I got another friendly visit from a Spectrum salesperson. Wonderful. This time, when I got the inevitable question about how much I’m paying for what services, I got a response of, “Wow. You are paying WAYY too much!” Well, thanks. It’s always smart to suggest your potential customer is stupid. When I was asked how long I’ve had Frontier, I said since they arrived in the neighborhood. She replied, “Well, I guess you’re just really loyal.” Uh huh. Don’t think I didn’t detect only the tiniest pause before “loyal”, as if she wanted to say something else. Ok, then. Let’s play.
Obviously, I’m not going to change my service. I didn’t last time they came by and this time is no different. But this rep was motivated. Unfortunately, when you fail at establishing rapport and you just start to go off the rails, motivation can be a bad thing.
This time, I was prepared, because last time, I didn’t get the opportunity to explain that I wasn’t going to switch from a company that has been good to me for 15 years to a company I have no history with. I told her so. Her response was that Charter (Spectrum’s owner) had the highest customer satisfaction ratings. Let’s check that. According to BroadbandNow, yes, Charter has higher customer satisfaction than Frontier.
Next she made the claim that you can tell the strength of a company is through their stock price. Let’s check that, too. And yes, comparing the stock charts between the two is no contest. Frontier is sinking like a stone and Charter is shooting upward. So far, her information is accurate, even if I couldn’t verify it at the time. But then, things started to turn dark.
Along with the claim that Frontier is fading, she said that Frontier is trying to sell FIOS, because they’re losing money on it. Checking the news, this is true as well, although maybe overblown. I was told that Charter had the chance to buy Frontier but they turned it down. Why? They’re just going to wait for Frontier to go out of business, then they’ll take the customers for free. Then I was strangely lectured on the greatness of monopolies and how Charter had complete control over certain nearby towns. It sounded mildly threatening, and I made the comment, “well, I guess I’m just delaying the inevitable, aren’t I?”
I reiterated that I wasn’t interested in switching until I was given a reason to. Again, she went back to price. She brought up that new customers are getting the same thing I’m getting for $30/mo and I’m paying $75/mo. Well, yeah, it’s an introductory offer. I know about that. Obviously, a company can’t afford to always offer their service at that price.
And as we closed our conversation, I got one last threat. When Frontier goes out of business and Spectrum is the only service provider, there’s not going to be any special offers or introductory prices, because there won’t be any other options. Yes, that’s right. She did say that. I did get to fire back, “Well, that’s just what a good company would do” and we parted ways.
There’s no shortage of words spent on the evils of monopolies, but I have always imagined that the evil was concentrated at the top of the organization. I’ve never had the thought that the domination and control mindset extended right down into the culture of the company and reached the front lines where it became a threatening sales tactic.
Comments are closed.