Where I live the competition for cable services is fierce: I’m routinely getting (junk) mail from AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Cox, and occasionally Dish extolling a slightly different mix of their same old products with a slightly different sales pitch. With almost Pavlovian reflexiveness, those mailings go into the trash unopened…until I received one from Comcast with Spanish written on the envelope and containing Spanish-language flier pitching their “XFINITY TV MultiLatino Plus and XFINITY Internet Performance” bundle at a “Great Low price“.
Mind you, this flier still joined it’s brethren the trash, but not before I read the back – conveniently, in English – and noticed the “fine print” at the bottom:
(Too fine? Click to enlarge!)
Seems the longer you keep this “awesome” XFINITY bundle the pricier it becomes*.
- 1-6 months: $49.95 / month
- 7-12 months: $69.95 / month (a 40% increase)
- Over 12 months: $29.95 (TV) + $51.95 (Web) = $81.90 /month (a further 17% increase)
So, your being a loyal customer for more than a year will cost you 63% more then when you had no loyalty to Comcast at all. I’m no marketing genius, but I always thought companies retained customers by rewarding them for continued business, giving them more for less, or tossing out some occasional swag.
No wonder competition is fierce…or, when it comes to the cable industry, maybe not.
*and, that doesn’t include “installation charges up to $500″, plus the usual monthly “franchise fees, Regulatory Recovery fee and other applicable charges”. No wonder the “fine print” is small!
Thanks for reading!
