Pricing Update from Dish Network

[chicagonettech]

We have three receivers, all 722 w/DVR. The new pricing drove us up almost 25%.

After looking at the pricing announcement in the first post of this thread, I contacted DN via e-mail [ceo@disnetwork.com] and actually got a call back from Sean Shaffer in their customer retention department.

In my e-mail I brought up the fact that we had, in spite of what two different customer service reps told me, never received any advance notification of any price increase - no flyer, no e-mail, no notification, nothing printed on our statement. We have all of our statements on file for the past two years and there's nothing in them.

I also brought up the fact that we owned all of our equipment. We have since they went into business and you had to purchase your equipment.

We discussed the fact that there should be a different pricing structure for owned equipment vs leased equipment and also discussed the fact that, depending on where you go on the "new" website, many of the prices are very much outdated - with some references to a pricing structure that has not existed for more than 4 years.

He has agreed to forward the following on to Charlie for future consideration and action:

1. No one should ever be subject to a 25% price increase in one fell swoop.

2. They should revisit the pricing structure and have a lower pricing structure for those who purchase their equipment. In my case, we have purchased every receiver off of eBay for under $200.00. We don't want to pay a lease or rental fee on them and we don't want to pay maintenance on them.

3. They will revisit their website and correct the invalid pricing information where it is incorrect.

4. They will look into carrying TCM in HD. When he asked whether it was "worth watching old movies in HD," I explained that TCM HD had already been deployed in several cable markets; that TCM HD was significantly superior to standard defination TCM; and that many of the movies TCM is now showing had already been scanned and cleaned up or were, under the oversight of Warner Brothers, in the process of being scanned in HD, cleaned up and there is already a significant improvement in the quality of the TCM HD channel vs the standard def TCM channel.

Overall, it was a very good conversation, lasting more than 30 minutes and not at all one-sided.

Here's the bottom line: Don't just complain about the price increased in public. Send an e-mail. If a low-level customer service rep responds with a boiler plate responce, RESPOND, with additional detail.

Ask them to have someone in management call you to discuss your account - ESPECIALLY if you have been with them since the beginning!

They are willing to listen and, from the sound of the conversation we had, it appears as if they may be willing to revisit the pricing changes implimented on 1 Feb 2010.

DON'T JUST COMPLAIN - DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

[rdinkel]

Good job, Chicago!

[rdinkel]

Chicago,

Based on your email, I decided to send my own as follows:

"RE: Account #

Dear Sirs:

Although I have not received my new bill yet, I have been following the changes closely on
www.SatelliteGuys.us

where I am a Pub supporter.

Wife and I are very pleased with our Dish service. We have been with you since the BUD days of Tracker receivers. We do not plan to leave Dish, but feel like the new price structure unfairly targets us for about a 25%, no-notice, price increase.

When several of us met with Charlie and senior staff in Denver at Team Summit last Spring, I sincerely felt that you valued our feedback and interest in the continued success of Dish Network. That is why we devoted time at personal expense to participate in the SatelliteGuys session. So, let me now pass along my observations on your new price structure:

• Background:
o We have six HDTVs in our home (Four directly connected to HDDVRs; two small TVs running SD-only off coax feeds from the HDDVRs).
o Dish has never paid even a dime (as Obama would say!) to send a tech to our home; I have done all installs and upgrades through the years; and have purchased all dishes, LNBFs, and switches (including DPP44) at retail (not on eBay).
o Have also always had our receivers connected to phone lines and gone to the expense of connecting every receiver to the Internet—as Dish requested.
o Until recently, we purchased all of our receivers, as well. But when you started charging the same each month to use owned or leased receivers, I shifted to leased units whenever I upgraded equipment.
o Now I have three leased HDDVRs (one 722k and two 612s) and one owned 622.

• Response to Price Increase:
o I was looking forward to upgrading to the 922, but instead am now downgrading.
o When word of your planned Feb 1 price increased spread, I called and changed the owned 622 to inactive status on my account so as to avoid part of the new, excessive price increases on HDDVRs. (Could not rationalize paying that much for an owned 622 maintained in a guess bedroom.)
o At the same time I looked for other ways to offset your new charges: dropped multi-sport package and superstations that I would have otherwise kept.

• Recommendations:
o Encourage customers to take full advantage of what Dish has to offer: lots of HD programming and HDDVRs throughout the house.
o Continue to encourage customers to select your top programming package by continuing to include DVR account fee in AEP (or drop AEP price accordingly to offset account DVR fee).
o Charge half as much each month for use of owned receivers.
o Do not charge extra for DRV receivers (compared to non-DVR receivers) since you are already charging an account DVR fee.
o Many of us have also always had our receivers connected to phone lines and the Internet—as Dish requested; grandfather the monthly credit for those connections.

• Consequences:
o High-end customers will feel that their trust and commitment to Dish has been violated; a nominal annual price increase is expected, but they know it is not “right” to totally change the pricing structure after customers have already established their video architecture and have equipment in place.
o Many customers will downgrade their equipment and/or programming to stay within budget; Dish will experience lower overall revenues and higher churn.

I would be happy to speak to someone in management about the above, if you would like to discuss this further.

Sincerely,"

[DefDude]

Chicago,

Based on your email, I decided to send my own as follows:

"RE: Account #

Dear Sirs:

Although I have not received my new bill yet, I have been following the changes closely on
www.SatelliteGuys.us

where I am a Pub supporter.

Wife and I are very pleased with our Dish service. We have been with you since the BUD days of Tracker receivers. We do not plan to leave Dish, but feel like the new price structure unfairly targets us for about a 25%, no-notice, price increase.

