Two years ago I did a contract with a telco. For 30€ I got a flatrate for both wired telephony and a 2mbit DSL line. The contract included a duration of at least 24 months, which prolongs automatically for 12 further months if none of the partners cancelled it three months before the renewal.
I was very pleased with the service. The internet connection almost never was down (I remember only two evenings), the ISDN telephony worked very well and the hardware I got just did its job.
During those two years, the market has moved a lot, and new customers get six mbit lines for the 30 bucks. So six months before the renewal I asked them if they are willing to switch the line to a 6 mbit line instead of the 2, while keeping the rest of the conditions. Of course they wanted to, but only if I agree in a new 24 month duration of the contract.
I was not keen on switching the provider, so I asked them anew some weeks later, but the sales people insisted in their standard products. I wondered as usually the costs to keep a customer are far less than acquiring a new one.
So I finally felt that they are a bit too arrogant and chose another provider, where the duration of the contract is about 4 weeks and I got a (nominal) 16 mbit and telephony flatrate for 30€.
Of course the previous provider bothered me. A famous german computer mag had an article about what can go wrong when you switch the provider and came to the conclusion that it was not that bad to stay with the one you already have a contract with. They sent me a special print of exactly this article, in the hope to spread enough FUD that I rethought my decision. Then they called me and offered to reduce the monthly costs for the existing contract by about 4€. But I asked for a contemporary bandwith, just the one new customers get. I did not ask for saving some bucks.
So finally another telco grabbed my chord today, and even managed to port my telephone number. The line was a bit instable first, so I called their support stuff. After skipping their first level support (»Which operating system are you running?« – »Well, I can offer either Mac OS X or Linux.«), a nice guy checked the line and confirmed that there’s a problem. He did some tweaking and the line now appears to be much more usable. It seems I got a fair deal.
Most german telcos nowadays try to get you into a 2 year contract (and they hide this fact as good as possible in their offerings). The one I have chosen now got me as a customer as it provides 4 week contracts, besides its 2 year contracts (at a reduced monthly fee for the first six months). It’s not that I want to switch the telco every now and then (it always causes trouble!), but I had a choice.
If the former provider offered a 6 mbit line and a 1 year (or even less) contract, I guess I was his customer for the next five years. But if you are too greedy, people might feel disadvantaged and have been your customer for the longest time.
