Are Sky no longer offering 'good' deals to existing customers?

[centenary137]

Are Sky no longer offering deals to existing customers who contact them to say their subscriptions are too high and will migrate to another provider like Virgin Media or cancel altogether?

Seen a couple of You Tube videos recently that suggest Sky were not bothered if people threatened to cancel because Sky would not offer a substantially better deal. One vid, the person said they were sky Premium VIPs, had the whole package for Sky tv and broadband which had become 'expensive.'

On phoning Sky to discuss cheaper terms, the offshore retentions team were disinterested and only offered to reduce costs by £9. Considering this inadequate, the customer said to cancel the whole Sky service. Retentions said 'OK' and processed the cancellation of services to take effect in 30 days!

At no point in that period did Sky contact the exiting customer and offer improved terms. They are now VM customers paying substantially less (their words).

In the past, Sky would have offered a decent reduction in monthly costs to existing customers seeking one. Also, from what Ive read and heard, Sky would always call back a customer who had decided to cancel and offer a good deal.

Are Sky now not bothered about people actually ditching them for cheaper alternatives and no longer offerring good deals to existing customers seeking one?

[Mark39]

@centenary137 it appears from posts over recent months that Sky no longer offer the significant discounts they used to, for,customers renewing their contract. I don't think they particularly want to lose customers, but rsther are more focused on making every account profitable.

[TimmyBGood]

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@centenary137 wrote:

In the past, Sky would have offered a decent reduction in monthly costs to existing customers seeking one. Also, from what Ive read and heard, Sky would always call back a customer who had decided to cancel and offer a good deal.

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'In the past' (i.e. before September 2018) Sky Group was an independent European company rather than an overseas division of an American media giant which seriously overpaid for it by getting into a bidding war with Disney.

Corporate acquisitions do tend to result in previous business practices being reassessed.

[centenary137]

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@TimmyBGood wrote:

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@centenary137 wrote:

In the past, Sky would have offered a decent reduction in monthly costs to existing customers seeking one. Also, from what Ive read and heard, Sky would always call back a customer who had decided to cancel and offer a good deal.

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In the past (before late 2018) Sky Group was an independent company rather than an overseas division of an American media company which seriously overpaid for it.

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You could negotiate a reduction in costs very easily beyond that date. I last did it in 2024.

[TimmyBGood]

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@centenary137 wrote:

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You could negotiate a reduction in costs very easily beyond that date. I last did it in 2024.

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Quite possibly, but that doesn't necessarily mean the suits at the top of that skyscraper in Philadelphia were happy about it: they've got rid of half of Sky Group since then.

https://www.skygroup.sky/en-gb/article/rtl-group-to-acquire-sky-deutschland 

[centenary137]

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@TimmyBGood wrote:

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@centenary137 wrote:

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You could negotiate a reduction in costs very easily beyond that date. I last did it in 2024.

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Quite possibly, but that doesn't necessarily mean the suits at the top of that skyscraper in Philadelphia were happy about it: they've got rid of half of Sky Group since then.

https://www.skygroup.sky/en-gb/article/rtl-group-to-acquire-sky-deutschland 

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Well it took them 6 years, 2018 to 2024 and likely beyond for them to make that decision, if they have.

And with VM aggressively rolling out hyperspeed fibre (1G) to the property with streaming service in tow that offers complete sky channels plus others, they're going to lose more customers if they think people are going to pay £100 a month just for streaming tv services!

I currently pay almost £120 and will be seeking a decent reduction especially as 'new customers' seem to be offered good deals. If not, I'll look to bolt on tv packages to my existing VM fibre package.

[TimmyBGood]

@centenary137 

Any of us outside senior Sky management can only guess about what their business strategy might currently be: as @Mark39 said, it appears from forum posts that 'discounts' are harder to obtain, but perhaps that's skewed as forums usually are.

I've remarked elsewhere that the original strategy for Glass/Stream (which is a Comcast platform) back in 2021 appears to have been to have an actual price rather than an arbitrary figure as the starting point for negotiation: this didn't last very long.

[centenary137]

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@TimmyBGood wrote:

@centenary137 

Any of us outside senior Sky management can only guess about what their business strategy might currently be: as @Mark39 said, it appears from forum posts that 'discounts' are harder to obtain, but perhaps that's skewed as forums usually are.

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Quite. Hence my query are discounts harder to get?

[TimmyBGood]

@centenary137 

I'd suggest anyone who knows wouldn't be allowed to say.

[Me134]

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@centenary137 wrote:

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@TimmyBGood wrote:

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@centenary137 wrote:

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You could negotiate a reduction in costs very easily beyond that date. I last did it in 2024.

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Quite possibly, but that doesn't necessarily mean the suits at the top of that skyscraper in Philadelphia were happy about it: they've got rid of half of Sky Group since then.

https://www.skygroup.sky/en-gb/article/rtl-group-to-acquire-sky-deutschland 

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Well it took them 6 years, 2018 to 2024 and likely beyond for them to make that decision, if they have.

