Survey Claims Majority Who Haggle Get Better Broadband ISP Deal

A new survey of 1,000 UK broadband customers, which was conducted by consumer magazine Which?, has claimed that 87% of those who haggle with their ISP for a better deal were offered a discount or other incentive to stay with the provider rather than switch away, but apparently most people don’t try it.

The survey noted that the top reasons why people don’t try haggling with their broadband ISP is because 24% felt it would be too much hassle, while 18% aren’t confident enough to try it, a further 9% wouldn’t know how to do it and 6% felt it would just be too difficult. However if you’re happy with the service then it’s often worth trying to renegotiate the price before switching (see our Retention Tips guide).

Admittedly one catch here is that haggling only really works if you’re with one of the largest providers (e.g. BT, Virgin Media, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, EE, Plusnet, Vodafone etc.), where discounts for new customers tend to change on an almost weekly basis. Such providers are often setup to renegotiate and you lose nothing by merely asking. Meanwhile smaller ISPs tend not to play the discounting game and so haggling is less likely to work.