This is about Sunrise and Salt. I cancelled Swisscom like 8 years ago, so I don’t remember their contractual conditions.
The issue is a mobile plan with a base price (Grundgebühr) and a 50% discount for 12-24 months.
I have 2 phones (wife and mine) and home internet with Sunrise. I made the last contract 2 years ago, so the last invoice after the 24 month discount ended came a bit high.
I go to the Sunrise website, there are several options to change my abo but only to higher monthly coverage and therefore higher prices. The only option to change to lower price abo with the same coverage is to call them.
So, I clinch my left fist, sweat profusely and call Sunrise. The 15 min call went well. In the end I got a 30% discount over last invoice and 10% less than before the 24 month discount ended.
I understand the motivation from Sunrise. If I don’t call, I’d pay 30% more every month. But, I called and I now pay 10% less than before. If they have kept the price without moving, I don’t call and I pay Sunrise 10% more than now.
So, what happens here? It’s all data in a database, why the button is deactivated in the website and make people call? Does Sunrise expects that people just takes the price increase after discount with expiration date ends?
It’s a strange marketing concept. I make a note of the cancelation dates and phone up a week or two beforeto cancel and always get a better deal than I am paying.
Their biggest cost is customer acquisition so their aim is customer retention on the cheap. As long as their cost (rebate to you) isn’t too big they win. 10% reduction vs two years ago seems rather little.
Apparently Salt and Sunrise charge for using fast payment systems like Twint, Apple/Google/Samsung Pay, CC, etc. At least Salt does so also for its secondary brands like Post Mobile, Lidl, and GoMo. Salt charges .95, Sunrise 1 CHF.
This looks quite clearly like profit maximising as the subscription prices have gone up in the recent past as well. It doesn’t look like they’re shifting costs onto those who cause them because in this case they’d reduce subscription prices simultaneously.
Market leader Swisscom doesn’t have such a charge (so far). Other providers that use Salt’s or Sunrise’s network (can) have their own policy, Spusu for instance uses the Salt network but has no such charge.
