Is it up to us - or should operators recommend the best tariffs?

I recently noticed that the mobile phone portion of my broadband, tv + fixed line bill was steadily creeping up from the £20-£30 I had been used to up to £60 and in one month £80. It got me thinking that maybe I was not on the best tariff (the standard SIM-only £10 per month). One quick and painless call to my operator and it turned out that as most of my calls were either to landlines or off-net it made a lot of sense to take a £15 per month deal which has subsequently halved my bills. It started me thinking - who is responsible for working out what tariff we should be on - the customer or the network?

I was further reminded of this when having dinner with a friend recently - a long term customer and fan of his mobile network, he travels a lot for work and spends £100 - £150 per month for his mobile, he freely admitted that he never checks his bill but has noticed his direct debit has been steadily increasing as had his travelling - had he ever tried calling his operator to see if a better deal was available? no, 'has not got the time, too much hassle and surely they would tell me if I could do better?'

err.. no, why would an operator actively seek to reduce a customer's bill and hence reduce their value to the network? he argued that he would be more likely to stay with his network as a result - hmmm... he has already been with them for many years - and is probably safely labelled in some database as a 'barnacle', 'cash cow', 'loyal lover' or some such descriptor... signifying that he can be relied on as a steady flow of income. He further argued that if his network made the effort to call him he would be more likely to become an advocate for them - boring his friends with stories of how much he loved his network. On this point I was forced to concede that that is a positive, given that every survey I read points to word of mouth being the best form of promotion. Surely for this reason alone networks would do well to make proactive healthcheck calls to customers who could be on a better tariff....

I reflected further that the only time my last network ever called me was the day after I requested a code so that I could port my number to my new network - asking me to re-consider my decision - err... 'sorry but that is a bit late in the day', I already had my new phone, new contract and was very happy thank you very much, and this belated call has just reminded me why it was time for a change!!

so has anyone had similar experiences? am I being unfair in my judgement of the mobile networks? am I asking too much of them?