When several of us met with Charlie and senior staff in Denver at Team Summit last Spring, I sincerely felt that you valued our feedback and interest in the continued success of Dish Network. That is why we devoted time at personal expense to participate in the SatelliteGuys session. So, let me now pass along my observations on your new price structure:

• Background:
o We have six HDTVs in our home (Four directly connected to HDDVRs; two small TVs running SD-only off coax feeds from the HDDVRs).
o Dish has never paid even a dime (as Obama would say!) to send a tech to our home; I have done all installs and upgrades through the years; and have purchased all dishes, LNBFs, and switches (including DPP44) at retail (not on eBay).
o Have also always had our receivers connected to phone lines and gone to the expense of connecting every receiver to the Internet—as Dish requested.
o Until recently, we purchased all of our receivers, as well. But when you started charging the same each month to use owned or leased receivers, I shifted to leased units whenever I upgraded equipment.
o Now I have three leased HDDVRs (one 722k and two 612s) and one owned 622.

• Response to Price Increase:
o I was looking forward to upgrading to the 922, but instead am now downgrading.
o When word of your planned Feb 1 price increased spread, I called and changed the owned 622 to inactive status on my account so as to avoid part of the new, excessive price increases on HDDVRs. (Could not rationalize paying that much for an owned 622 maintained in a guess bedroom.)
o At the same time I looked for other ways to offset your new charges: dropped multi-sport package and superstations that I would have otherwise kept.

• Recommendations:
o Encourage customers to take full advantage of what Dish has to offer: lots of HD programming and HDDVRs throughout the house.
o Continue to encourage customers to select your top programming package by continuing to include DVR account fee in AEP (or drop AEP price accordingly to offset account DVR fee).
o Charge half as much each month for use of owned receivers.
o Do not charge extra for DRV receivers (compared to non-DVR receivers) since you are already charging an account DVR fee.
o Many of us have also always had our receivers connected to phone lines and the Internet—as Dish requested; grandfather the monthly credit for those connections.

• Consequences:
o High-end customers will feel that their trust and commitment to Dish has been violated; a nominal annual price increase is expected, but they know it is not “right” to totally change the pricing structure after customers have already established their video architecture and have equipment in place.
o Many customers will downgrade their equipment and/or programming to stay within budget; Dish will experience lower overall revenues and higher churn.

I would be happy to speak to someone in management about the above, if you would like to discuss this further.

Sincerely,"

Extremely well written and well thought out, could be too logical and fair to get any results. I also sent one too, I took a different approach that is somewhat different from most of my posts and threads. I also suggested the logic of us equipment owners being less expensive to them. I told him or her, that my bill was going up over 30%+. I even agreed to sign a waiver to not ever use DHPP, you can buy a new 211k ever 18 months or so for the $6 a month fee. I also mentioned the increasing amount of negative threads and posts on this web site. Maybe Scott can start a sticky to get a better focus on this email option and possible get some momentum and eventually some relief for those of us with the biggest price increase.

[Stargazer]

$6 is a hefty price increase in a one year's time. Period. $3 is high enough in itself. $1-2 is acceptable but over a period of 10 years would add up quite a bit if they done that every year. This is my opinion but many will agree, many may disagree. From my past experiences, people would start looking for other service over a price increase of $5 or more especially if they had a smaller programming package. This is for receivers though and those with that many televisions are probably going to be less likely to complain and Dish knows this.

Television service is just getting a bit expensive.

[mrschwarz]

13% for 2 receivers doesn't sound right.

You're right. I mis-remembered the percent. It should have been 12%, which is still an awful large increase. I had a 722, 522, 211 and AEP. Here are the details:

Increase:
$12 - 522 from $5 to $17
$6 - New DVR fee (used to be waived with AEP)
-$3 - AEP price reduction
-------
$15 increase. My bill before taxes was $125.

15/125 = 12%

I am going to email the CEO address, too.

[anchovie]

Here you go. Anything look fishy? New billing on website finally posted.

Gold HD 10.00
HD Receiver 17.00
Service plan (15/0) 6.00
Top 250 w/Locals 62.99
DVR Service 6.00

Loyalty Offer -10.00
Receiver Credit -5.00

Tax 2.81

Total: 89.80
Previous Total: 88.09
Two 722/both connected to phone line

[ts7]

Television service is just getting a bit expensive.

GETTING more expensive?!

I can't believe how much people (myself included) are willing to pay for television service. It wasn't TOO long ago that you paid a LOT of money for the TV itself, but your programming was FREE. If you were fortunate to live in a large market, you had a LOT of options - being in the Chicago area - prior to OTA channels going pay/shopping/foreign language, we had something like 10 channels and the programming was probably better than what we have now. Sure - I may now have 20-30 times more channels but I still don't watch more than maybe 10 or so on a regular basis.

NOW we pay more in a year for the service than we do for device(s) to watch it on!

[MikeD-C05]

COME ON ALA CARTE!

[mrschwarz]

Here you go. Anything look fishy? New billing on website finally posted.

Gold HD 10.00
HD Receiver 17.00
Service plan (15/0) 6.00
Top 250 w/Locals 62.99
DVR Service 6.00

Loyalty Offer -10.00
Receiver Credit -5.00

Tax 2.81

Total: 89.80
Previous Total: 88.09
Two 722/both connected to phone line

While the $15 credit is nice, it is also quite temporary. Actually it looks like you had a larger increase than me. My bill only went up $15. It looks like yours is going up almost $17.