Its TEAM SUMMIT week!

[Bruce]

Just talked to someone else who went who echoed what our other reporter reported back, that 98% of everything there was Boost Mobile related.

I have to ask……why?

Live Pay TV is still profitable ( revenue is shrinking every year, but still profitable), but Dish (and everyone else) is running out of time to fix it.

Boost Mobile has been nothing but failed launches ( the Post Paid debacle) and has lost 1.7 Million since Dish had taken over.

And before anyone says, Boost is the #4 Provider, while technically true, Boost has 7.4 Million, the #3 Provider, T-Mobile, has about 120 Million, that is just in the United States.

A little bit of space between #3 and #4.

Hughes the same issues, now under 1 Million subs total, Star Link is growing, even with the higher price, now over 1.4 Million in the United States, 2.7 Million in the world, $6.6 billion in estimated revenue and expected to turn profitable this year.

 

[Teehar]

This is the new Charlie Ergen lol

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I have to ask……why?

I don't know why, I just report it.

 

[Ray_Clum]

Sorry I wasn't around Friday or most of the weekend as my dad was rushed to the hospital Friday Morning, and I went to be by his side. He was released yesterday and I took him back to his house last night

Hopefully the old man is doing okay and is well on the road to recovery.

 

[telstar_1]

Nobody wants to attend a "fix things and start to wind them down" tech & business convention. Rather, they want to see presentation of new greener pastures.

 

[That American Girl]

I'd be MORE moved if the CSR's would stop selling Boost when my guys need it to hit office and tech goals. NOTHING more aggravating than being pushed to sell it and then half the customers either already bought it on their sales call or were offered Boost and declined

I am beyond fed up with being required to shove that crap down peoples throats even when they've said no on the last 10 calls.

 

[HipKat]

I am beyond fed up with being required to shove that crap down peoples throats even when they've said no on the last 10 calls.

I just hate it when Dish puts this on the techs as a major part of the job and then they get to the house and the CX has already either been offered or in some cases signed up.
It was the same in the old days with routers on Dishnet/Hughes jobs.

You guys have too many other things to do than try to be salespeople

 

[tjboston5676]

I just hate it when Dish puts this on the techs as a major part of the job and then they get to the house and the CX has already either been offered or in some cases signed up.
It was the same in the old days with routers on Dishnet/Hughes jobs.

You guys have too many other things to do than try to be salespeople

Plus it's much easier to have an in person conversation while you're working than to bring it up on the phone when they are usually already pissed off lol.

 

[dvrexpander]

I just hate it when Dish puts this on the techs as a major part of the job and then they get to the house and the CX has already either been offered or in some cases signed up.
It was the same in the old days with routers on Dishnet/Hughes jobs.

You guys have too many other things to do than try to be salespeople

This is why I stopped being an installer years ago.. I was not a sales person I was there to install and that was it. Once they started pushing sales even HDMI cables I gave it up.

 

[HipKat]

This is why I stopped being an installer years ago.. I was not a sales person I was there to install and that was it. Once they started pushing sales even HDMI cables I gave it up.

I honestly like the sales. It's not junk they're offering and I had a trainee last month who quit and called me to say he loved the work but hated feeling like he was being forced to sell tuff they didn't need to people/
I asked my guys if they felt that way and some did.

You know, people buy things they don't need all the time. I moved into my house almost 3 years ago and there is a ton of stuff I didn't have then and most of it, I didn't need.

No one NEEDS surround sound. Older people have hearing aids or they can just turn the volume up but it sure does sound better. No one needs TVs wall-mounted, but it sure looks better. Very few people need Mesh routers, but for people who use the internet like I do, they sure make it better.

In my last year as a tech, I pulled over $14K in commissions from sales and not because I was some Kirby vacuum salesman, I just loved making things better for people than they had before I showed up. That was always my motivation in every job. In some way, something would be better for them after I left, even if it was just resizing the screen or programming a remote.

I get the hesitancy to sell. I deal with it now with a number of my crew, but it pays the bills, and it makes things better in some way top the customer.

 

[Bruce]

No one NEEDS surround sound.

I absolutely need surround sound.

I do not spend my money on expensive cars ( have two Fords) because I find it a waste of money, but Video and Sound Equipment , I go all out.

Still buy 4K Discs because I want the absolute best possible, same reason why I stream, real 1080P/4K/DV/DD+/Atmos for Television Content.

No one needs TVs wall-mounted, but it sure looks better.

Saves some space, so I need it.

