheaper service results in the adoption of steaming poop.

However we do agree with Which? that there’s really no harm in haggling and it doesn’t have to be stressful. After all, what do you have to lose? The worse that could happen is that your provider refuses to offer a discount and at least then you have some certainty about their position and that may help your future decision about whether or not to switch.

We wrote a useful guide on all this earlier in 2017 (Retentions – Tips for Cutting Your Broadband Bill Without Switching ISP).