DISH overseas CS

[ncramer]

I attempted to have the DVR feature activated for my 211's and it took THREE phone calls to do it. Each time I got an overseas rep with broken English, yet a very American name. When i first hooked it up, it didn't work. So I called back and got another overseas rep. Still couldn't fix it. I called back AGAIN and finally they transferred me to a tech service agent in the US. He told me what had apparently happened was they activated the additional hard drive feature on my 622, DESPITE the fact i explicitly told them each time i was calling about my 211. He said he couldn't "de-activate" the feature on the 622 but he would credit me back for it. I then emailed the ceo@... address to complain once again about piss-poor customer service and actually got a response from a guy with his own email address and phone number w/ area code. His response:

We appreciate your email. I wanted to send you this letter to let know that we are definitely hearing some complaints regarding our over seas offices. I would recommend using this email address to handle issues that our regular front line agents seem to be struggling with. Let me know if you have any additional questions for me.

Thank you,

i was shocked to say the least the guy encouraged me to bug him personally with CS issues. i guess they are aware their overseas agents suck. Hopefully they will begin to do something about it.

 

[pfan1981]

as much as I dispise "fred" and "carol" overseas CS is not goin away. Imagine what they would have to pay americans to work these jobs. it's a harsh reality that we must face. I always call the # and push tech support, it normally gets me to americans.

I bundled with Frontier Comm (my phone company) and am getting the top 250 with HD, 622, 612, plus my landline for $55/mo for the rest of 2009 at which point you downgrade to top 200.

pfan

 

[dmendenjr]

as much as I dispise "fred" and "carol" overseas CS is not goin away. Imagine what they would have to pay americans to work these jobs. it's a harsh reality that we must face...

With the current employment climate out there, you might be able to find people willing to work these jobs for minimum; of course that is still more than "Fred" or "Carol" are making. If the problem is that minimum is too much, then maybe we shouldn't keep raisin... scratch that, stepping over that invisible boundary that shouldn't be crossed.

 

[ncramer]

Yeah i don't think it's going away either unfortunately. i used to have a brokerage account with Ameriprise and last time i called them about something i spoke to "Larry" and "Jenny" who obviously spoke English a second language. i figure if companies like Ameriprise and E-trade have them and have more affluent clientele they need to keep happy are doing it, then lowly Dish who is the "value leader" sure as hell isn't going to abandon foreign call centers anytime soon.

 

[pfan1981]

Another bonus of bundling my DISH with Frontier is you cannot call dish directly. You first call frontier and they get dish on the line, always an american too! Frontier also has the call back feature, where you don't wait on hold, they'll call you back when it's your turn. Gauranteed csr that speaks english (real english) and paying $55 for DISH and landline......why didn't i do this sooner???

pfan

 

[Jim S.]

But if you're getting Dish through your phone company, you probably aren't able to take advantage of Dish's own promotional offers. Plus, not everybody's phone company has competent CS staff.

 

[kstuart]

By the way, the usual observation that these CS reps do not understand English is not true. Speaking with a thick accent is not the same as lack of comprehension.

The problems arise because they do not understand the product. Some of these outsourcing firms support several different companies' products at the same time. So, the CS rep may have just finished a credit card service call, just in time to answer your hard drive activation call. Since Dish Network does not operate overseas, none of these people have Dish receivers. They just choose responses off a screen.

When Dish had in-house CS reps, most of those people had Dish receivers at home, or at least used them briefly at the office during training.

I was in India over 20 years ago, and most people (in big cities) spoke English well back then, long before the Internet...