It took a while but I am proud to announce that Rogers and I have come to a mutually agreed upon iPhone deal. Yes, it took threatening to cancel all of my services (which I was prepared to do), 3 hours on a Sunday morning, and a long text document to help keep my facts straight, but I did it.

It all started with this tweet from @brundlefly last night. I had to give it a try. In the process, this is what I learned…

1. Remain patient and keep your facts straight.

2. You’ll waste a good amount of time until you can convince them to transfer you to the customer care team for last ditch retention.

3. Make sure you mention how much you pay to them monthly for all of your services combined – you’ll need to be over $150/m to make them take notice.

4. Don’t hang up… they will try to make you hang up with annoying music, long hold times, and a very static-y line. Find your happy spot and hang in there.

5. Escalate to a manager whenever the negotiation gets stuck.

6. Remain polite but turn up the heat and frustration throughout the conversation where appropriate. As soon as things seem to be moving along the path you need make sure you switch back to polite, calm, and appreciative mode.

7. If they try and get you off the phone and suggest you go into a store to work out a deal with a “specialist” face to face jump all over them. I used the line: “If they can’t help me can they cancel all my services for me on the spot so I can walk out and over to the Bell store?” This made the negotiation start to rock and roll for me.

8. If nothing else – make sure you know what your ideal package is. The conversation will be confusing and may take some creativity on the part of the customer service rep, but Rogers want to keep you as a customer – especially if you are locking in for 3 more years just as fresh new GSM competition is coming to Canada.

At the end of the day I was able to get the same deal as @brundlefly and have the phone shipped to me within 3 business days. It’s not for the faint of heart, but if you’ve been a good Rogers customer for a number of years and have forked over your hard earned cash, you owe it to yourself to try and get a fair iPhone deal. It’s also nice to know that when push comes to shove, Rogers was willing to step up in order to keep me as a happy customer. Thanks Rogers… I’m glad we can continue to be friends.