Option of annual payment of charges

[#1]

Hi
I wonder if its possible for PN to introduce the option of annual advance payment of line rental/internet service charges as I for one tend to like to pay charges this way as at least I know its done.

[#2]

Not many people would do this unless a discount were offered. (Or is a discount implicit in your suggestion?)
How would you deal with regrades in a 12 month pre-paid scenario?

[#3]

Maybe PN would give a discount as they're getting the money in one go which has to be good for cash flow.
downgrade would result in a refund of the difference (though there might be a charge) upgrades you would just pay the difference.

[#4]

Also what about any extra usage you might want during that year, how would that be charged?

[#5]

You'd just be billed for that in the month it occurs like now.

[#6]

I would hope that if you paid that much in advance you won't have a limit on the more expensive options with a fair useage type policy.

[#7]

Honestly you start a thread and it ends up like Question Time 
Was a suggestion for the people at PN who would have to do the calcs of course.

[#8]

The way the billing works on our consumer products is monthly. We could physically take payment up front from you annually, however we'd have to set the next billing date a year in advance or the system would continually bill you monthly. If we set the billing date for a year in advance the Capacity based charging model, bandwidth usage reset and a host of other things would break, along with any home phone components.
For our BBYW products, it would require considerable work on our CBC and billing engines, which for the few people who would want this, the dev cost just wouldnt cost in.

[#9]

fair enough Mark
Just thought I'd ask

[#10]

Mark
I'm on a legacy Business product & get billed quarterly. It's clear that this is a bit of a hybrid system, because everything around it is clearly geared for monthly billing. For instance, my referrals talk about monthly amounts when they mean quarterly & every quarter I get an email warning me you are about to take the monthly amount. Sadly, the billing system works well enough to actually take the quarterly amount. 
I hardly dare suggest anything that might delay the Business Product Refresh, but I hope that quarterly billing will remain an option. In the business world, time costs money & money costs money. There is a crossover point where the time penalty for processing a monthly bill outweighs the money cost of paying for another 2 months up front. Even with computerised accounts, it's cheaper to process 4 £90 bills than 12 £30 ones. Add to that that a lot of small businesses pay bank charges per transaction rather than on %age of turnover.
While I understand the reluctance to offer it on Residential products, I would have thought quarterly advance billing would be a cost effective option for Plusnet on the Business Product range, so I hope that it will remain an option on moving to the new products that you are no doubt hoping to tempt us all with.

[#11]

This very topic was brought up some months ago in respect of someone's potential referral who needed to pay yearly for some reason. I understand that the person was accommodated in this case. Also, I might be wrong, but wasn't this put to the vote on PUG?
I can see that it would take some work but a pre-payment annual contract in return for a discount would be really good for some folk (me included). At the time I did ask about it and was told that it was a possibility; however, I didn't pursue the matter because it was clear that it was going to cause Plusnet some hassle.
If it was on offer now and trouble-free for all, I would contract in.
Maybe it is time to look at it again? It might be a good sales tool.

[#12]

It would also give them some more money for projects such as perhaps adding more transit capacity to cope with demand when the network is busy etc, upgrades to old equipment?

[#13]

Quote from: poppy

I might be wrong, but wasn't this put to the vote on PUG? Maybe it is time to look at it again? It might be a good sales tool.

It was raised some time back Poppy - back in December 2007 but I cannot find the Community thread.  The user comment thread for this PUGIT item can be found here.  and the PUGIT item here: 
PUGIT 385 was raised to address the issue with Plusnet, but so far has only attracted 13 Votes.    At that level it is unlikely to get into the development stack above many other items that have been raised and achieved higher popularity.  I agree that it is a good idea and would personally be interested should it be made available as an option.
If others feel of the same opinion, follow the link and make your vote.  I'd guess that it would need to get to the 50 or 60 vote count to even be considered.

Maurice

[#14]

I have voted

[#15]

Thank you for that Maurice - good to know that the 'leetle grey cells' are still functioning!
Unfortunately, although I support the idea fully, I have already voted so can't vote again.
When one thinks of the very small number of PN customers who visit these forums, it seems unlikely that it would achieve the required number of votes to implement it.
If a small survey was conducted to a random sample of customers it would be interesting to see the response and result.