Steven Rosson

This installment of my “Save Money” series will cover discounts on TV service. This particular discount is my favorite because it is by far the easiest to achieve: every client I’ve helped has been able to save money this way.

Unless you’ve been living in a television-free cave for the past ten years, you’re probably aware of the bitter rivalry among the various cable and satellite providers: in my area these include Time Warner, DirecTV, and Dish Network. They absolutely hate losing customers to one another and will go to great lengths to prevent this from happening. You – the savvy consumer – can use this to your advantage.

Regardless of your current level of service, know the end result you want to achieve. In most cases, it is realistic to shoot for something around a $20 discount off your monthly bill. With about ten minutes of research and ten more minutes on the phone, you can make this a reality.

Start by conducting some research into the introductory plans of your provider’s competition. If you have digital cable, find out what the cheapest satellite options are. If you are on satellite, find the least expensive cable package. Also check your provider’s website and find out what promotional rates they are offering for new customers. No matter what you’re paying now, you’ll be able to find a cheaper rate somewhere (even if it’s not for something you’d want).

Armed with this information, call your provider’s customer service department. Take the quickest possible route to get a human on the phone and inform them that you would like to cancel your service. They will eventually transfer you to someone in their retention department, which is just what we need: an army of people who specialize in making angry people happy.

When they ask what the problem is, politely tell them that you enjoy the service but are looking to be more frugal and realized that you could save a substantial amount per month by switching to [insert competitor here].

They’ll spend a minute looking over your account and then make you an offer: in my case it was $20/month off my Time Warner Cable bill. If they try to offer you free stuff instead of a discount, politely thank them but say you are looking to save money, not add new services. At this point they should tell you something you want to hear.

The key to making this work is not sounding like you are calling for a discount: when they believe you are looking to cancel your service, the discount will come naturally.

Though highly improbable, if at any time the customer service representative sounds ready to process your cancellation request, just tell them that you’re having second thoughts and will call back after looking at some other plans. If the retention representative is doing their job right it should never come to this, but if it does, just call back and take it from the top with someone else.

Give it a shot and let me know how it turns out. Next week I’ll cover discounts on home and cellular phone service.

For more information about how you can save money for your home or business, contact me for a free consultation.

As an IT consultant, one of the most frequent problems I solve for my home and small business clients is cost containment. They may call it different things and work with very different amounts, but in the end, everyone wants to know the same thing: how they can save money.

My response is pretty standard: I tell people that they can save around 10-20% on their monthly bills with a little research and a few phone calls. The number tends to run closer to 10% for businesses and 20% for private individuals, but in every case I’ve worked with, results have fallen somewhere within that range.

Methods vary for each category of expense, but the primary one I address (since I am most familiar with it) is the cost of technology. This includes television, land lines, internet, cellular service, and business computing. Each of these tends to have standard monthly charges, readily available customer service, and easy benchmarks to compare with one another.

In a few upcoming posts I will detail methods for obtaining discounts on each of these services. The methods are relatively simple, require a minimal amount of effort, and can amount to serious savings. I currently have a 20% discount on my Time Warner TV/internet bill and 23% off my Sprint bill: these are easy to implement and can add up to big savings: in my case over $40/month. For some of my clients who have land-lines and other household services, savings have been as high as $80-120/month.

The first installment, which I will publish next week, will cover discounts on TV services from Time Warner Cable, DirecTV, and DISH Network. Stay tuned!