Are phone companies finally taking customer loyalty seriously?

These days are long behind us, but over the past six months I have seen indications that carriers are finally taking customer loyalty a little more seriously. Well, at least customer retention.

Does this mean there’s finally a reason to stick with your postpaid plan, even if you’re on a newer plan with a potentially lower value than you’d get in the prepaid world? I wouldn’t go that far, but it’s clear that the mobile landscape is changing and changes are in the air.

In recent months, Verizon has offered more customer incentives and loyalty benefits than in the past decade or more. New promotions offering free lines to existing customers, higher loyalty discounts, and other similar shifts have made staying with the carrier at least a little more bearable for some users (myself included).

Similarly, T-Mobile recently added three plans that reward loyalty. Two of these plans target only specific customers, usually accounts that are more likely to move to 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 still have to jump through a few hoops to qualify.

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

Don’t get me wrong, the big three still don’t care about you personally. Simply put, customer retention is more important now than ever before. Competition is much fiercer in the mobile space, as prepaid now offers a viable and cheaper alternative for many who are unimpressed by the current postpaid landscape.

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

Once you cancel an existing subscription, there is usually no way back. These older plans often offer older benefits or lower prices, making them less profitable for the company. So exciting offers are a good way to lure some customers to more lucrative newer plans.

The answer really depends on the state of the mobile market. If things remain uncertain enough for the big three, you can bet that all three will likely put more effort into retaining customers if it means keeping those customers from going elsewhere.

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

For those who don’t know, this old Verizon perk gave customers about $30 to $100 in credit when it came time to renew their contract, and you could stack these on top of each other. As I recall, the two-year contract phone plans were also much cheaper to begin with, so keeping a phone for four years would often be enough to get a free phone underneath.

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

I really believe there is less reason to switch to postpaid than ever before, provided you have a decent old plan or a large family. However, I wouldn’t switch from prepaid to postpaid at this point, nor would I recommend switching to another network. I certainly don’t expect the current level of customer loyalty to last forever.

Still, it’s nice to see airlines half-rewarding loyalty, even though there are still many pitfalls in the process.