When will Vonage next have to cut prices?

Posts: 111 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Jun 15, 2006 Posts: 111

Any ideas? The tactic cell phone companies have been taking is to add services rather than cut prices. For example, more minutes and free IM on the 34.99/month plan.

The problem with that is that if you do that too much customers will drop down to a lower plan. And even those on the same plan will spend less on overages and extra services.

Posts: 188 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Mar 07, 2004 Posts: 188

And since Vonage can't seam to be able to add any new features unless they involve adding a new line to pad their stats, I guess that they are going to have to cut their prices in the near future. Cool, I'll just ride this plaine all the way down and then try another provider that has better features. By then, the other providers should have most of their kinks worked out. Wink

Posts: 1424 · Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2006 4:28 pm Post subject:

There is no evidence that the market is demanding lower prices.

Vonage is offering a significantly lower price than its main competition, POTS service, and is better known than its lower priced competitors. Many people I have talked to won't trust their cable company with their phone service even if they were to offer it for less than Vonage.

Vonage has a huge pool of potential customers and is unlikely to need to cut prices in the near future.

Posts: 111 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Jun 15, 2006 Posts: 111

It is not a question of what the market "demands." I demand a $3,000 electric car. That doesn't mean I am provided one.

One the other hand, SunRocket and other pureplay providers are underpricing Vonage, and for many people the Cable companies with their bundles are the same price or less.

Plus if something goes wrong you can have someone at your house rather than calling "Bob" "Dave" or "Jenny" in India. I certainly dislike Cox, but when I had problems setting up service the last time I moved I was able to call someone in my own city, who was a native speaker of English, and was on hold for less than two minutes.

Bottom line is, telephone service has been on a secular decline in price for its entire history, especially since the early 80's. That is not a trend that is going to stop.

Posts: 94 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Jun 17, 2006 Posts: 94

Why cut prices when you're at 2MM and growing like crazy!

Posts: 188 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Mar 07, 2004 Posts: 188

Edge wrote:

Why cut prices when you're at 2MM and growing like crazy!

Customers or lines? Vonage is piratically giving away second lines now days to be able to say that they have added this many lines hoping that investors confuse that with adding this many customers. This is significant since for every customer they loose, they loose more than one line. That is one reason why they should be kissing their current customers a$$es and providing a better service than the other guys. Lack of customer retention is going to kill Vonage.

Posts: 94 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Jun 17, 2006 Posts: 94

One could argue that multiple lines is a positive for Vonage. Customers who are unhappy don't add second and third lines. Customers who add second and third lines tend to be loyal long term customers.

I personally have 4 lines in 2 homes. Do you think I am considering switching back to Verizon or Bellsouth? How about Sunrocket?

Take your guess!!

I recently had a problem with my Vonage/Motorola router. After many hours talking to Vonage customer support, they sent me a new router in 2 days. Plugged it in and the service was back.

Nobody likes to deal with customer service (especially when they have bad accents), but it wasn't that bad and it was a defective third party component.

I'm thinking about getting another line. After all, I couldn't be happier.

***On the downside, I do hate all of the new Vonage commercials. I think they are poking fun on a service that is actually very serious and very good. These commercials seem to be geared toward college kids. We baby boomers can be big fans of Vonage too. And we're a lot more serious about phone service***

Posts: 94 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Jun 17, 2006 Posts: 94

One could argue that multiple lines is a positive for Vonage. Customers who are unhappy don't add second and third lines. Customers who add second and third lines tend to be loyal long term customers.

I personally have 4 lines in 2 homes. Do you think I am considering switching back to Verizon or Bellsouth? How about Sunrocket?

Take your guess!!

I recently had a problem with my Vonage/Motorola router. After many hours talking to Vonage customer support, they sent me a new router in 2 days. Plugged it in and the service was back.

Nobody likes to deal with customer service (especially when they have bad accents), but it wasn't that bad and it was a defective third party component.

I'm thinking about getting another line. After all, I couldn't be happier.

***On the downside, I do hate all of the new Vonage commercials. I think they are poking fun on a service that is actually very serious and very good. These commercials seem to be geared toward college kids. We baby boomers can be big fans of Vonage too. And we're a lot more serious about phone service***

Posts: 14 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: May 23, 2006 Posts: 14

Edge wrote:

Why cut prices when you're at 2MM and growing like crazy!

They already did cut prices. Anyone that calls up and threatens to leave is being given the unlimited plan for $20 /month which saves $5 per month. I have done this and I know others as well have.

Posts: 34 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Sep 14, 2006 Posts: 34

Edge wrote:

***On the downside, I do hate all of the new Vonage commercials. I think they are poking fun on a service that is actually very serious and very good. These commercials seem to be geared toward college kids. We baby boomers can be big fans of Vonage too. And we're a lot more serious about phone service***

Are u serious? Those commercials are funny and appealing. Well yes there geared those college kids, but look at it from a marketing point of view. Being that alot of things evolve around technology, they are gonna gear their commercials around kids; where some of the older generation dont wanna mess with it because it might be to complicated for them