One of the simplest methods to reduce your bills is to call your service provider and ask for a lower rate. It doesn’t always work, but there’s no harm in asking — and if you can convince the rep you speak with that you’re considering canceling, there’s a pretty good chance that they’ll be able to offer you some kind of promotional rate or retention offer just so that they can keep your business.

Are You Bluffing?

One of the key factors in getting a discounted rate is that your service provider, whether we’re talking about cable or cell phone or something else, wants to keep you paying a monthly fee. Company representatives are able to offer discounts — but only if they think that you’re going to move to another service provider or drop the service entirely. If you even suggest that you’ll keep paying your current rate if you don’t get a discount, you won’t get the break.

That means you’ll either have to bluff your way through the conversation or be prepared to actually cancel your service if you don’t get what you want. Canceling may not be a bad idea — before you try to negotiate a lower rate, check around to see if any of the other service providers in your area can actually offer you a better deal for switching. At the very least, you’ll be able to ask your service provider to match their rate, and you definitely won’t have to worry if a rep decides to call your bluff.

Keep Trying

Just because one rep tells you that you can’t have a discount doesn’t actually mean that you can’t get it. Even simply calling back and speaking with a different rep can get you a different answer at many service providers. You may also find that the issue is the level of the representative you’re speaking with — if you can move up the ladder to a manager, you’ll likely find that a higher-up has the authority to offer far more discounts. If you get a ‘no’ at any point, it’s worth your while to keep trying.

Of course, you want to be polite about it. If you get multiple ‘no’s, it’s probably time to move on. And being nice throughout the entire process can make it much easier to get a rep to help you out. Anyone that you speak to over the phone has probably had to deal with more than a few impolite customers and won’t be inclined to really help another customer that falls into that category. Just keep calm, even when you’re asking to speak to someone’s manager. A surprising amount of decision-making power rests with whichever rep you wind up speaking to over the phone — a rep can choose to refuse a request, and you can get an entirely different answer if you call back and speak with another rep. That makes politeness even more important, because if it’s a situation that is purely at the discretion of the rep, you want the rep on your side.

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