Are phone carriers finally taking customer loyalty seriously?

Likewise, T-Mobile has recently added three plans that reward loyalty. Two of these plans are aimed at specific customers only, typically accounts that are more likely to bolt for another provider. There’s also the Better Value Plan, which offers improved pricing for long-term customers. This particular plan is also open to new customers, but they have to go through a few more hoops to qualify.

AT&T hasn’t been as bold as Verizon or T-Mobile when it comes to offering new promotions and incentives, though it has promoted discounted internet service for its existing customers and has gotten more aggressive with its marketing at least.

Now, don’t get me wrong, the big three still don’t care about you personally. Simply put, retaining customers is more important now than ever before. The competition is much tighter in the mobile space as prepaid now offers a viable and cheaper alternative for many who aren’t impressed by today’s postpaid landscape.

It’s not just about customer retention, either. Some customers are likely to jump into exciting new offers without doing full homework, and may end up giving up older legacy perks in the process. For example, signing up for the Better Value plan means giving up any free lines and perks like legacy Insider Access.

Once you switch away from a legacy plan, there’s typically no going back. These older plans often offer older perks or lower pricing that makes them less profitable for the company, so exciting offers are a good way to push some customers to more lucrative newer plans.

The answer really depends on the state of the mobile market. If things stay uncertain enough for the big three, you can bet that all three are likely to put more effort into customer retention if that means keeping those customers from going somewhere else.

It also depends on how well things like T-Mobile’s new customer loyalty plans are received by customers. I certainly would love to see an even bigger push here. I’m old enough to remember a time when carriers used to offer loyalty programs like Verizon’s New Every Two program.

For those who don’t know, this old Verizon perk gave customers a roughly $30-$100 credit when it came time to renew their contract, and you could stack these up. As I remember, the two-year contract phone deals were also much cheaper to begin with, so keeping a phone for four years or so would often be enough to get a free phone out of the deal.

While these systems were built around contracts, I’d love to see similar credits or extras like this for people who stick around year after year. It’s also more effective for keeping customers happy as opposed to waiting until they complain to give them a discount.

Of course, I wouldn’t hold my breath. Still, at least I can honestly say that right now is the first time in years that, as a Verizon subscriber, I don’t feel like I’m getting royally overcharged. Now I’m just slightly overcharged, improvement, right? Between a recent free line promo and loyalty discount, many customers like myself have seen rates that are much easier to swallow.

I do truly believe there’s less reason to jump postpaid than ever before, provided you have a decent legacy plan or a large family. I wouldn’t jump over from prepaid to postpaid right now, though, nor would I recommend switching to another network. I also certainly don’t expect the current level of customer retention effort to last forever, either.

Still, it’s nice to see carriers semi-rewarding loyalty, even if there are still plenty of catches and gotchas embedded in the process.