Installation Preparation Article

[ZandarKoad]

I posted this first in the Installer's forum to get a feel for their response. They were all very cynical and pessimistic regarding the concept, which I took as a good sign (no open hostility).

I'm personally texting this domain name to every customer I have to install, the morning of the installation. So far only good as come from it.

Just thought I'd see what the general community thinks of the idea(s). Your feedback is appreciated!

Installation Preparation

Edit: The URL of the article is "InstallPrep.com". It's supposed to be easy to remember and navigate to.

 

[OSD771]

It's a cool article. I do hate having to move out TVs in every room. maybe ill have my sales guys hand this out prior to the install.

 

[Jimbo]

Mostly Common Sense ...

You would hope Subs would thing of this stuff ahead of time.

 

[Joe Diamond]

Pretty good list!

I might add that move in day is NOT the day to schedule an installation. If a customer has an idea where they want the dish located that is great...even better if there is already a dish present. But the installer cannot wait while the movers find all the AV equipment and the customer places it where it will be used. Any other day is fine but move in day is busy enough without dealing with the telco guy, satellite guy and the alarm installer.

Joe

 

[Hutch1814]

Pretty good list!

I might add that move in day is NOT the day to schedule an installation. If a customer has an idea where they want the dish located that is great...even better if there is already a dish present. But the installer cannot wait while the movers find all the AV equipment and the customer places it where it will be used. Any other day is fine but move in day is busy enough without dealing with the telco guy, satellite guy and the alarm installer.

Joe

TRUTH! I hated movers that thought it was a good idea to install on move in day. I actually had a customer 1 time schedule the install the day the old owners were moving out. Yeah, safe to say they cancelled after I pulled up and the new owners weren't there yet and asked why I couldn't wait until after 6 when they got the keys to do the install. After it was all said and done I believe they ended up with dish lol

 

[Hutch1814]

Mostly Common Sense ...

You would hope Subs would thing of this stuff ahead of time.

You would think Jimbo but we all know that famous "my house normally isn't this dirty, I've been sick, or I've been just really busy lately" person that really tries to make themselves believe their house really isn't normally dirty

 

[Jimbo]

You would think Jimbo but we all know that famous "my house normally isn't this dirty, I've been sick, or I've been just really busy lately" person that really tries to make themselves believe their house really isn't normally dirty

Amen ....
I get this EVERY day ...

 

[ZandarKoad]

Amen ....
I get this EVERY day ...

You have no idea how badly I wanted to put that in the article. "Don't bother giving lame excuses for your horrible living habits." I'm not trying to ALIENATE people here... I do that well enough in person, thank you very much! LOL

I personally love installing for customers who have everything in boxes, because it's faster. So long as they don't expect you to hook all their stuff up. I'm equipped with a small TV, so I assure them they need no TV.

 

[Claude Greiner]

Nice website, the issue is that these are things that the sales person needs to go over with the customer. You simply can't have the sales people pawn the customer off to your website and hope they are going to read it and actually follow through with everything that is on it.

I don't think I have ever been once to an install where the customer was actually prepared.

Honestly, you can probably break this down to 3 items...

#1 Get all the crap out from around your TV, such as pictures and decorations.

#2 Put the pets away. Not that we don't like your pets, but because we are tired of fighting with your pet everytime we got to go out the door and don't want to accidently let them out.

#3 Have all the TV's there. Its actually easier to install without the TV's there, but the customers don't know how to hook them up and it generates a service call when they get their TV's

 

[Satch0922]

I am having DTV installed Thursday. My plan was to remove all the old cable boxes (all using HDMI) and get them the heck out of the way. Should make it easier for the installer to plug in the coax, power and HDMI in each room. The article advises against doing that.

 

[Joe Diamond]

I am having DTV installed Thursday. My plan was to remove all the old cable boxes (all using HDMI) and get them the heck out of the way. Should make it easier for the installer to plug in the coax, power and HDMI in each room. The article advises against doing that.

What they are talking about is leaving all equipment as you intend to use it after the DTV installation. For example, if you still intend to use your cable company for internet service the installer needs to know this and wire around the coax that will be dedicated to internet....because there have been issues with diplexing internet and DTV; stuff like that. IF you are positive some equipment will not be used after the installation you should be able to just remove it without issue.

The other aspect of leaving everything connected is that it is therefore known to be working at the beginning of the installation. It should still work after the DTV equipment is installed. They don't want untested or previously damaged equipment placed for installation along with the DTV installation. Having a good surge strip available might be an exception to this.

Joe

 

[Sac79348]

I just had DTV installed yesterday and all I did was remove the dish eqiuipment out of the way and move the furniture by the tv away from the wall. My TVs are wall mounted and do not move away from the wall but since everything was already hooked up it didn't matter. Installer just had to connect the wires to the receivers and program it.

 

[bigjohnok]

I will not install service to a room with no tv's anymore, got hit with to many tc's over missing tv tags.