In October, I received an email from Rogers offering me a significantly better price on my existing home phone service. Being the procrastinative sort of person that I am, I didn't get around to switching to the new package until December. It was a good decision and I came away feeling like I won (which I never do when dealing with telecommunications.)
Yesterday, I got a letter from Rogers saying that the price of my phone package was increasing by $3. My first visceral reaction was "Dude, WTF????" I haven't even had a full billing period on my new phone package yet! I felt completely baited and switched!
And to make matters worse (for Rogers), in that same day's mail there was also an offer from Bell where the big bold number at the top of the page was now marginally lower than the new price with Rogers.
Of course, having been a consumer of telecommunications for several years, I had the sense to step back from my initial visceral feeling of being cheated to run some numbers and read some fine print. And it turned out that I'm still marginally saving money with Rogers and the fine print of Bell's offer pushes its price marginally higher than Rogers'.
But I have to wonder, what kind of a business decision was that on Rogers' part? If they had just made the home phone offer $3 higher in the first place, I would have come away feeling like I've won. Why even introduce this opportunity for customers to feel baited and switched?
2 comments:
Sounds like a brilliant business strategy... jeez.
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