DISH says Give Customers What They Want

I do not pay for HD and never paid the HD Free for Life fee. And I do receive HD. I get bills by mail and don't auto-pay. Guess I'm one of the luckly ones.
 
I do not pay for HD and never paid the HD Free for Life fee. And I do receive HD. I get bills by mail and don't auto-pay. Guess I'm one of the luckly ones.
Did you pay the $99 upfront fee for HD for Life, or do you have Dish America?
 
We pay about $80 a month top250...own our equipment...paid the $99 for HD for life or it was like $10 a month extra...auto pay saved $5.00 a month since we have no phone line connected. If they want to make me real happy! Let me watch on my Roku 2XS, let me have a la carte for channels we really watch. Nat Geo, Discovery, History, HGTV, DIY, and a few others
 
Dish is giving customers what they DON'T want. More FEES.

Sent from my iPhone 4S using Forum Runner
 
Did you pay the $99 upfront fee for HD for Life, or do you have Dish America?

There was a shell game with Platinum HD package a few years ago. I think it was through that that I started getting HD for free.

TheKrell posted back in 2010, "Those of us who discovered (via this forum) that Platinum became free a while back when it had only 7 mostly worthless channels, we added it. So, for the same $10 HD add-on fee, we got HD + Platinum. Then, when HD went "Free for Life", we got it automatically. Then, if we wanted, we could jettison Platinum and save $10/mo."
 
Giving customers what they want?

- 24-month contracts with huge ETFs if you cancel for any reason, even if they get rid of your favorite channel
- Constant programming disputes and lost channels- sports fans in several markets don't get any of their local teams' games
- Advertising free HD for life and then not giving you HD at all if you don't pass their credit check
- Advertising free installation and not giving it to you
- Raising rates
- Putting channels that are in lower tiers on other providers in higher tiers to force customers to trade up (NBC Sports Network, MSNBC)
- You decide to cancel service after your contract is up? You pay them $20 to ship back their equipment.
- No secondary market locals
- Trying to charge some customers extra when Dish's equipment, which Dish owns, fails or malfunctions in some way, keeping customers from getting the service they pay for, and Dish comes out to fix it.
- Weather cutting off signals.

Customers really, really clamor for all that stuff. Cable does *some* of the same things, and some other bad things besides, but cable isn't really giving customers what they want either. The whole industry is not very customer friendly. That's why more and more people are "cutting the cord" and not paying for television at all. It's mainly just we sports nuts who need our fix hanging around. ;)

Meanwhile, Dish employees are screwed left, right, and sideways. Consistently voted one of the worst companies to work for. You should read the stories on how badly these guys are treated. Customers are treated great by comparison.

I mean, look, Dish isn't all bad, and it's all relative. But a PR campaign centered around "Dish says Give Customers What They Want" is pretty absurd. It just highlights that no one in the industry, including Dish, is really doing that. You can exaggerate in a PR campaign, but you've got to make it kind of plausible. How about "Dish: Providing an Alternative to the Cable Monopoly"?

I mean, that, to me, is the real draw of Dish. If cable gets out of hand with rates or treats you badly, you've got somewhere else to go. In the old days, it was the local cable monopoly or nothing (Unless you live in an area with good OTA reception). Now companies have to compete to attract and retain customers somewhat, and Dish and Directv started to make that possible when they brought in the 18 inch dishes and satellites stopped being expensive 10 feet tall monstrosities that you couldn't install in an urban or suburban environment and that few could afford even if they had the space and were allowed to do so by local ordinance or zoning.

That was Dish's appeal to me. When Comcast raised my rates beyond my ability to pay, I could tell them to shove it for a while and still watch my favorite teams with preferential new customer rates for the first year.
 
Giving customers what they want?

- 24-month contracts with huge ETFs if you cancel for any reason, even if they get rid of your favorite channel
- Constant programming disputes and lost channels- sports fans in several markets don't get any of their local teams' games
- Advertising free HD for life and then not giving you HD at all if you don't pass their credit check
- Advertising free installation and not giving it to you
- Raising rates
- Putting channels that are in lower tiers on other providers in higher tiers to force customers to trade up (NBC Sports Network, MSNBC)
- You decide to cancel service after your contract is up? You pay them $20 to ship back their equipment.
- No secondary market locals
- Trying to charge some customers extra when Dish's equipment, which Dish owns, fails or malfunctions in some way, keeping customers from getting the service they pay for, and Dish comes out to fix it.
- Weather cutting off signals.

Customers really, really clamor for all that stuff. Cable does *some* of the same things, and some other bad things besides, but cable isn't really giving customers what they want either. The whole industry is not very customer friendly. That's why more and more people are "cutting the cord" and not paying for television at all. It's mainly just we sports nuts who need our fix hanging around. ;)

Meanwhile, Dish employees are screwed left, right, and sideways. Consistently voted one of the worst companies to work for. You should read the stories on how badly these guys are treated. Customers are treated great by comparison.

I mean, look, Dish isn't all bad, and it's all relative. But a PR campaign centered around "Dish says Give Customers What They Want" is pretty absurd. It just highlights that no one in the industry, including Dish, is really doing that. You can exaggerate in a PR campaign, but you've got to make it kind of plausible. How about "Dish: Providing an Alternative to the Cable Monopoly"?

I mean, that, to me, is the real draw of Dish. If cable gets out of hand with rates or treats you badly, you've got somewhere else to go. In the old days, it was the local cable monopoly or nothing (Unless you live in an area with good OTA reception). Now companies have to compete to attract and retain customers somewhat, and Dish and Directv started to make that possible when they brought in the 18 inch dishes and satellites stopped being expensive 10 feet tall monstrosities that you couldn't install in an urban or suburban environment and that few could afford even if they had the space and were allowed to do so by local ordinance or zoning.

That was Dish's appeal to me. When Comcast raised my rates beyond my ability to pay, I could tell them to shove it for a while and still watch my favorite teams with preferential new customer rates for the first year.

You forgot to add: raising equipment prices on Hopper equipment and Dvr fees the same year you hiked the programming price just 3 months earlier. The old bait and switch technique : Get people hooked on the low price for a 2nd hopper for $7.00, and then jack it by twice that amount, after everyone upgrades to them.
 
The old bait and switch technique : Get people hooked on the low price for a 2nd hopper for $7.00, and then jack it by twice that amount, after everyone upgrades to them.
File under the too good to be true and buyer beware departments.
 
Yes, price increases make everybody scream and shout. BUT, Dish's biggest mistake was not charging more for a second Hopper in the first place.
 

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