Alice Beer reveals her top tips for haggling that can help reduce your household bills by over £500

With broadband and mobile deals are set to rise by more than 17 per cent amid the cost-of living crisis a consumer expert revealed we should be haggling.

Speaking on This Morning, Alice Beer revealed her top tips for haggling that can help reduce your household bills by over £500 a year.

She said that although Brits tend to get embarrassed about haggling, a survey by the consumer group Which? has found that more than 500 people have talked their way to better deals. 

Alice suggested some tips including bringing evidence of better deals you’ve seen, pointing out any issues with the service and being polite to the salesperson.

She said: ‘This isn’t an embarrassing transaction. This is about negotiating your way to a better deal, we are customers, they want us. 

Alice suggested some tips including bringing evidence of better deals you’ve seen, always point out any issues with the service and being polite to the salesperson

‘I know we want their products, but they want us and they want to keep us.’

‘So you have to feel that power and then work out, what do I want and how am I going to get it?’

Speaking about broadband and mobile deals Alice said, ‘You have the power to walk away and go to someone else’.

She said: ‘Number one is do your homework, compare prices, there are so many search engines where you can do comparisons. Go on those sites and either print it off or write it down because when you make the phone call you want to have them in front of you, your going to use that as bargaining power. 

She went on to explain if you can’t get the price down you might be able to ‘downgrade your deal.’ 

Explaining further she said: ‘If you are on a mobile plan and you have loads and loads of minutes and gigabytes of data that you are not actually using perhaps you can change your plan slightly to being the price down. 

Her third tip was to think about the service you have had from that company and use it as a bargaining tool. 

She said: ‘Think about the service you have had throughout the year. Have you had to call people, have you had to complain? Has your service dropped out, have you been without power or broadband for a few days? Write all that down, that’s all bargaining power.’

Alice’s next tip was to make sure you speak to the right person on the right team when you call a company.

She said: ‘The right person on the right team, if when you speak to someone you can tell with in 30 seconds of a phone call with a company wether they are your type of person. 

‘If they are not the right person and you can tell you are not going to get anywhere with them just hang up and try another day.

‘You can also switch to speak to the retention team, they have the power so you want to get through to them and ask them is there anything they can do to bring down the price.

‘You can knock hundreds of pounds off your bills just by asking.’

Alice also mentioned it was important to be polite to staff and you can also haggle the price on others things such as house insurance. 

She claimed that it is important to ask why the price of something has gone up and adapt. 

She said: ‘Why has this gone up from last year, would changing the locks help, if I put window locks on would that bring the price down, there are lots of things that you can do to adapt the price.’ 

Alice also mentioned if you are nervous about haggling you can also speak to the company on their online chat.