Our luscious sisters over at Lifehacker have called our attention to this advice on lowering your cable bill:

When you make the call, you don
t want to be demanding or set limits that force you into cancelling if you don
t want to. Therefore, when you call, say something along the following lines:
Hello, I came across this advertisement for XX Satellite TV that is offering a monthly subscription for $XX. Although I like my current TV, this offer is making me seriously consider switching. I was wondering if you can offer a similar price”…

This approach should work if this is the first time you are trying to lower your cable monthly rate. For those that have done it a number of times, some cable companies are becoming a bit stricter. I have one friend who insist on the way to continue to get the best price is to say you are going to cancel and if they won
t offer you a better price, cancel. Most of the time they will relent before actually cancelling and the few times they haven
t (he
s been doing this for years) he simply calls up the next day and says he
s changed his mind and wants to continue the service.

Good advice! Draw a line in the sand, then spinelessly capitulate. Oh, it probably works nine times out of ten, but this is just the sort of advice that makes companies treat their customers like slavish buying mongrels. Why expend effort trying to keep your customers happy when they’ll just come crawling back anyway?

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