Hey Installers, has this happened to you?

[022266]

Just a gripe session from me, I get tired of going to customers homes and when it comes to pole mounts or custom work that needs to be done, they were told that its all FREE. ( hah )

ALSO, when you get done and are activating the customer completely flips out if they have to pay the $50 up front charge that D* charges to activate when you have Credit thats not so shiney! Then you get in a situation that you dont get paid for the install if its not activated.

Just wondering if anyone else has these problems from the sales people who set up your installs?

thanks for letting me gripe!

ROB

 

[lurch]

Yeah this happens alot!What I do for pole mounts is tell the cust. that my company charges 75.00 for it but if they give me 50.00 cash I pocket it and it saves them money so everybodys happy.As far as the non activation goes I usually get a refused activation number from my company so I still get paid.

 

[beast37799]

i do have to agree with u . but to be fair to customers i must say that dish ,voom and direct need to inform customers upfront what is included in free install and what is not . i do beleve most people wouldnt mind paying for poles ,in wall runs if they knew it would cost extra . but i do agree that dish direct and voom need to be foward about these things or decide to include it in the free install .

 

[RedVR6]

I agree. I am in the middle of a major problem getting a dish moved frm the roof to the chimney and it has taken 3 weeks to do so. Why? Because I am finding that the contacts I have spoken to are not communicating information that the consumer needs. Perfect example today was that I found out I need to pay $90 up front to have my dish mounted to the chimney and a letter from the landlord...no one has even mentioned that in the past 3 weeks until today when I finally got a supervisor on the telephone. I do not mind paying the money...let's just get my service back on. heh.

 

[022266]

Did 2 today that the sales people never mentioned about having to pay $50 for advanced billing w/ D* I solved the problem before wasting my time installing I called activation and had them check the credit before i began, they didnt have a problem with this.

Also, I started getting all my paperwork signed by customer before I even call to activate, just in case something comes up.

ROB

 

[Scorpion210]

The sat companies need to inform the customer better of what is actually included in the "free" install. It can be mis-leading.

 

[slacker9876]

Tight asses ... that is why I am on the Friends & Family installer package.

As in that is all I do is friends & family and I get either a few great meals or a bunch of free booze, which makes it hard to point anything! LMAO!

Jeez ... it is TV from space for crying outloud ... has everyone forgotten how cool that is in itself?! TV from 22,600, and it is better than anything cable can offer including VOD!

You guys should go out an point to the sky location and say "See the satellite?" when they reply no simply say that is why you cannot get the signal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Wayd Wolf]

I used to go through that all the time with DirecTV when I installed it. We were required to buy our own tripods, masts, flat roof platforms, etc. We were then instructed to up-charge the customer for $150 for any of the above work and 50% of the customers then cancelled on the spot. Of course, I don't plan on doing an eight foot mast mount on a steep pitch roof for nothing.

Dish Network has "solved" the problem by forbidding installers to up-charge at all while still making them eat the cost of the supplies.

 

[Stargazer]

Thats just like when I go to do the SuperDish upgrades and something comes up to where it will be a bit more difficult of an install. The installer does not know how hard the install is going to be and what is going to be required until he goes out to do the install. When the customer is told that the install is going to be free (or just $24.99) then the customer does not expect to pay more - period. They do not care to read the fine print where it says it is only for a basic installation.

 

[Claude Greiner]

Did 2 today that the sales people never mentioned about having to pay $50 for advanced billing w/ D* I solved the problem before wasting my time installing I called activation and had them check the credit before i began, they didnt have a problem with this.

Also, I started getting all my paperwork signed by customer before I even call to activate, just in case something comes up.

ROB

Been there, done that! Nouthing worse than having the customer flip out and make you rip everything out.

We even sometimes do the same thing with Dish, especially if we suspect they may have been a previous customer in the past!