Survey Finds Haggling and Switching Saves Money on Broadband
A new survey of 5,139 UK consumers who had their contract end on either their mobile, broadband and /or TV plans has examined the impact of switching to a different ISP vs haggling for a lower price with your existing provider. On average, TV and broadband users saved £162 a year by switching, while haggling saved an average of £90.
The study, which comes from consumer magazine Which?, clearly highlights that customers who haggled saved less on average, although those with some of the biggest providers often saved more by using this method (catch – Which?’s sample is too small to reflect the full market). For example, when looking purely at broadband (no TV, mobile etc. bundles), hagglers saved an average of just £43, but this rises to £77 on Virgin Media.
As for mobile customers, the survey found they saved an average of £95 by switching (e.g. £184 on EE and £150 on Vodafone), while those who chose to haggle with their current provider reported savings of £62 (e.g. £96 on Vodafone, £78 on Three UK and £70 on EE).
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Naturally, it’s no secret that a bit of haggling or switching could save you a lot of money, although very few people do this. If you’re happy with your current provider, then haggling is often the first thing to try. The survey noted that just 21% of broadband customers, 16% of TV and broadband customers and 24% of mobile customers opted neither to switch nor attempt to haggle at the end of their contract term.
Average Savings – Haggling vs Switching
NOTE: The % figure below reflects the size of the discount returned (vs previous package prices) from haggling or switching.
Broadband Customers
Haggling: £43 (7%)
Switching: £92 (16%)TV & Broadband Customers
Haggling: £90 (6%)
Switching: £162 (13%)Mobile Customers
Haggling: £62 (5%)
Switching: £95 (13%)
Which? also summarised how much people saved by each provider when haggling, which only covers the market’s largest players.
Average Savings by Provider from Haggling
Broadband
BT £43
Sky Broadband £54
TalkTalk £31
Virgin Media £77AVERAGE: £43
TV & Broadband
BT £123
Sky Broadband and Sky TV £102
TalkTalk £48
Virgin Media £81AVERAGE: £90
Mobile
EE £70
O2 £62
Three UK £78
Vodafone £96AVERAGE: £62
At this point it’s important to highlight that haggling is more likely to work with providers, particularly the biggest operators (with dedicated retentions departments), where discounting is a routine practice for attracting new customers. But a lot of smaller providers don’t traditionally offer big discounts to new customers and their prices may be more stable, thus haggling is less likely to return a positive result. Nevertheless, it’s always worth a try, and the worst thing they can do is simply say “no“.
All of this is particularly relevant as we approach the annual price hikes season, where all the largest players tend to hike their prices and often above the already surging level of national inflation.
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Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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That’s what I do with VM (everytime my contract is about to end)
it’s really tiresome though. 45 mins talking to someone to get them to change your contract. I also spent an hour on the phone to them in December trying to quit. They actually wouldn’t do what I asked and terminate they kept saying oooh but Netomnia can’t guarantee their speed we can and blah blah blah and what about this deal and that deal etc. I said no, I quit and they wouldn’t let me! so I guess I’m complaining to Ofcom.
haha Literally!
VM can’t guarantee their service even works if the customer forums are to be believed.
Talk about Threatened by an Alt net’s presence!! (VM not you)
Is there a guide to best haggle with ISPs? i.e do you just phone up and say “I want to speak to the retentions team” and then say to them “what is the best deal you can offer me to renew” or do you pretend you are fully intent on leaving them just for them on their own pass you through to retentions to start offering you deals to stay?
I do both I called speak to retention then if they don’t offer what I consider good I switch if they then call me with a better deal then the new customer one the provider I am switching to I call the new provider and tell them then see if they offer better if not I cancel the switch and stay
Interesting thing with BT is that retentions have minimum prices that they cannot go below. However, if you have a justified complaint, the complaints’ team can undercut their retentions’ colleagues.
Why wouldn’t I switch when greedy BT can just infinitely keep raising my costs while providing an inferior service
Switching helps competition keeping prices low
Inferior service, in what way? To be honest, most providers using the open reach network are not much different to any others these days. Gone are the days of traffic management, for the most part. The main difference is customer service. I don’t like Talk Talk because I don’t like the way the computer behaved in the past, but I am the first to admit that people I know with Talk Talk have no problem with the service for the most part, it is when it goes wrong that the problem starts. That is why i say get the cheapest you can get if they are offering like for like
and here’s me who’s just migrated to BT for their Fiber900.
They got my address fixed on the OR db, they chased OR for the delays I was experiencing in install, they gave me the best price, they gave me almost daily updates.
Even if they weren’t the cheapest I’d probably still go with them due to the service they provided.
My contract is due to end soon, but I’ll be waiting till the RPI increases are announced before haggling / switching! No point doing it now only to see it go up in April!
Yep, that is what I am doing, my contract ends in June and the prices rise in March, saying that I think I will wait until June as i may changeproviders.
How long before your contract is set to expire can you negotiate a new one? Or do you do it after it has expired?
Up to you,I have 6 months left and plusnet is already offering me a new contract slightly cheaper when I log into my account, as it comes closer to the end of the contract they will start sending me emails i expect. Last time i stayed out of contract for a couple of months, not doing that this time as the out of contract price is twice as much as I am paying now.
If this is correct, (which from experience tells me, it is) One wonders how Ofcom’s forthcoming ‘One Touch Switch’ will actually benefit customers.
I’ve always switched, often on the day of contract ending. Saved me a lot of money (often BT > EE > plusnet taking the signing bonus from BT each time. Thanks BT.). This time however I have 2 altnets (giganet and trooli) installing so desperately waiting on a 6 months out of contract Vodafone FTTC for the installs to complete. Both are now 6 months behind schedule (It was supposed to be a 6 month roll out!). By the time I can actually sign up I’ll have probably been able to take a new 18 month contract and saved close to a £100… Such is life.
Survey finds water is wet….