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Why are you still buying from BT?

It's increasingly simple to shop around for the best prices on a wide range of commodities in our modern era... so why do so many people continue to buy their telecoms from BT? If you're one of them, read on...

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Hello everyone! Zarte here! Yes - death, taxes and me carrying on writing blogs with inane introductions.

Today, I’m going to ask you a very simple question. Why are you still buying from BT? Now, I’m going to guess you’re doing or saying one of three things right now. You’re either saying “Well, we’ve always used BT for our telecoms, I’ve just never really thought of using anyone else!” or you’re saying “Well, all other operators work on the BT network anyway, so why would you bother?” or you’re going “umm” and stammering a bit trying to find an actual answer. If you’re NOT doing one of those three things, then genuinely, we’d be interested to hear what you are doing or saying, because to us, there are almost NO reasons to be buying from BT in 2017.

The first of those most common answers that I’m going to answer though, is the second one, because to us, that one contains a lack of context which is potentially really doing you or your business a disservice, and one that is even more relevant since last month. Because, yes, we can’t argue – most telecoms providers ARE operating on the BT network, however BT and Openreach have been 2 separate entities for quite some time, and now, after an Ofcom challenge, that is now becoming official, rather than just symbolic

Why is this relevant? Well because it means that even more than before, the decisions made by the 2 groups will be autonomous, and not necessarily correlative. Whilst you may have a line with a company operating on their network, work on your line, should it be required, would be viewed completely differently by another company, as you’re dealing with them and not BT themselves. And dealing with another company, in our opinion, is one of the big sale points for not getting your services from BT. BT’s customer service is beyond awful, and that’s not just our opinion. They regularly come out near, or even at the bottom of customer service polls, studies and awards – including this award for the wooden spoon of customer service from thisismoney in 2014

With other companies, you’re almost certainly guaranteeing that you’re dealing with a company with fewer customers than BT, meaning your call is more likely to be important to them. Additionally, if you shop around, you can find things about them that you view as important, such as a callback procedure during busy times, or having UK-based call centres. In our mind, keeping BT as your provider allows them to justify their poor response times, and poor communication, and why would you want to do that?

The next thing to answer is people who fall into the other two groups. Firstly, people who’ve just “always” used them. Again, we kind of feel that that’s the attitude that BT bank on. If you know that your customers aren’t going to move, you’re not motivated to improve your service. Additionally, to try and tie people to them, they impose lengthy, and difficult to escape contracts. We believe that if your customers are happy, your customers will stay, and so only every impose the shortest contracts possible to make sure we’re covering ourselves. This can sometimes be as short as 3 months. Nowhere else would you stick with what you know for no other reason. If your gas prices go up, or your electricity provider begins to mess you about – you shop around. Why should your telecoms be any different?

And cost is a major thing to consider, and is usually the way to get through to people who can’t give you an answer of why they otherwise. See, with BT, they often give you packages based on the number of minutes you use, or equivalent. More often than not, this means one of two things – either you’re paying for a service you’ll never use. Or they’re banking on you overusing, and stinging you with an overusage charge when you do. Quite often, the best deal is to simply pay for the calls you make – no more, and no less. And when it comes to actual call charge rates, BT are very rarely good value.

So. Let me ask you again – why are you still buying from BT? This time, why not give us your answer? Reply to us on social media, or call us for a chat. And if you think you might like to switch, it might be easier than you think, so talk to one of our team and see what we can do for you.

Until next time,

Zarte