Telephone service

What phone service do you use?

Are you still paying hourly rates for long distance calls?

A while back when I was replacing an old cell phone, my friendly rep offered to switch my home line to Cincinnati Bell service from AT&T. At the time, I was paying a premium for certain services such as caller id and was still paying for my long distance calls.

When I learned that CB would bundle a dozen or more features such as call waiting, forwarding, caller id and many more along with all the long distance I could eat for less than my monthly bill WITHOUT any long distance calls I was intrigued.

I called AT&T customer serive to see if they would match this offer. This is their curious couterproposal:

I could take advantage of their current "web" special which was very similar to CB's offer except $5-$10 more per month or if I wanted to set up this service over the phone it would be about an additional $20 per month. Yup. I asked her to repeat that again so I could make sure I had it right.

Needless to say I switched carriers. It was fairly painless. There was a small problem with the line getting switched off a few days after service changed hands, but everything afterward has been fine.

Since I switched, AT&T has sent me letters and cards almost every month asking me to come back at a rate comparable to what I am paying today. They've even offered $100 checks to have me back as a customer.

Did I mention before how much I despise companies that value customers they don't have over ones that they do?