Giffgaff needs to be competitive again

ukchattyman · ‎22-05-2015

Increasingly the competition has come closer to giffgaff offering and in fact in may cirumstances have beaten the goodybags on offer. The market now is fierce. I would like Giffgaff to regularly review its goodybags on a monthly basis that we are indeed getting the best prices they can offer given to this fierce competition.

Some if not all these offerings are beating giffgaff hands down and we all want the cheapest as possible around.

Kingdom Mobile on EE

http://kingdommobile.co.uk/bundles/

BUNDLES VOICE LIMIT SMS LIMIT DATA OTHER DETAILS SELECT BUNDLE

Kingdom £5	550 minutes to other UK networks	Unlimited texts to other UK networks	1 GB Data Usage	Unlimited calls and texts from Kingdom to Kingdom. To buy Kingdom 5 send TEXT/SMS with Bundle NAT5 to 1244
Kingdom £10	1000 minutes to other UK networks	Unlimited texts to other UK networks	Unlimited Data Usage	Unlimited calls and texts from Kingdom to Kingdom. To buy Kingdom10 send TEXT/SMS with Bundle NAT10 to 1244
Kingdom £20	2000 minutes to other UK networks	Unlimited texts to other UK networks	Unlimited Data Usage

Asda Mobile

£5

100 mins

2000 texts

100MB data

£7

300 mins

Unlimited texts

500MB data

£10

600 mins

Unlimited texts

1GB data

£15

1000 mins

Unlimited texts

2GB data

Vectone Mobile on EE

http://www.vectonemobile.co.uk/pay-as-you-go/offer/low-cost-international-calls-uk.aspx

Unlimited Texts Unlimited Minutes Unlimited Data £10

Delight Mobile on EE

http://www.delightmobile.co.uk/bundles/delight-bundle.aspx

£10

Bundle

500 UK Minutes

Unlimited UK Texts

2000MB Data

Unlimited Delight to Delight

£15Bundle

Unlimited UK Minutes

Unlimited UK Texts

Unlimited Data

Unlimited Delight to Delight

As you can see the market is fighting now and I do feel the goodybags on GG could be better. If they had monthly reviews and actually compare with the REAL market not just the ones they want to match like o2 EE and Vodafone you would keep more custom

6_9 · ‎22-05-2015

Kingdom mobile.. If those are the deals, they're very good. To be fair, the £5 and £7.50 goodybags have been updated, how much more could they do?

itwashimnotme · ‎22-05-2015

Agreed that there are better options out there now however the payback facility with giffgaff cannot be ignored and remains their UNP and really should be applauded - for those giffgaffers that make use of it anyway) i'm not one of those btw). On the other hand there remains that old chestnut about customer services - or lack of it in giffgaff's case. My guess is that not having cust services probably costs giffgaff lots of customers too. Bottom line is giffgaff operates in the margins - probably why i like it, and probably why i'll stay around.

alster7 · ‎22-05-2015

Another one

http://www.gtmobile.co.uk/en/bundle

alster7 · ‎22-05-2015

Where you can get unlimited minutes for 15£ + 6 Gb of 4g internet

william_knapman · ‎22-05-2015

A bunch of thoughts on this in no particular order ...

I'm not sure how sustainable the current spate of virtual network offerings is - probably "enjoy while it lasts" Anyone else remember Ovivo? Probably the main thing with a new firm like Kingdom, if you don't trust them, would be not to move a number to them which you wouldn't want to loose in case you weren't able to get the number back again.

It seems to me that many of the new virtuals are on the EE network, soon to be part of BT.

The People's Operator however looks to my mind better than giffgaff on pretty much any measure

One of giffgaff's few truly differentiating remaining features is its one free minute for each minute received on its Hokey Cokey goodybag. Could we be told why this works for giffgaff in order to be able to understand how to make suggestions which also make giffgaff a profit?

I also sense that giffgaff is loosing its way. Presumably its original plan was to still be able to make a profit despite being a lot cheaper because it has slashed its operating costs to a small fraction of its competition. This requires glitch free systems and simplicity. And yet there is also this fretting and obsession with creating layers of costly complexity.

pauljohn7 · ‎22-05-2015

I agree. giffgaff needs to look at what the competition is offering.

When I joined giffgaff in 2010, there was no real competition, giffgaff offered great value for money and was cheaper than the rest.

giffgaff prices ARE better value than they were when I 1st joined ( apart from the PAYG rate of 8p Calls / 4p Texts ), but the competition has also gotten cheaper.

Existing giffgaff members are / have gone over to other networks. More may be considering changing for a better deal and more reliable service ( internet ).

giffgaff needs to look at it's pricing again to get more new members and to prevent existing members from straying to the other networks.

phillsibson · ‎23-05-2015

@william_knapman I have in the past made great use of the hokey cokey goody bag - gaining and using hundreds of extra minutes, way more than 10 or 15 goody bags at the time would have allowed me.

I asked one of the helpers (who messaged me to ask how it was going) if these were any good for giffgaff and was assured that they were.

I can only assume that because:

Not all free minutes are used(as with the other goody bags), and because its not exactly 1 for 1, the first minute does not count.

The Hokey Cokey is also a great add for giffgaff - your on another network and you exchange calls with someone who keeps telling you that their calls are free - when this happens month after month, you have to accept that giffgaff, a network you might not have heard of or considered moving to, is 'yeh, basically ok'.

(even if you move to giffgaff and both end up getting free calls, giffgaff then has your other calls etc)

Whatever the reason, yes, the hokey cokey goodybag is a great thing

@ukchattyman & all,

On the point of price - Giffgaff is not the cheapest, it never has been the cheapest option for me - but it remains the best option and that is more important to me.

I like lower prices, but if giffgaff had to change the way they or the goody bags worked in order to reach them, then that would have me wonder if they were still the best option for me.

xtracash4u · ‎23-05-2015

I have been saying the same thing over and over,but the great gods of GG seem to be sleeping

The main things customers need nowadays is alot of cheap data that actually works, cheap or inclusive roaming bundles,international call and text bundles if not travelling

william_knapman · ‎23-05-2015

Good to know that the extra minutes benefit giffgaff (and therefore users a little bit indirectly). With that in mind, it seems to me obvious that one thing giffgaff might like to do is extend the Hokey Cokey range. This might help in particular to differentiate the £10 and £12 3G offerings better.

swissfabian · ‎23-05-2015

I didn't know other companies had also 'discount' prices... I like the Giffgaff community though...

And to be honnest, the quality of the network makes the difference more than the price...

Hopefully, Giffgaff will make some improvement to the network (with O2 or THREE in the future)...