Comments on: Reducing your Virgin media bill without losing HD – Virgin Retentions

By: steptoe

steptoe — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 08:53:10 +0000

The wife has had enough of prices being increased, yet justifying the increase by claiming to offer better services like more HD channels. We don’t get any HD channels due to not having a HD box and refusing to pay yet more for this priveledge so still have an ancient 6 year old box that locks up on occasion and also frequent blocking and drop-outs on the signal due to HD taking more bandwidth off non-HD broadcasts. I can’t speak to ‘customer services’ about reducing the package as I am ‘only’ the 2nd account holder. I can increase the package but I am blocked from reducing it without the main account holder sat there and saying its OK to customer services for me to reduce the package. I can see everything being cancelled and losing everything as the wife has zero patience when ‘customer services’ tries to ‘help’ and keep customers without Virgin losing too much money as she does not have the patience or time to waste being on hold for 15-20 minutes with constant sales pitches and ‘offers’ when all we now want is nothing but broadband ONLY . At the end of the day we can get basically the same TV package (or the channels we watch) from FreeSAT which would pay for itself in 3 months with what we will save and have nothing to pay ever again, and as a plus get a host of HD channels where currently we get none at all, if we choose to eventually get FreeSAT which at the moment is not something considered essential

By: vxboimle

vxboimle — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 23:42:27 +0000

Ok ok ok, I work for Virgin Media retentions and all I can say to is that this post is not how it works. We arent incentivised to retain customers we dont get anything per customer staying, any incentives are run on an average, not per individual customer and tend to be on statistics such as hold and wrap up time than customers staying. Whether we can take £1 or £10 off your bill has no impact on us in terms of an incentive, we can only offer the packages that are available. Being on the phone for twenty minutes wont magically allow us to know extra money off your bill, but rearranging the package to suit you better sometimes will. Some people are on standard bundles and some are on mix and match and there are different offers for each combination. The person you speak to has no control over what is offered.
What I will say though is that the deals now are MUCH better for exsisting customers than they are for new customers as the discounts are continuous rather than lasting 3 months or so.
My best advise for customers calling for better deals is to be totally honest with why you are calling, if you ring and say ‘I need to make my bill as cheap as possible’ then thats what we’ll aim to do, if you arent honest, we cant help you quickly which appears to be what you want. Its also good to realise that if you do take a deal with a maximum discount then it will recontract you, the same as if you were a new customer with us or another company. It makes business sense to retain a customer in a 12 month contract if you are offering hefty discounts! Its as simple as that!

By: Jack

Jack — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:22:36 +0000

I’ve had not a lot of luck with Virgin, I’ve been a loyal customer of theirs for the last 10 years. After being on call with them, they did not offer me any incentives, saying that I was already on the best deal possible, and then went on a rant about their competitors! Quite unprofessional really!

As for race and being forwarded to a call centre in another country, I’ll have to agree with you. Yes, I understand that English might not be the primary language, and they are using a script, I do think it is frustrating when things do not go according to their script and they cannot provide you with an answer! It’s not a question of race, it’s about customer service!

By: gris

gris — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:45:23 +0000

“Reader wrote You’re a racist piece of shit.”

where on earth does racism come into this – can you read ?

and furthermore you’re Shittest

By: admin

admin — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 14:38:01 +0000

I have to agree actually. I find it very frustrating when speaking to overseas call centres as most agents are given pre written scenarios and a rarely able to actually help with much other than standard, bulk queries. Im not sure how stating the truth, that many overseas agents speak english as a second language, could be construed as racism. theres no pleasing all of the people all of the time I suppose. For the benefit of the user “Reader” I would like to point out that I speak several languages and have lived all over the world, including many years in countries within central Asia.

By: derby county fc

derby county fc — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:29:55 +0000

Why is the comment racist???? Why do people say its racist when it clearly isn’t, these kind of people actually promote racism!!

It is true that you get a person who’s first langague is not english when calling the customer service team, who have no leeway in reducing your bill, yet the team based in the UK can do so.

SO please stop the ridiculous racism comment, why does it always have to be about race??

By: Reader

Reader — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 16:52:01 +0000

You’re a racist piece of shit.I bet you can only converse in one language and very badly at that too. Furthermore, your advice is very unlikely to bear results.

By: Dean

Dean — Tue, 24 May 2011 12:49:24 +0000

Although true the article is slightly misleading.

Don’t expect a result 100% of the time. Also expect a long wait to get through.

Once through the retentions team will notmally offer you a deal but that is not always the case. 90% of the time they should offer you a reduction if you are polite enough about it.

On a positive the call centre is located in Teesside as you stated . (Nice UK call centre)

Source – I used to work for the retentions dept. in the Teesside call centre.

By: Kal Ross

Kal Ross — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 16:50:06 +0000

Virgin Media have no regard for existing customers.

Being out of contract, I’ve called many times to see if they wish to retain me with more packages or discounts and they just quote me stupid money, double or triple the deals for new customers. One department in the company knows nothing about what the other department is doing. They’ll send you an offer on a leaflet and when you ring up, they’ll know nothing about it.

I only have 20MB broadband and as it’s really no cheaper to not have the phone line, have that too. I’m paying them nearly £40/month and prices are going up.

I’ve just called to cancel my subscription and thought they might offer some goodies to keep hold of me, but alas…offered nothing…just patronised me and tried to discredit other companies!! 30 days notice (today is 18/2) and will be disconnected on 30/3…that’s 40+ days isn’t it…….one last elbow in the face from Vermin!

By: sam

sam — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 14:00:45 +0000

what i have read is very intersting but i have another little problem my bill is at a good price, but i dont want some of the channels.i have xl package but i dont want the music aswell as other things. can i remove channels individualy to save money? because i know with sky its alot easier to manage what channels you get. can you help?