How to Reduce Your Charter Communications Cable Bill

I recently experienced tremendous success in reducing my Charter Communication cable bill. I've heard numerous times that you could have your cable bill lowered by calling and haggling. Thing is, I hate haggling. I mean I really don't like it at all. But in the interest of saving money I tried it anyways. I wanted to see if a non haggler could pull this off. Given that the experiment was successful I thought that I would share with you exactly how I did it.

The first thing that I did was call up my cable company, Charter Communication. As you might expect I got connected to some call center in India.

I calmly explained my issue to "Chris;" That the economy is bad that I was was calling to see if there was any way I could get a discount on my internet service (I don't get cable TV or phone from them).

"Chris" then informed me all about the wonderful bundle package and that I could get the bundle at a promotional rate of...

I reminded him that I wasn't interested in getting more services and restated my question: Is there way that I can get a discount on my existing service?

Chris rehashed his bundle promotion. I kept on calmly restating that I didn't want new services. I just wanted to see if it was possible for me to get a discount on my existing services.

The fact is that Chris in India has absolutely no power or authority to do anything other than try to sell you the bundled service. So we had to go through several iterations of him trying to sell me the bundle and me politely refusing it and asking for discount.

The key is to be polite and persistent. Customer service representatives aren't supposed to hang up on you so long as you treat them respectfully.

Eventually I made a breakthrough with "Chris" and I got transferred to a lady named Maryanne in America. Now we were getting somewhere.

She, of course, asked me about the bundle. I declined. She asked me about changing or upgrading services. I declined all of them saying that I was extremely happy with my current services but just wanted to see if there was a way to get a discount because the economy is rough and I need to save money.

She had several real discounts available. The one I picked was a 2 year contract that lowered my monthly bill from $49.99 + tax to $29.99 + tax. That's a savings of $20 a month! There is a catch, if I terminate the service there is a $75 early termination fee. But with a savings of $20 a month all I have to do is keep it up for 4 months and I come out ahead. Furthermore, if I move to an area where Charter doesn't offer service, the contract is voided and no early termination fee for me.