Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR Verizon is reinstating discounts for some customers who threaten to leave the carrier. The retention discounts are triggered by initiating a transfer PIN from within the My Verizon app.
After emailing the Verizon CEO, some users are getting a higher Valued Customer discount to replace their outgoing Loyalty Discount.
Some of these discounts are even higher than before, though not all customers can get them.
Verizon kicked up a storm early this week when it removed loyalty discounts, increased several service charges, and removed some freebie perks, effectively driving up the bills for many customers. In our survey, almost 900 users were moving out of Verizon because of the bill increase, which points to a significant churn for the carrier, which already lost 51,000 postpaid subscribers between April and June. As it turns out, the discounts are back on the table, but only if the customer threatens to move out.
You can trigger a retention discount if you generate a transfer PIN We’ve spotted a couple of Reddit reports from users who have gotten some more loyalty discounts on their accounts. For instance, Reddit user Inner_Difficulty_381 initiated the process of porting out of Verizon, after which the carrier offered them a $10 per month per line discount as an appeasement/retention discount. The carrier’s customer service representative even seemingly mentioned that the $25 monthly loyalty discount on the customer’s account is for life and not going away.
After this, they received a notification from the My Verizon app informing them that their account is eligible for a $20 per month per line discount for 12 months, though selecting this offer replaced the appeasement discount as they did not stack.
The net effect is that the customer now has a $25 per month lifetime loyalty discount, plus an additional $40 per month discount (total for two lines) for twelve months, effectively bringing their bill down by a good margin once they started the port-out procedure.
Reddit users zetagrl19, NukePretendgineer, rileymilan, and Organic_Fig2303 also got the offer from the notification above. They mentioned that it triggered a few hours after they started the port procedure and generated a transfer pin from within the My Verizon app.
On the other hand, Reddit user KitchenLandscape emailed Verizon’s CEO directly to file a complaint (Verizon has officially shared his email address here to invite customer feedback). They got a call back from the Executive Relations department, where the representative offered them the same $20 monthly discount.
Unfortunately, not everyone is getting this appeasement/loyalty discount. Many Redditors mentioned that they had generated the transfer PIN but had not received the offer, so your mileage may vary. If the loyalty discount is what makes you move out of Verizon, it may be worth a shot to generate a transfer PIN to see if you can trigger the offer. If not, you can let the PIN expire, or actually go ahead with the port-out.
This discount isn’t exactly a new discovery, though. Earlier in the year, users noticed that the retention discount was being triggered once the transfer PIN was generated. At the time, the discount was $10 per line per month for 12 months. Now, this retention discount has been seemingly increased to $20 per line per month.
To generate a Transfer PIN, open the My Verizon app or log into your My Verizon account, and type “transfer pin” in the search bar.
Some users are getting a Valued Customer discount to replace the Loyalty discount There’s some murkiness about what’s happening, though, as some users, like Reddit user ItsDon, received a $30 monthly “Valued Customer discount” that replaced their $20 monthly Loyalty discount once they contacted the CEO via email. The new discount is also seemingly for life. However, in upgrading the discount, the Verizon representative removed the timed loyalty discount ($10 per line for 12 months), which had another four months remaining, effectively driving up the user’s bill for a few months.
Reddit user KDao18 also received a $40 Valued Customer discount to replace the outgoing $25 Loyalty Discount, and they were lucky enough not to have their timed loyalty discounts removed.
Have you received a new discount from Verizon recently? 1 votes Yes, I was offered a $20 retention discount after generating transfer PIN. 0 % Yes, I got a Valued Customer Discount to replace the Loyalty Discount. 0 % Yes, I got both discounts. 0 % No, I did not get any new discounts, but my older discounts remain active. 0 % No, I did not get any new discounts, and even my older discounts went away. 100 %
Verizon could have avoided the drama by not raising prices It does seem that the customer backlash from the price increase got to Verizon, which is now scrambling to retain some of its most loyal customers. Ironically, some of the discounts offered are higher than what the customers had before the price increase and backlash. Had Verizon maintained its discounts, users wouldn’t have decided to shop around, and the carrier wouldn’t have had to roll out higher discounts to retain them.
It remains to be seen how this whole fiasco has affected Verizon’s subscriber base and bottom line, and if any benefits were worth the drama.
We’ve reached out to Verizon for comments on the discounts, and we’ll update this article when we learn more.
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