Well this is something you don’t see every day.
I received a letter this month from my cable and internet service provider Charter Communications. As I opened the letter I suspected it was notification of a rate increase or programming changes. But to my surprise, the letter informed me that Charter was providing a $17 discount off their standard service rates for another 12 months.
Last year, after more than 12 years of service with Charter, I called and price shopped them against satellite providers. Charter put me on a 12 month promotional rate which lowered my monthly bill considerably. This loyalty letter informed me that my 12 promotional rate had ended, but that they were providing another 12 months of discount.
I’ll say this about Charter Service.
I know many people are in a love/hate relationship with their communications providers. I’ve listened to a few of my friends talk about their dislike for Charter. But I’ve also heard other friends talk about bad experiences with Dish, DirecTV, and Comcast. The reason? A monthly communications bill is pricey, so people expect to have the service run flawlessly.
My experience over the years with Charter has been good. I’ve used them for television and internet services for over 12 years and have not had any major disruptions in service. I had an issue one year when I moved to a new house and converted to my own cable modem. It turned out the signal strength was too strong from a signal boost device I installed. The Charter technicians showed-up on time and attempted to solve the problem to the best of their abilities.
More recently a near-by lightning strike took out the DVR unit. Charter was onsite the next morning to replace the unit.
Loyalty discount feels nice.
It feels nice to look at my monthly invoice and see a line item for loyalty discount. I think it’s a great move from a company to reward customers for the longevity of their continuous service. This makes me not even want to investigate 12 month teaser rates from other providers. Maybe that’s a lesson for Charter or at least input into what feels like a marketing experiment to improve customer retention rates.
I wish my mobile phone provider would do something like this!