Comcast, Comcast, Comcast....

Comcast's three premium services for $99.00 rate ended a few months back. I cut back to just slower internet and basic phone for a few months to get to about $70 dollars a month from the $140 or so they were trying to charge me.

Then Verizon came along with FIOS in my area. They offered the all important three services for $99.00 price point including high definition and a free multi-room DVR for a year. So, off I go to Verizon to give them a shot a for a year. After a year I'll cut back whatever I need to (TV is the least important, phone I can get cheaper from a 3rd party) to keep my bill down in the $70-$100 range.

These companies haven't made the switch particularly easy. Verizon didn't get that I was coming over from a competitor. I don't think they have the whole competition thing down yet. They had to recreate my order through a different department, the "win back" desk. Even the name "win back" implies all the customers were once theirs and will be again.

Once they contacted Comcast and we went through the neutral 3rd party to say "yes I really do want to change my number" Comcast decided they would take the full 10 business days they are allowed to take to move the number. This has to be a less than one minute process for them. I set my Comcast number to forward calls until the cut off date. I am still wondering if they will charge me until they stopped forwarding my calls today.

For Comcast's last delightful trick, they stopped forwarding my calls not on the Monday cutoff date, but on the Sunday before. Sunday when Verizon has no one available in the order department who needs to handle the task of turning on the number for their service. Note to Verizon, if Comcast is going to cut people off on Sunday, maybe you should have someone in the office who can actually turn them back on Sunday.

Now, Comcast may think they are making Verizon look bad making me want to leave when my contract is up. But what they are doing is making it hard to switch. And if I remember it is hard to switch, I'm going to stay where I am. Right now, I'm with Verizon.

So, the marketing lesson for service providers is: When people must leave you, try to leave as good a taste in their mouth about you _and_ about changing providers. Because you want them to change providers at least one more time.

Antoher marketing lesson, one year deals are risky. If it takes a good one year deal to get someone to go with you, chances are they value your service at about that one year price. If you try to jack them up very much, they are going to cut services to get to that one year price or leave you. At least they will if they are paying attention. I guess Comcast and Verizon can tell us if enough people aren't paying attention to make jacking the price up at the end of one year worthwhile business. At minimum, one year deals gives you a lot of "at risk" customers after one year. Companies should have a strategy for retaining those at risk customers.