I have both Dish & DTV & I enjoy both services. I watch live programing on Dish primarily & use DTV for live sports not covered by Dish & whole home DVR(I'm still in the pre-hopper "stone age" with 2 ViP722k's & 1 ViP211k) for recorded shows.
If You Dont Like Dish Perhaps Its Time To Switch
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Sounds like they did something on your birthday cake.
I understand your point. It's not completely unreasonable. There's a grain of truth in there. However, I think there are a few factors that maybe you're not taking fully into account:
1. Many of the folks who complain are under contract with Dish and can't afford to, or don't want to, pay an EFT. So they are sort of more or less stuck. This includes not only new subscribers in their first two years, but also folks who have sprung for HD upgrades or the Hopper or whathaveyou and had to sign another commitment to go along with whatever they upgraded to (Maybe figuring upgrading would make their experience better, and later finding out that it didn't).
2. A lot of people in general are of the opinion that all of the major television providers are bad, just in different ways. Some folks are probably kind of dissatisfied with Dish, but don't want to go without television, and think the local cable company, Directv, and FIOS (where available) are even worse.
3. Some folks have very limited television provider options. Maybe there's no cable or FIOS out in the sticks, a giant tree blocks their line of sight for Directv, and it's either Dish or nothing.
4. Directv wants something like $300 upfront from people who don't qualify credit wise. A lot of people don't have $300 to hand a company upfront for television service.
5. Let's take your typical American family. Maybe Dad doesn't like Dish, but mom and the kids love it. Dad doesn't want to rock the boat and cause family strife by switching. Having a subpar television provider may be better than risking a divorce.
6. Sometimes people sign up for Dish to get particular channels or watch particular shows or sporting events, and all indications are that they'll be there, they're in the channel listing and everything, than Dish gets into a dispute over 10 cents extra they might have to pay for the very channel that makes you pay them $65 a month or whatever. I'm sure subscribers in that situation are justifiably pretty annoyed. And the annoyance gets even greater when they see big increases in programming package costs and equipment fees (Just wait till 2013). They might say to themselves "Dish feels they can charge me $10 more a month, even though Dish won't pay 10 cents more a month to my favorite channel so I can keep watching it.".
I am just saying, things aren't always as simple as they seem. They are plenty of reasons someone may have some issues with their television provider and still not want or be able to switch right away.
Also, the hassle involved with switching providers can be a big disincentive for people. They sometimes are tempted to do it and then think "I'm going to go through a bunch of crap and in the end just wind up with another provider where I pay too much for too little, as might as well stick with what I've got and avoid the hassle, unless it gets absolutely unbearable.".
direct over billed me several months in a row back in early 2008. month after month they said they would refund the money. they never refunded me anything and when i called to ask about my refunds they were always rude. i was over billed 10-20 bucks a month for 4 or 5 months straight.
royrdsjr said:
Exactly my situation.
Add to that Uverse.
I've had dish and Direc from their inception.
I have always preferred dish until the Voom mess
To me, customer service is not really consistent
For either dish or Direc. Some years Direc is better other years dish is better.
Right now at the moment Uverse customer service is better than both sat companies, in my opinion.
All services have their good points.
So glad we have this forum to share our thoughts.
I have all current equipment. Hopper very cool. Love auto skip. Whole home better on Direc.
My first installation was with an Echostar receiver. The entire thing back then, came in two large boxes. To aim the dish, I had to use a small compass out of a crackerjack box.
Yes there was Echostar back then, and Dish was a small extension only in name. My entire setup was completed July of 1994.
I had Comcast, and my neighbor had DTV, and my brother had Verizon. Today they are all Dish Customers!! Go Dish!
2:
Always liked Dish,they were the lil company that could.The Charlie chats made me feel like the customers really counted.I still really like Dish and prefer them to any of the competitors but,at times it seems as if they have gotten too big and lost some of their mojo.They had the greatest customer support bar none back in the day.It has really nose dived since then.Thank goodness for Dirt,that restored my faith in customer service.If they would quit getting involved in these multi million dollar lawsuits and focus more on service they could perhaps surpass Dtv in subscribers.
Yeah, I miss the Charlie Chats. We shouldn't have dissed him, we should have appreciated that he was doing them at all.
I have generally at the least understood the big picture when Dish does stand their ground, often even supported it. But you make a great point. What if all their CSR's were as good as the DIRT team. If people had a problem it got resolved or at the least answered correctly like DIRT does. Would that be worth paying a little more? Would people think twice about switching more than some do now? If their website was less prone to mistakes, and maybe conveyed more directly, when changes are going to be made? We usually know, but most probably do not. Very good customer service can go a long way, maybe even sustain a little higher price. Good post.
