Loyalty does not pay when it comes to utility providers

A few phone calls could save you hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds. After our mortgage or rent payment, utilities I’ll probably one of our biggest expenses.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the companies which supply your gas electricity, mobile phones and broadband, it does not pay to stay loyal to them. Same applies to car, breakdown recovery and home insurance.

They say that it cost many times more to win the new customer than it does to look after and sell to existing customers. We all know this is the case so why do these providers take us for granted and offer us poor deals forcing us to take our business elsewhere? It just doesn’t make any business sense at all.

We hear terms like “loyalty” bonuses, but in reality, we get charged more for the same service than new customers. You also see this with mortgage providers and banks. They will offer a better rate to new customers than existing borrowers or make your savings account less competitive by dropping the rate.

I frequently change providers or ask for a better deal by calling them up to asking them for…you guessed it, a better deal! In most cases, they say yes! After all, they want to keep you as a customer, even if they go a funny way about showing it!

This simple technique has saved me tens of thousands of pounds over the years.

You know the old saying, “A penny saved is…a penny earned”. Actually, it is more when you take into account tax on your income.

Right now, I have an issue with Virgin Broadband, who supply broadband to several of my buy-to-let properties. When I first started, they were charging me less than £30 per month per property. Now it exceeds £40 per month when they are advertising broadband& a phone for £27 per month to new customers.

To make matters worse, I’m not even getting a good service! They don’t even acknowledge the fact that I’ve got several contracts with them. In fact, one of the reasons I have not changed sooner is that I can never get through to them on the phone. I’ve spent hours on endless automated answering systems - press one for this, press two for that and then out the other end without speaking to a person!

Come on Virgin, you can do better than this! Richard Branson, I challenge you to try getting through to your broadband service on the phone!

When I had a problem with the router they refused to change it until I went on Twitter! I wish they had many people monitoring the phones as they do watching complaints on Twitter!

You don’t always need to change providers to get a better deal. I was able to renegotiate the £40 per month saving on my RAC breakdown membership just by challenging them on offer in a much better deal to new customers When I had been with them for years.

You may be tied into a contract and unable to change, so you need to diarise key dates to make sure that you don’t miss out on the best deals or get stuck on an expensive tariff.

Electricity and gas companies are notorious for leaving you on an expensive tariff when you could change to a cheaper one just by making a phone call.

Action

Set a target today to review at least three of your utility supplier contracts. Here’s a list of typical providers:

Gas and electricity

Mobile phone/landline

Broadband

Home insurance

Car insurance

Breakdown cover

Okay, you may have to wait online for 20 minutes to get through to a human being, but the savings will be worth it.

Have fun saving money, and don’t forget to celebrate!