Last week thousands of furious customers vented their spleen at Foxtel after spending hours on the phone attempting to cancel their subscriptions.
The rush of cancellations arose because of the widespread cancellation of sporting events across the globe, including Foxtel’s prized 2020 AFL and NRL seasons. With Foxtel’s only competitive advantage being in live sports, for many customers there was little point in keeping their subscriptions.
According to IT Wire, Foxtel made cancelling subscriptions deliberately difficult in a bid to slow the bleed and to shift subscribers to cheaper offerings:
Foxtel has found a short-term way of stopping the haemorrhage of customers: don’t let them cancel their subscriptions…
You can’t cancel via the Foxtel app or web site. That’s not really surprising, because the company probably wants a shot at retaining your business even if that takes a sweetheart deal – we’ve seen reports of customers being offered prices as low as $19 a month in these circumstances.
The only option is to phone Foxtel. Trouble is, a lot of people seem to be doing that at the moment, so there’s a fair chance that you’ll get a busy signal.
Make sure your phone is charged, because if you do get through to the voice recognition system and tell it you want to cancel or disconnect, you’ll probably be on hold for an hour or two…
But here’s the genius part of the current arrangement: the queue you’ve been put into is likely to be at a Telstra call centre where the staff can’t help you because you’re a Foxtel customer, not a Foxtel from Telstra customer – never mind that you called Foxtel, not Telstra, and you never said you were a Telstra customer. We have twice confirmed this is what was happening today.
Guess what happens if you call Foxtel’s complaints number and tell the system that you want to make a complaint? You get put into a queue at what seems to be the same Telstra call centre that couldn’t help you because you’re not a Telstra customer.
Meanwhile, Foxtel has sweetened the deal for its sports subscribers, giving them free access to all 10 movie channels and well as movies on demand:
Sport subscribers who don’t already have movies included in their pack will now get free access to all 10 movie channels, as well as a library of more than 1000 movies on demand until June 30…
Foxtel CEO Patrick Delany said, “We know nothing replaces live sport but we believe the combination of sports archive specials, new documentaries, pop-up channels and live shows together with access to all our movies is a real alternative”…
Foxtel Now customers will also have Drama Extra, Docos, Pop, Lifestyle and Kids added to their Essentials, Pop or Lifestyle packs.
The problem with these types of deals is that customers who have the full package will now be incentivised to call up Foxtel and demand a price cut, in the process slashing Foxtel’s margins.
They also do not overcome Foxtel’s core problem, namely that it is overpriced relative to its online streaming peers and is full of advertisements. Until it addresses these issues, it will continue to bleed subscribers.