Very few people need Mesh routers, but for people who use the internet like I do, they sure make it better.

Do not use Mesh, but currently use 4 Routers in Bridge Mode, also wired, that way, I get the fastest/best signal in all of my house (4500 sq ft).

I get the hesitancy to sell. I deal with it now with a number of my crew, but it pays the bills, and it makes things better in some way top the customer.

This is where we will differ the most, who are you / someone else, to tell me what is better for me and my home.

If I get a service like Dish or anything else, that is all I want, because that is what I ordered, I did not order a Cell Phone, Sound Bar or Internet Service, in today’s world, I can do my own research and have.

The biggest problem with upselling is once the customer says no thank you, they keep pushing and pushing, until you are so frustrated, you say forget it, cancel everything.

Another problem with legacy services, is they make everything a total PITA, like cancellation, where the CSR ****** the customer off so much ( like demanding the LNB off the Dish to be sent back) it guarantees that customer will never come back.

I have had Dish, DirecTV and Comcast at different times, from 1995 to 2015, each time dealing with a CSR, especially cancellation, was a nightmare.

The last time was dealing with Sirius, called ( did try the chat first, it said I had to call in during the chat), cancelling one of the cars because I barely drive it, after about 45 minutes , including being on hold, I was so frustrated with the constant offers and them basically calling me stupid for canceling, because I will really miss the programming in that car, I cancelled both accounts.

When I cancelled YTTV, went on the site, click, done, yet by making everything so easy, might explain one of the reasons they are the only Live TV services to grow in subscribers every quarter, now the number 4 provider in just 7 years at over 8.3 Million.

It was such an easy/pleasant experience , when I go back to Paid Live TV this September, I will consider them.

 

[Universe93B]

I find it highly annoying if dish techs are still required to sell items. When I got my receiver upgraded to the Hopper 3 last week, that tech didn't try to upsell anything. He was nice, informative, replaced the dish outside, Hopper and Joeys and left. Did they finally stop the upselling during house visits?

A few years ago (sometime before covid I guess), I had to call dish out to the house and the tech kept asking if I wanted the HDMI cables and surge protectors and also some other speaker system I guess. It would be fine if they asked once and I said "nah, i'm good, thanks" but that wasn't the end of it. The entire appointment had the repeated question of "Are you sure you don't want these superb high quality HDMI cables and surge protectors" and it was quite annoying and uncomfortable. Almost like I'm letting the tech down and I'm a bad customer.

 

[tjboston5676]

I find it highly annoying if dish techs are still required to sell items. When I got my receiver upgraded to the Hopper 3 last week, that tech didn't try to upsell anything. He was nice, informative, replaced the dish outside, Hopper and Joeys and left. Did they finally stop the upselling during house visits?

A few years ago (sometime before covid I guess), I had to call dish out to the house and the tech kept asking if I wanted the HDMI cables and surge protectors and also some other speaker system I guess. It would be fine if they asked once and I said "nah, i'm good, thanks" but that wasn't the end of it. The entire appointment had the repeated question of "Are you sure you don't want these superb high quality HDMI cables and surge protectors" and it was quite annoying and uncomfortable. Almost like I'm letting the tech down and I'm a bad customer.

No we haven't stopped selling they are pushing harder than ever. If your tech didn't offer there's a few reasons. He could already be at goal and just wanted to get in and get out. May have assumed you wouldn't buy anything so didn't try, or just doesn't care and won't be there much longer if he doesn't care.

Im actually getting really close to losing my job after almost 12 years because of sells. They tried to get rid of me two months ago but my boss fought for me. And I had a good month last month so for now I'm safe. But one month of bad sales and I'm gone. It's absolutely ridiculous that dish is letting a customers ability to buy product determine if I get to keep my job. I'm with hipkat, on that I like selling to help ppl out and make extra money, but my area is so poor it makes it extremely hard.

 

[navychop]

I still remember a tech trying to sell me a sound bar. I showed him my 7.1 HT. He tried, briefly, to tell me the sound bar was better.

 

[HipKat]

I find it highly annoying if dish techs are still required to sell items. When I got my receiver upgraded to the Hopper 3 last week, that tech didn't try to upsell anything. He was nice, informative, replaced the dish outside, Hopper and Joeys and left. Did they finally stop the upselling during house visits?

A few years ago (sometime before covid I guess), I had to call dish out to the house and the tech kept asking if I wanted the HDMI cables and surge protectors and also some other speaker system I guess. It would be fine if they asked once and I said "nah, i'm good, thanks" but that wasn't the end of it. The entire appointment had the repeated question of "Are you sure you don't want these superb high quality HDMI cables and surge protectors" and it was quite annoying and uncomfortable. Almost like I'm letting the tech down and I'm a bad customer.

