922 receiver weirdness

[swangdb]

Last night I turned on my tv and the Dish 992 receiver was trying to locate the satellites. After about an hour, it still hadn't found all of the satellites. I tightened all of the cables inside the house, unplugged/plugged in the receiver, checked the dishes outdoors (not blocked I think) and finally called Dish. They told me it's not connecting to one satellite and they scheduled a service person to come work on it a few days later.

I left the tv and receiver on for a few hours after the call and eventually, the 922 rebooted and came up. It appears to have all of the channels. System Info said it was "Good."

I guess I'm going to look at the outdoor cables this afternoon, see if any are loose or frayed. Maybe a cable has degraded enough to work off and on.

If it's still working tomorrow, I guess I'll call Dish and maybe cancel the service visit.

What else could cause the receiver to not connect to all satellites for about four hours if not a cable problem (or a blocked dish)? Could there be a problem with the receiver?

I'm moving in few months and I was planning to upgrade to a Hopper, I'd hoped my current system would work until then.

 

[navychop]

Any chance the dish was knocked slightly out of alignment? What are your signal strengths?

Yes, it could be failing. You may have to decide if you want another ViP922 or move early to the Hopper system.

 

[swangdb]

The Dish is in the back yard, on a pole in the ground, held in place by concrete. No vehicles can get back there. We haven't mowed the lawn yet this year. We've had a lot of rain recently. I don't think any of us have knocked it out of alignment.

I'll check the signal strengths tonight.

 

[swangdb]

A Dish technician came by and replaced the cable between the dish and the house. It had a short which I guess was an intermittent short. Problem solved!

 

[swangdb]

The technician was a sharp guy, he solved the problem quickly. THEN, he brought in a box of things to potentially sell me, hdmi cables, power strips, Sling adapter, other stuff. He seemed kind of embarrassed and pointed out he was required to do this. I didn't buy anything. The whole thing seemed kind of lame.

Later, I took a telephone survey from DISH and one of the questions was did the technician offer to sell me tv accessories. I wonder just how much money Dish makes trying to sell stuff to customers at the end of repair visits.

 

[Bobby]

Back in the 60s when I was a telephone installer, it was required to try to sell the customer extension phones, color phones, princess phones, and extension cords. The only time I ever got sales is when the customer asked me what an extension phone or color or cords would cost. My boss used to get upset with me. I used to tell him if I wanted a sales job I would have been in the sales department, it was cleaner and you made more money..... So, the moral here is that what goes on today is nothing new....

 

[lucky86]

I think the better way to approach the sale is to identify a need. Screen cleaner or maybe a damaged hdmi cable or the lack of a surge protector etc. I would have probably just brought it up in conversation and if someone does buy something, it's something that will benefit them.

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[Scherrman]

The sale of accessories can be a huge pain but a lot of companies like to push them hard because they are profitable. There is generally a large profit margin in accessories. It wouldn't surprise me if they sell a decent amount in the right situations. They should be able to sell a surge protector to anyone that doesn't have one already since every flat panel TV should be plugged into one.

 

[ds2600]

The sale of accessories can be a huge pain but a lot of companies like to push them hard because they are profitable. There is generally a large profit margin in accessories. It wouldn't surprise me if they sell a decent amount in the right situations. They should be able to sell a surge protector to anyone that doesn't have one already since every flat panel TV should be plugged into one.

People like to think that their $5 power strip from Dollar General provides just as good security as the GE surge protector with the 12 outlets, USB ports and $400,000 warranty.

 

[jarvantgroup]

The sale of accessories can be a huge pain but a lot of companies like to push them hard because they are profitable. There is generally a large profit margin in accessories. It wouldn't surprise me if they sell a decent amount in the right situations. They should be able to sell a surge protector to anyone that doesn't have one already since every flat panel TV should be plugged into one.

Everyone should be able to purchase insurance from HealthCare.gov, or cookies from every Girl Scout that knocks on the door, or service from every Lawn Doctor salesman offering a green lawn, or vacuums from that Rainbow vacuum cleaner salesman. The point isn't whether or not they need what we are offering. If a person is not interested or doesn't have the money, we can't continue to accost them any further. That can easily turn a pleasant installation experience up to that point into something else altogether. A customer shouldn't feel overly pressured to buy something they are not interested in or cannot afford simply to 'keep our numbers up'. If I see a need at someone's home, then I offer it. 30-40% of the time they bite off. The remainder that doesn't, I just let ride. I can't afford getting a bad CSAT by pressuring a customer. A bad CSAT equates to a much bigger hit to my income than SHS adds to my income.