Which Utility Company can Save You Money?

How do you choose which utility company will save you money? There are many misleading adverts & promotions around right now that encourage you to switch suppliers to save money. However, if you are not careful, you may well end up paying more than you were previously!

Phone & Broadband

So what can you do to make sure you are not paying too much for your telecommunications? First off don't be misled by extremely cheap headlines deals, these are most prominent when looking for phone & broadband deals. You must read the fine print behind the headline deals, 5.99 a month for broadband sounds great, but what is the cost of the line rental that you must pay? How long is the £5.99 price for & how much does it go up to after that? Are you going to be tied into a contract? For how long? You must add up all of the costs for at least 12 months or for the full term of any contract before comparing the deal with any other. Often headline rates are just there to attract you to switching but you may end up regretting your decision. What about "free calls"? are these 24/7 or just evenings & weekends? Is there a fee to receive these "free calls"? which in effect means they are not free at all! Do you need to use your landline during the day? If you don't then don't go for a deal that includes free calls during the daytime, this may save you some money.

What about your broadband speed? Do you need to download lots of big files like games & movies? If you just use the internet for browsing & checking your e mails then many providers will have a "lite" deal which will have limits on the amount of data you can download, but these will be fine for just browsing & e mail. Many providers are now increasing the speed of their broadband & "ultra" (60 MB or more) will become the norm in a few years, but do you really need this speed? The trick is to decide what exactly you need so you are not paying for services that you won't use.

Mobiles

Just as with phone & broadband choosing which utility provider is the best is not easy, there are a huge amount of "deals" being offered by lots of different suppliers & retail outlets. Rather than being sucked in by tempting advertisements it is much better to decide what exactly you are looking for first, then look for a deal that matches your criteria. For instance do you really need the latest high tech phone with all the gadgets & apps? Do you really need unlimited minutes, texts & data? Do you want to be tied into a long term contract of 18 months or more?

A good starting point is to look at your current bill, how many minutes & texts do you currently use per month? Look at the last 6 months bills & average out your monthly usage, you may find that 500 mins & texts is more than enough, so no need to pay for unlimited usage. Do you browse the internet on your phone? If you don't use Facebook or Twitter or watch video clips online then there is no need to pay for expensive data add-ons. Next decide what you want from the phone, do you need a high tech camera or video recorder? Do you want to listen to lots of music? Do you play games on your phone? The answer to these questions will help you decide the type of phone you require.

When you have decided on the type of phone & the amount of mins, texts & data you require then you can look for deals that match your requirements. The next big decision is whether you need to take a contract phone, where you receive a "free phone" with inclusive allowances for a monthly fee over a period of time, or whether it would be better to buy a phone outright & take a "sim only" deal with no contract. For the contract phone you will need to work out the full cost by multiplying the monthly fee by the contract term in months. You may find that it is better to purchase a phone yourself & obtain a sim card from elsewhere.

Gas & Electricity

You would think that choosing which utility provider you should use would be the easiest of all the utilities to fix, however this is definitely not the case. This is due to the mind boggling amount of different tariffs offered, even from the same suppliers! The government is trying to make it easier by forcing the big suppliers to make it easier to compare the tariffs of different suppliers. Already in place is the need for bills to provide annual usage figures, this means that it is easier to compare what your annual bill would be if you switched to a different supplier no matter what the particular tariff was. The next step is to get the gas & electricity suppliers to reduce the number of tariffs available.

In general the easiest way to choose which utility supplier is the best is to pick at least 2 comparison sites & input your annual usage figures, this should tell you which supplier is the cheapest for your particular circumstances. It is usually best to use one supplier for both gas & electricity as you will receive a "dual fuel" discount. However be aware that comparison sites only get paid if you switch to one of their recommended suppliers & they do not carry all of the suppliers. There are some independent suppliers not featured on comparison sites that may have better deals.

Customer Service

We have, so far, only discussed how to choose which utility supplier is the cheapest; however as with everything in life the cheapest is not always the best & might even end up costing you more money in the end. Good customer service is invaluable, from time to time things do go wrong & you need a company that will put things right ASAP without a fuss & with the least amount of inconvenience to you the customer. Do you really want to spend more than an hour on the phone to a customer service dept? Do you really want to be with a company that just treats you as a number & doesn't pass on its best deals, but saves these for new customers? You really have to think about this when choosing which utility provider to use. The best way to ensure you get good value with the best customer service is to use recommended suppliers, I'm talking about recommendations from existing satisfied customers & especially from independent consumer bodies. The most well-known of these in the UK is the "Which" consumer magazine. So when choosing which utility supplier to use for any service, you would do well to make your first port of call the "Which" magazine or any similar consumer organization.

John Mac is a Professional Network Marketer & Expert Author. He also helps people Choose Which Utility Supplier is the Best for Them. For More Info please visit http://whichutility.net