E* Customer Service Ratings Drop

[Tom Bombadil]

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drm...166215,00.html

Dish Network renews customer service focus

By Joyzelle Davis, Rocky Mountain News
November 24, 2006

Dish Network became the nation's third-biggest pay-TV provider by positioning itself as a consumer- friendly alternative to the cumbersome bureaucracies of cable companies.

But as the company's leader recently pointed out, Dish is in danger of losing its edge.

"We're not rated No. 1 in every poll like we used to be," Charlie Ergen, chief executive of Douglas County- based Dish parent EchoStar Communications, said in a conference call with analysts this month.

Ergen was referring to two closely watched annual customer surveys: the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index and the J.D. Power and Associates residential cable/satellite satisfaction study.

For the first time in three years, Dish slid to second place in the -ACSI survey. In the J.D. Power study, Dish placed behind a cable provider or behind satellite-TV rival DirecTV in every region of the country.

Responsive customer service has always been a priority for Dish, which launched its satellite-TV network in 1996 and now has 12.8 million customers. Both Dish and larger rival DirecTV took off in the mid-1990s after positioning themselves as innovative alternatives to moribund cable companies. But after years of losing subscribers, cable providers have responded by investing billions to upgrade their networks.

Cable's digital programming tiers now offer the same breadth of channels and clear pictures as satellite, as well as technologies such as video on demand, phone service and high- speed Internet that satellite can't match.

Ergen "has to have something to differentiate Dish in the market, and that's service, service, service," said Steve Kirkeby, director of telecommunications and technology research at J.D. Power.

EchoStar officials declined to comment for this article. The company's actions, however, indicate that it's working to close the customer service gap.

In the past few months, EchoStar opened a 600-person call center, the company's 11th, in Texas and rolled out an automated speech-recognition phone system to answer calls faster. The company also created the position of executive vice president in charge of Dish's national installation and service network. It moved Chief Financial Officer David Rayner to the post in September.

Those efforts sliced into EchoStar's third-quarter profit, which fell 33 percent to $140 million. The quarter also was dragged down by tough comparisons with last year, when EchoStar benefited from a $73 million tax gain.

Dish's rivals haven't been sitting still. Next year, DirecTV will open a 1,000-employee call center in Denver. And cable rivals have put millions into hiring and training new customer service agents.

"Cable companies have invested quite a lot of money in getting better and better," said Jimmy Schaeffler, chairman of research firm the Carmel Group. "Hollywood today couldn't make a movie called The Cable Guy because it wouldn't have the same meaning any more."

Keeping subscribers isn't the only reason for EchoStar's refocused attention on customer service. Ergen's comments on the analyst call came in response to a question about whether the company has considered offering Internet-based phone service as a bundle with its video service.

Ergen replied that while EchoStar isn't interested in offering a phone service just now, there may be "other things that we certainly can sell them" in the future.

But in order to do that, he said, "you better be really good at your customer service to begin with."

[Sweepy1]

If this mean that I will not have to put up with someone who can barely speak engrish ......Fantastic.....Can we employ a few more Americans please

[Poke]

Well sad thing it almost every company is doing this cheap labor. All compaines should us American labor.

[boba]

Well Rupees are cheaper than dollars but is the loss of customer satisfaction worth the savings?

[Eric_C]

What kills me is "Hi thank you for calling Dish Network, my name is Christina"

Sure it is...

It sucks too because for the first time in a long time I feel I am finally getting what I paid for.

I think Dish's package, pricing, and equipment with the new 622 is top notch. I always had some issues with cable, the phone company, DTV, Voom, etc.

I just find it annoying I have to educate them when I call. I called the other day to add HD locals for Detroit because Channel 62 was having problems broadcasting the football game in HD. I spent an hour on the phone after telling the CSR that they come off of 118.5 and I don't get 118.5. All I wanted her to do is confirm my dish would not support it. Instead she told me it should work and we spent all kind of silly time going through flip card tech support.

Eventually I was transfered to Level II who's first words out of her mouth were "Well they come off of 118.5 and you don't have the right dish"

I still think we get an excellent value for our $71 per month...although another CS issue is going to creep up since I've been sitting here for 4 hours waiting for the Dish tech to show up and install my Dish 1000+, they have 17 minutes to get here.

[johnny q]

If this mean that I will not have to put up with someone who can barely speak engrish ......Fantastic.....Can we employ a few more Americans please

I had the same experience recently, its very frustrating when you pay a premium for a service and when tech support is needed, the person on the other end cant even articulate.

With the experiences I have had recently, the news of Dish's ratings going down is no surprised and well deserved.

JQ

[aquaman67]

I'm sure if they do a few more "audits" their customer satisfaction numbers will improve...

[long_time_DNC]

A fairly recent experience with CS was actually pretty good. The CSR I spoke with spoke english plainly, so no problem there. Getting a service call wasn't a week or two away, but only 2 days, and the tech showed up in the second hour of a 4-hour window, which was pretty good as well as the fact that he did a site survey for a 24" dish for 129 after he fixed the initial problem I'd called about. I was actually pretty pleased with the customer support overall. I'd probably give it a 9 out of 10 rating.

But that was within the past month. There have been calls back in February and April that I would have to say were nightmares...

[nitstalker]

Ive actually been shocked lately as well... in the past couple months I have had to call three times, and each time I got an american!!! Once was to *cough* move, once was because all the channels werent activated correctly, and the third time one of my recievers needed to be hit cause all the channels went red...

I was surprised I didnt have to deal with habib from hindustan.

This compares to calls earlier in the year, that heck even when I had a tech here to install my 622 wanted to throw the phone cause of the "language barrier"

Hopefully Dish will realize that a few dollars more in labor, paying americans to do this work will go much farther in keeping us happy, and in retention by people not just giving up and going with another provider.

[Digital Dude]

You don't call tech supportto buy a strawberrt squishy!