And with VM aggressively rolling out hyperspeed fibre (1G) to the property with streaming service in tow that offers complete sky channels plus others, they're going to lose more customers if they think people are going to pay £100 a month just for streaming tv services!

I currently pay almost £120 and will be seeking a decent reduction especially as 'new customers' seem to be offered good deals. If not, I'll look to bolt on tv packages to my existing VM fibre package.

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I renegotiated my basic TV package (Q with Netflix and HD, no multi-room, footy or cinema) when the April price rise hit and got it reduced by £10 so it's definitely feasible. As ever, it depends on who you speak to, also the more services you have, the more options they can offer.

Virgin are exactly the same at the end of minimum term, and as long as you're not wedded into one particular platform, just switch every 18/24 months. It's the same usually for any service. I'm just switching back to Sky BB today after leaving for VM 18 months back when Sky wouldn't budge on the price increase mid contract.

[MarkGoldsmith]

I don't think discounts are necessarily harder to get, but what may be trickier is the size of the potential discount you can get. Realistically you may only be able to get a couple of pounds discount per pack/service you subscribe to. 

What is certainly harder is being able to negotiate renewal offers that are anywhere near new customer deals.

[Daniel0210]

@centenary137 

The phrase I use in replies to renewal price questions is 'significant discounts are harder to get.

[centenary137]

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@Me134 wrote:

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@centenary137 wrote:

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@TimmyBGood wrote:

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@centenary137 wrote:

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You could negotiate a reduction in costs very easily beyond that date. I last did it in 2024.

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Quite possibly, but that doesn't necessarily mean the suits at the top of that skyscraper in Philadelphia were happy about it: they've got rid of half of Sky Group since then.

https://www.skygroup.sky/en-gb/article/rtl-group-to-acquire-sky-deutschland 

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Well it took them 6 years, 2018 to 2024 and likely beyond for them to make that decision, if they have.

And with VM aggressively rolling out hyperspeed fibre (1G) to the property with streaming service in tow that offers complete sky channels plus others, they're going to lose more customers if they think people are going to pay £100 a month just for streaming tv services!

I currently pay almost £120 and will be seeking a decent reduction especially as 'new customers' seem to be offered good deals. If not, I'll look to bolt on tv packages to my existing VM fibre package.

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I renegotiated my basic TV package (Q with Netflix and HD, no multi-room, footy or cinema) when the April price rise hit and got it reduced by £10 so it's definitely feasible. As ever, it depends on who you speak to, also the more services you have, the more options they can offer.

Virgin are exactly the same at the end of minimum term, and as long as you're not wedded into one particular platform, just switch every 18/24 months. It's the same usually for any service. I'm just switching back to Sky BB today after leaving for VM 18 months back when Sky wouldn't budge on the price increase mid contract.

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I mean a £10 discount on a £100+ package is hardly a worthwhile discount imho. 

6 months ago VM were repeatedly sending me fibre broadband renewal offers despite not even being mid contract. I phoned them to ask why they kept sending me the emails as Id already renewed? They said they had offers on all the time and gave me an example of upgrading my fibre to a faster speed at a lower cost than I was then paying! I thought they'd made a mistake and said so. Nope, more speed and cheaper price so naturally I said crack on.

It is a well established fact that getting 'new' customers is a more expensive and harder task than retaining existing ones. Letting existing customers migrate their services even if they return in 2 years, affects the company bottom line far more than being intransigent on deals. Also, what happened to the 'new customers only' prices while existing pay full price, doesnt that fall foul of consumer protection? 

[Chrisee]

@centenary137 there are no general consumer laws around pricing and certainly no right to discounts.  What restrictions there are are set by the relevant industry regulator in the case Ofcom who do not out law the practice of offering intial discounts to new customers. Your best negotiation tactic is to have an offer from a competitor and ask Sky to match or beat it. Sky purposly make this difficult as they are in business to make money.

in practice their agents have certain offers they can make but are incentivised to offer the least discount they can. It used to be that threatening to leave got you put through to the retention team who had wider abilitty to strike deals. This seems to no longer be the case and I have seen reports where customers have cancelled expecting a better deal to be offered and been disapointed. 

Hopefully you will do better but if Virgin are offering better deals what is stopping you switching? 

[centenary137]

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@Chrisee wrote:Hopefully you will do better but if Virgin are offering better deals what is stopping you switching? 

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Nothing is stopping me switching and I dont know at this point what better deals VM are offering on their tv packages.

With respect, if you'd followed from my OP, you'd be aware of the circumstances of asking the initial question whether getting the discounts one has negotiated in the past with Sky are still possible.

The concensus suggests they are not although a lesser one might be. Dont ask, you dont know. 

As subsequent posters have commented, my responses have developed to highlight VM as an example of offering cheaper prices on fibre while in contract and without any convoluted negotiations.

I will be contacting Sky when time permits to see how the land lies even though Ive been with them clocking on 30 years. If their offer doesnt meet my expectations then yes, I'll be contacting VM to ask what are they going to offer to make me migrate my tv provider to them. At this point VM are not my tv provider and therefore secondary to the subject of Sky discounts.