Updated Orcon plans and a mystifying phone call

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Updated Orcon plans and a mystifying phone call

MrTomato

149 posts

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Lifetime subscriber

#132187 11-Oct-2013 18:48

Hi everyone -

I'm currently on Orcon's Unlimited plan (which has been excellent recently, by the way - thanks, Orcon). Yesterday afternoon I received a rather strange sales call from Orcon trying to sell me something to do with their new plans. Unfortunately, though, a) the person who called had quite a heavy accent, b) she didn't seem to be making a great deal of sense, and c) I've had a rash of nuisance sales calls over the last few days (not from Orcon) so wasn't in a particularly receptive mood. She said she'd call back today but didn't.

As I understand it, the caller was trying to get me to sign up to the new $99 Unlimited plan and a new contract, even though I'm already on the old Unlimited plan. So in other words, I'd be agreeing to be locked into a new contract and having to pay an extra $14 per month to get the same level of service I currently receive.

Why on earth would I want to do this? Have I got the wrong end of the stick? If anyone can shed any light on what's happened here, I'd be most grateful.

BTW, Orcon: Great service recently, as I said above. Thanks for everything. But I feel like we need to have a little chat. I know you want to be cool and those scruffy urchins at Slingshot are doing this, but can you really justify charging $4/month for caller ID? I can sort-of understand that voicemail and call waiting are still, arguably, if you stand well back and squint really hard, premium-level features and might be worth a small additional monthly fee, but caller ID too? Seriously?

quentinreade

351 posts

Ultimate Geek

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2degrees

#913849 11-Oct-2013 19:37

Thanks for the feedback on the plan - we are pretty stoked with the performance, we have made some big changes of late. It's a mission from the top down to actually make unlimited plans the best they can be. (Some, historically, have been pretty awful).

Re: the call. Sorry it was confusing, I think I know who called you (we only have two people calling customers at the moment, one guy and one guy-ess).

She's awesome BTW, so I am surprised it wasn't great.

We call some customers as their contracts expire, offering them a sweet deal to resign if they are happy with the service.

Yes, we have taken free national calling and smartphone bundles out of the deal. That doesn't seem to work for some (esp Geekzoners, hence the latest offer to throw those in for GZ folk).

We always take feedback on, so the team is looking at whether we bundle those back in.

Drop me a PM, and we can see what we can do. If you are happy with the service, we really want to make sure you are happy with the price :)

Let us know and we can, as they say, 'do a deal' ;)

Comms chap

2degrees

browned

636 posts

Ultimate Geek

#913896 11-Oct-2013 22:31

Quentin you know my opinion on the calling features as I have said before. Why would anyone sign on for the extra features when you can get Slingshot iTalk/2Talk with more free calls and several other features for as little as $10 a month. I know you only save $4 in total but the extras you get at either competitor are worth more than that.

Oh by the way I was called by Sheldon just after 5pm but couldn't take the call as I was driving. His message said he would call back but nothing tonight. Hopefully he calls on Monday.

MrTomato

149 posts

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Lifetime subscriber

#913984 12-Oct-2013 09:35

quentinreade: Drop me a PM, and we can see what we can do. If you are happy with the service, we really want to make sure you are happy with the price :)

Let us know and we can, as they say, 'do a deal' ;)

PM sent. Thanks, Quentin!

sbiddle

30853 posts

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Biddle Corp

Lifetime subscriber

#913987 12-Oct-2013 10:05

browned: Quentin you know my opinion on the calling features as I have said before. Why would anyone sign on for the extra features when you can get Slingshot iTalk/2Talk with more free calls and several other features for as little as $10 a month. I know you only save $4 in total but the extras you get at either competitor are worth more than that.

Why would people buy a $20 burger at a restaurant when your local fish and chip shop sells them for $4?

At the end of the day you're not comparing Apples with Apples. Yes both deliver you a dialtone, but Genius is a fully managed end to end voice solution. While it's not without it's faults for 99% of users it does a far better job at delivering a PSTN replacement service than iTalk (100% up to you to configure you own device and no support) and 2talk (some auto provisioning but a lot of it is still up to you).

The residential ADSL market offers very slim margins. You can't expect to get everything for free..

browned

636 posts

Ultimate Geek

#913997 12-Oct-2013 10:30

sbiddle:Why would people buy a $20 burger at a restaurant when your local fish and chip shop sells them for $4?

At the end of the day you're not comparing Apples with Apples. Yes both deliver you a dialtone, but Genius is a fully managed end to end voice solution. While it's not without it's faults for 99% of users it does a far better job at delivering a PSTN replacement service than iTalk (100% up to you to configure you own device and no support) and 2talk (some auto provisioning but a lot of it is still up to you).

The residential ADSL market offers very slim margins. You can't expect to get everything for free..

When I first had iTalk setup a few years ago the hardware came already to go, plug and play. Don't know if this service has stopped at Slingshot but that's what happened for me. I expect to get a decent set of features for a reasonable price. Slingshot features list here. http://www.slingshot.co.nz/products/italk/easy-phone/

Not to mention you can call local, national, and 40 countries around the world as part of your entry level 500 minute package. Now that is everything for free, well almost at $10. To me that says value for money, and as a competitor Orcon needs to take note of whats on offer. I sounds like they are and may change things back which will be great for Orcon and Orcon customers which I am.

MrTomato

149 posts

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Lifetime subscriber

#913999 12-Oct-2013 10:45

The thread's going off in another direction now, but I just wanted to add that I received another call from Orcon this morning.

Turns out that I had my wires crossed - the original call was about asking me whether I wanted to take up an offer in exchange for extending my contract for another 12 months, and only indirectly to do with the new plans.

Satch

1985 posts

Uber Geek

#915374 15-Oct-2013 13:10

sbiddle: <snip> While it's not without it's faults for 99% of users it does a far better job at delivering a PSTN replacement service <snip>

Let's see, where should we put the comma?

"While it's not without it's faults for 99% of users, it does a far better job at delivering a PSTN replacement service"

"While it's not without it's faults, for 99% of users it does a far better job at delivering a PSTN replacement service"

:-)

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ptinson

677 posts

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#915411 15-Oct-2013 13:30

Satch:
sbiddle: <snip> While it's not without it's faults for 99% of users it does a far better job at delivering a PSTN replacement service <snip>

Let's see, where should we put the comma?

"While it's not without it's faults for 99% of users, it does a far better job at delivering a PSTN replacement service"

"While it's not without it's faults, for 99% of users it does a far better job at delivering a PSTN replacement service"

:-)

Way off topic:

A panda walks into a bar and orders some food, after he's done eating he shoots the bartender and starts leaving.

"Hey, you can't do that!" said someone else in the bar

"Yes I can, I'm a panda bear it's what I do, look it up." says the panda bear.

Later he looks up "panda bear" and sure enough it says

"Panda Bear; Eats shoots and leaves."

meat popsicle