Two different techs. The latter may have felt you weren't going to buy anything, cherry-picking, perhaps, so why try although that is self-destructive unless he's a retailer. For In-house and RSP's Sales is a metric and not hitting that metric could result in losing his job.

The other guy was just an ass. Pestering people isn't going to do anything.
I did a ride-along with a guy who sold two Linksys Mesh WiFi 6 routers today. Why? The customer was telling us she had devices that could only connect to the 2.4 Ghz network but there was no way to get into the Gateway and split the 2.4 from the 5Ghz by renaming one of them.
That was a need for her that probably isn't for other people. But the offer for the routers came up because she was complaining about her issues with that connectivity.
THAT's how it's supposed to work.
She would have never known we did Mesh Routers if the tech didn't tell her. Or surround sound, or surge protectors or whatever.

She could have gone to Best Buy and had the Geek Squad come out, with a $150 bill just to knock on the door and then again if she ever needed service on them or we do it for free.
People in rough neighborhoods or who feel they could be a target are pretty happy we can put up cameras and again service them.

Some people make it a much bigger issue than it needs to be - on both sides.
The entire process should just be a conversation, not repeatedly pushing someone.

 

[HipKat]

No we haven't stopped selling they are pushing harder than ever. If your tech didn't offer there's a few reasons. He could already be at goal and just wanted to get in and get out. May have assumed you wouldn't buy anything so didn't try, or just doesn't care and won't be there much longer if he doesn't care.

Im actually getting really close to losing my job after almost 12 years because of sells. They tried to get rid of me two months ago but my boss fought for me. And I had a good month last month so for now I'm safe. But one month of bad sales and I'm gone. It's absolutely ridiculous that dish is letting a customers ability to buy product determine if I get to keep my job. I'm with hipkat, on that I like selling to help ppl out and make extra money, but my area is so poor it makes it extremely hard.

I have guys that are mostly around Peoria - a sucking black hole for sales. And they get no leeway from the top down. I end up spending more time with them than other techs just to get something sold so my boss isn't on my and the tech's back.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Come on folks please keep it on topic and not on each other.

 

[telstar_1]

When I dealt sat I was in it long-term for the customer, not someone they'd see at the install and then never again. I found it demeaning for DiSH to be telling me not to expect to make much doing DiSH because DiSH is just a "door opener" for you to get your foot in there and sell other stuff. At least I controlled my own business and wasn't a hired tech. They systematically drove dealers out of the business and supplanted them with hired techs pressured to sell. I don't think I need to tell people to run rather than consider a DiSH tech job.

There's this technique, but I really just preferred the old fashioned way of gaining trust first:

Foot-In-The-Door Technique: How To Get People To Seamlessly Take Action

I don’t think anyone’s yearning for the ‘good ol’ days’ of door-to-door encyclopedia salespeople, or the intrusive peddling of vacuum cleaners. That used to work. Today, we have Wikipedia and Amazon prime to meet our need for knowledge and vacuum cleaners, respectively. Even though the...

www.forbes.com

 

[tanman]

As a long time Radio Shack store manager I really empathize with you installers .When I began one of the things we were trained on was additional add on sales.Some suggested add ons were easy "here's some batteries for your portable tape recorder along with some blank tapes" then "that tape recorder needs periodic cleaning-let me show you our head cleaners".We would play games seeing how many accessories we could think of for an item.
Then at some point the company decided we needed to offer cellular TO EVERY FREAKIN CUSTOMER! My store ( I ran a company store but I was there at the opening so I always considered it" my "store) had generally done well with cellular over the years but that was difficult.It takes a very good salesperson to flawlessly and painlessly make that transition without irritating the customer and without making the salesperson feel like a failure when they are told "no" constantly.
I'm sure it was all a numbers game to RS("one additional cellular sale times 4500 stores equals") just as it is to Dish.
Old RS joke "My book about Radio Shack is going to have two Chapter 11's".(Because they did).
PS Not seeing surround sound on Maslo's hierarchy of needs haha Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
PPS HipKat-you would have absolutely rocked at Radio Shack!

 

[TheKrell]

PS Not seeing surround sound on Maslo's hierarchy of needs haha Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

OMG I can't believe anybody referenced that! Wow. This is what I mean by my comment (in another thread?) that we're all typically exotic. We are.