If you ever find yourself with an interest rate on your account that is less than desirable then by all means call up the company you are dealing with and request a lower interest rate.
It is a very competitive world and a company knows that if they don’t satisfy your request you have the option of going with another company. Now they will have to spend more money on advertising and marketing in an attempt to attract more customers to replace those that have left. Everyone knows it is much cheaper to keep your current customers than it is to spend money for new customers.
Whenever you ask for a lower rate you want to make sure you have some type of leverage or bargaining power.
First of all call the company and have a very pleasant tone of voice. “Good morning this is Mr. Brown”. How are you today? Do you have my account in front of you? Great! The reason I am calling is to see if I can possibly get a lower rate.
Now you can throw in some small talk to establish rapport (that’s the same thing representatives from companies do when they call you with a new product or service they want you to purchase), and break the ice.
Next you want to let the representative know that you have been a customer in good standing for X amount of years, not to mention you always pay your account on time. If you have other accounts with their establishment you may want to mention those as well especially if they are substantial amounts of amount. A company would hate to see you pull your entire portfolio. It is better to earn some interest on your accounts than no interest.
Also bring up the fact that XYZ company is offeing you an interest rate of X% right now. They sure don’t want to see you go to the competition.
It is very important to stay calm and professional because if you become irate and agitate a representative they may decide that they don’t want to lower your rate just because. Now you in turn will respond, “let me speak to your supervisor”. They will put you on hold and relay the story to the supervisor and gain the supervisors support,(not always) because you are irate and unreasonable.
The supervisor will come back on the phone and back up what the representative has said. I am sorry Mr. Brown but we are unable to lower your rate at this time.
Now that representative will document your account and let’s say you call back two weeks later with the same request you have now been labeled a bad customer and the representative will think well there must be a reason why they did not lower the rate so I am not going to lower it.
So always stay positive and upbeat it is much easier to get your rate lowered. If they still say no, (which is unlikely), ask well what do I need to do to get my rate lowered? They may tell you to establish an excellent payment record for 6 months to one year, or they may tell you that you have not been a customer long enough.
Just remember always, always negotiate. Interest rates can be lowered.