Are Call Plans Worth it?

Feedback & Ideas
#1

I know the concept is one price, clean and simple but I wonder if some potential customers may be put off due to a lack of calling plans which is basically the norm for every other ISP these days.

By my rough calculations I will save £20 a month moving to you and for how little I use the landline I am quids in, plus I have a mobile.

Maybe you’ve already done that research and it’s not a big deal but it did play on my mind when I was switching since I do use my landline sometimes and pay £9 to my ISP a month to get unlimited calls (I bet I actually use less than that a month if I calculated it!).

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#2

Hiya @Johnwscott & Welcome To The Cuckoo Community !!!

Depending on How Much you actually would use the Landline its more of a swings and roundabouts issue in my eyes.

I for one use my landline quite a lot at present and for a variety of different call types and its
a godsend having an All Inclusive Call Package with 60 minute redial function on all
calls (including mobile) to stay in control and avoiding spiraling bills above the package price.

So Yes They Are Worth it if You make a lot of calls and see the 0.00 Charge on my
Monthy Itemised bill is glorious :smile:

However if you have limited use of the home phone then you wont get that much
of a extra bill as all Cuckoo calls are Chargeable in a Pay As You Go Form (PAYG).

But i do see what you mean it is a bit offputting when your looking at the
Cuckoo Deal and you cant see these options like other providers offer.

Im sure @Alex will join this Conversation as we’ve had a few Discussions about this exact topic
and its on the To Do List (which gets longer each day i hear)

If You Believe You Will “Be Quids In” Then Cuckoo would love to have you Onboard…and
as the offer is a 30 Day Rolling Contract Your Not Tied Into a Long Contract Like Most
Providers insist on.

The Final Choice is Yours or to quote a Famous Cartoon Eco-Warrior “The Power Is Yours” - Captain Planet.

#3

So anecdotally I think those add ons are pure margin producing machines for the bug guys to cream more of people, especially those who are older. Including making billing a lot more complicated.

Anecdotally my parents use their landline a lot and have just got their Cuckoo bill (sorry mum and dad). They’re fine with me sharing but for 30-40 or so calls the total bill was about £2.82 for July.

Think the real challenge for us will be making it clear what the average bill could be if you do stay with us and you use your landline a lot.

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#4

I just checked my last 3 bills and we also make around 40 calls a month and if it were just to landlines would be about £2.50. We do however call a few mobiles and due to the extortionate per minute rates (c. 40p on average per min it seems) we saved at least 20 quid a month due to the call plan, although no doubt plusnet doesn’t actually incur the 40p a min charge and pay far less so maybe it’s less of saving than I think.

This I suspect will not be the norm as most people probably just use their mobiles to call everyone and the land-line for the odd call to their power firm or doctors.

I know a few years back there was a company that let you dial a prefix that slashed your charges, I presume it routed calls via a voip solution in some fashion to bypass to make that work.

There is likely no perfect answer to the psychology of a fixed price call plan other than maybe a 5 quid plan that offers x thousand landline minutes or something and excludes mobile. Then it’s still very simple pricing but gives people the comfort they are used to and also bumps your profit up a bit while still sticking to simplicity of not having dozens of plans.

I’ll personally just make sure to change our use habits and use our mobiles to call other mobiles and ideally landlines too since my wife and I, as most will too, have unlimited call plans on our mobiles which we hardly use.

Then we can benefit from moving to cuckoo and still make all our usual calls too. Win all round.

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#5

Thanks John. That sounds like a good plan.

I think we need to some more thinking about our call plans and how we set that out for people. I agree that the current solution of trying to wade thorugh the table below is probaly not the best expereince (@Tommy and I will look into this).

https://cuckoo.co/call-charges

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#6

Hey @alex & @tommy where have i heard this before ??? Im saying nothing lol :shushing_face:

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#7

Just on that table of call charges, even just a small tweak to pull UK call & mobile prices to the top of the list would help as I assume these are the most likely numbers people would be calling before you dive down the list into country specific prices. Then maybe a search box so if you did want to see cost to call Spain or the like you can quickly pull that up.

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#8

Seperate customised filters would help by way of the drop down box system
to then show that type of call in the chart at the top as well

For Example:-

UK Calls :- 01/02/03

Mobile Calls :- 07xx

International :- +44 +1 +31 etc…

Premium Rate etc… 08/09/09x

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#9

Like this! @dan @Insung