There are plenty of tips on how to save money bur few can save you over £50 a month in just a couple of phone calls. To aid you with this I have put together a script on how you can negotiate with one of the biggest entertainment providers in the UK. Although this is based on my experience in the UK, there is nothing to say you can’t apply this strategy to your local provider.
Yes, one of the big financial quick wins you can make is negotiating your media bundle with Sky.com. Sometimes companies such as Sky will lure you in with a good deal for the first year of your contract. Following this period you will be charged full price for the same services.
Don’t Fall For The Default Behaviour
Sky leverages the fact that most people will go for the default option of paying 100% of this. This is a very simple behavioural economic strategy based around nudge theory. They rely on the fact that most people don’t like to or don’t know how to negotiate. It’s not easy to negotiate and many people (including me) feel like it’s confrontational. However, this strategy will guide you away from feeling like this. H
Before you read the below, remember everything is repairable and reversible. Also, don’t give in until you get within 5% to 10% of the price you are looking for. Remember you can also get your broadband thrown in with this price, if not you can follow the same process and negotiate it separately.
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Level 1: Call Up Customer Services And Try To Negotiate A Price
This is the easiest first step, but one of the most important. As it will get you into the mentality of talking to the operators and making a request and being offered a discount. However, at this stage don’t be tempted to accept anything they offer you.
It doesn’t matter what they say in terms of how rigid the pricing is, there will be a lot more price elasticity. They might say things along the lines of “do you use movies or sports, if we get rid of that I can offer you a price of £25 a month”. They will try and trim your package to get it within your budget.
Remain resistant against their offer and let them do most of the talking. Simply insist that you “would like to keep your current package, and you don’t understand why the price has increased by so much, can they do anything more to reduce the price”.
Level 2: The I’ve Had A Chat With My Manager Stage
At this point, the agent will ask to put you on hold so that they can speak to their manager. At which point, you may be offered “a promotion for loyal customers of 10% discount”.
Continue on your current trajectory and repeat the message that you would like to keep your current package but that you need it to fit your budget. Following the lack of movement from the conversation Request to cancel.
Level 3: The Customer Retention Stage
This is where it may get a little tempting to accept an offer. These guys have more power over pricing and promotions than the call centre operatives. They will try to retain you as a customer, and you might even get the price you want.
However, they also know that most customers won’t want to move past this stage. You are different, you will actually cancel if necessary.
Tell them “I’ve been a loyal customer and I want to remain at the price I’ve been paying, “I have a budget to stick to and I may have to look elsewhere if I cannot get it”. You might get offered: 25% or even 30% discount but we want more!
Stage 4. Terminate Your Contract
Now don’t stress out, maybe this will seem like a big deal to you, I mean who wants to have only Freeview right? However, you’ll have a cooling period so this is no big deal. Following this you will either get:
- Put through to some kind of customer reclaim department
- A call from some kind of customer reclaim department in the following days
- An offer through your TV in the customer details section of your Sky TV.
I’ve used both A and C to get my discounts of 50%+ and they’ve attempted B but that’s when I was moving abroad, so I wasn’t interested. However, these are the people you can negotiate with to get the price you need. Remain calm, polite, and work with them to haggle for a discount that you want.
Simple Negotiating Tips On How To Save Money
- Remain firm but polite and appear flexible.
- Don’t give away too much. Silence is your best friend, let them do the talking.
- They will most likely talk themselves into the trap of offering you what you want.
- Attempt to get as close to possible for your original price.
- Maybe even less if you want to try and get away with it, think anywhere near the 50-60% mark.
Remember if everything here fails, you can call up and re-negotiate. You can also accept a price and re-negotiate during a cooling-off period if you are worried about running out of time if your current deal is going to expire.
Bonus Tips On How To Save Money: Negotiating Your Broadband With Sky.
If you cannot bundle up your TV and broadband into one cost-effective deal, you follow a separate process of trying to negotiate the best possible price. Simply cancel broadband if Sky is your current provider.
The result of this is that they will put a hold on the line, making it physically impossible to switch to another provider. Try to switch to another provider and when it fails, you can call up to ask for it to be taken off.
This is the stage you can negotiate to the fullest extent because they realise how serious you are about switching and that you are confident you have found a better price/contract with another provider.
Tell them “I’ve just tried to switch to another provider but the line is blocked” please can you remove the cancellation.
This strategy allowed me to negotiate a month-to-month contract fibre broadband. When previously it wasn’t possible to do any less than 6 months and at a significantly cheaper price than was on offer on the website.
Final Thoughts On Saving Money & Negotiating
Negotiating is not something which comes naturally to many people. Therefore I hope this article has given you some support and structure on how to confidently negotiate. You can also rest assured that
I’ve had proven success with these tips on how to save money. Not only this but I can empathise with how you might feel approaching these negotiations. Let me know in the comments if you’ve had any similar successes or even if the above information works for you.
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