Interesting Call to Retention...re ST

[tpayne105]

I called Retention tonight and asked about the question I asked all of you....Can we as current customers receive any specials as new customers do when they purchase the Sunday Ticket.

What I was told was that if you had the ST last year and have auto-renewed, you will be getting a letter (maybe some of you have it) that states for being a customer of ST, as a reward, you will have the choice of:

1. 24 free Pay per Views
2. A FREE regular receiver, DVR receiver, HD receiver or HD DVR receiver
3. Two months of the Platinum Package for free

She also mentioned to me the new HDDVR for Mpeg 4 will be out this fall and I could get that for free when it did as an option as well.

She also mentioned that she had no problem doing basically anything for me being a "Best Customer"....

She was very knowledgeable and helpful. I decided to wait to receive my letter, although she said if I don't get it for some reason, to call back and they would honor it, as she put all this in my account records...

Anyway, has anyone heard of this offer???

Thanks

Todd

 

[bonscott87]

Yep, people get this type of stuff all the time. All you gotta do is ask.

 

[Rocko Willis]

It is not uncommon to hear this. Several of my customers (people I have installed for) have asked the same questions. Just a couple of things to remember about DirecTV...

#1. The regular, everyday CSR's (Customer Service Rep) is limited to what freebee's they can give away. They will help with what they can.0

#2 You want really good deals? Talk to Retention Dept. Nuff Said.

 

[Jackm]

ST Deals

I have been a direct tv customer for almost two years - last year I had the college football package, but not ST...if I sign up for ST this year - are there any special deals out there? Thanks for the help...and is there a special number to call?

 

[maxamus1975]

To add to the conversation, yesterday I called the Retention Department to inquire about any deals D* was offering for the NFL Sunday Ticket. She gave me the usual blah bah about pricing. I told her I was interested in purchasing the ST, but did not want to pay $99.00 for the HD add-on. She put me on hold and said since I’m a valued customer (since 2000) she could offer the Superfan for half off. I told her I was not interested and just about to hang up. Then she said, D* would waive the $99.00 Superfan fee and throw in four months free HBO. I immediately said we have a deal. The Retention Dept is the best, last week they gave me a free HR10-250, just had to reup with them for two more years. I guess someone up there really does like me

For those who don't know the number for the Retention Department is (800) 824-9081

 

[geaux1]

Not sure what superfan is but that HD add on

sounds like a rip off, I love DTV but their whole HD things sounds like a rip and it will probably make me leave. I posted on the DTV HD thread about it. I am flabbergasted. I am not pissed as they are entitled to charge whatever they want. But i'm not about to pay for a "lease" of 400 or more bucks, hell, i'm not about to pay more than 5, to get an HD DVR and have them come hook it up with what I pay in service. If they won't cut me a deal, i'll change and if they won't cancel my ST I started paying for, i'll just wait till after football season and hold off on buying the new TV. Those prices the guy on the phone and on the web can't be the bottom line. I don;t knw what retention is but if they are the same folks I talked to when the installer wired my place wrong and they kept refusing to fix it (or better yet, I ordered a PPV, it did not work, called guy, he said yes, it did not go thru, I just turned it on for 10 p.m., I said no go chief, my kids don't stay up that late and he said too bad, you are still getting charged) on the regular number and I said fine, disconnect my service, they transferred me to some intelligent people. If that's who they are, I need their number.

 

[Jimbo]

sounds like a rip off, I love DTV but their whole HD things sounds like a rip and it will probably make me leave. I posted on the DTV HD thread about it. I am flabbergasted. I am not pissed as they are entitled to charge whatever they want. But i'm not about to pay for a "lease" of 400 or more bucks, hell, i'm not about to pay more than 5, to get an HD DVR and have them come hook it up with what I pay in service. If they won't cut me a deal, i'll change and if they won't cancel my ST I started paying for, i'll just wait till after football season and hold off on buying the new TV. Those prices the guy on the phone and on the web can't be the bottom line. I don;t knw what retention is but if they are the same folks I talked to when the installer wired my place wrong and they kept refusing to fix it (or better yet, I ordered a PPV, it did not work, called guy, he said yes, it did not go thru, I just turned it on for 10 p.m., I said no go chief, my kids don't stay up that late and he said too bad, you are still getting charged) on the regular number and I said fine, disconnect my service, they transferred me to some intelligent people. If that's who they are, I need their number.

1. Where ya been, theres info about all this all over the place.
IF you love your NFL like most peole with the ST, you know you really want it in HD.
Most of us paid for the SF ($ 100) the first year and have received it free since then.
I do agree that there should not be an extra fee, as I think the HD has nothing to do with the SF , but they would not have enough people sign up for just the SF stuff so they build the HD into the package.
D* ONLY makes money from the SF the ST pricing is done by the NFL , D* has no say about it, NFL tells them what to charge.

Where did you get this , Not paying $ 400 dollars for a HD DVR, if you have been with them as long as you say and are in good standing you should get a better deal than that.
You also have to catch D* at the right times , there are alot of different specials going on at different times.
If you want to cancel the ST they will do that as long as you call before the season starts.
Don't know what happened with the PPV thing, never heard of that, sounds like the installer didn't set up something right, I would call them and ask.
When was the install that went so bad ? You said you've been a sub since '95
are you talking about way back then ?
btw, you will get a lot farther by calling and talking with them vs getting on the phone and ranting . The phone # that you probably called is the basic # I am sure.
Try calling the Customer Retention line and see if that gets you farther.

CR # is 1-800-824-9081

Jimbo

 

[geaux1]

The PPV thing was fixed after the first line custoer servcie rep was a polite but non responsive moron, which I am sure he was just following a script so i don;t mean that to be personal as I don't know the guy, but it was fixed when I said very politely and not ranting that he had a chocie to either give me the 1.99 movie they messed up at a convenient time for free or lose my 130 a month plus packages buss., he said fine you can quite, so in amazement I said like any self respecting customer in the land of competition would do,disconnect it then. At which point I was sent to another operator who handled the problem. No oen was ever rude so if I gave that impression I apologize.

As far as install, I moved and had Tivo put in 2 years ago and they had to add extra lines and re-wire my new house, on one of three lines the connection was bad and for a long time signal kept going in and out, they would want to charge me to come fix it because I did not buy "insurance" which I called BS on that. Again, same nonsense. My simple response was why pay you insurance when TW or DIsh will come give me a new set -up for free, it just does not make sense for me? They said no, I said fine, i'll call cable or Dish, they transferred me to someone esle, problem solved. I'd rather keep DTV anyway so I was happy.

As to HD problems, where have I been? Hey man, I am looking for help. I have an HD ready TV but not a pure HD TV so the last time I looked into this was ages ago when no one had decent priced stuff so I did not care. Sorry, these issues were and are not obvious to me. As far as 400, I just called DTV regular number and looked on the web. I should not ahve to jump through hoops to get a deal in light of my customer standing, that other number they transferred me too kept giving me some number to call I never wrote down telling me pretty much qwhat you are telling me so it must be retention. But how much buss. do you think they lose from people that don't know or care about that system?

My point is I will not acceopt some deal where I get jacked for a fee in the fall for the new new system. I don't care about signing contracts, I love DTV's servcie and if theyr eally are going to get with joneses on HD i'll be happy to settle for whT i ehar is crap now and get the best later so long as I don't get hit for some 400 or 500 fee in exchange for just signing a contract, even if they try to jack me for ST and I cancel that in protest. Their standard servcie without ST was better than others IMHO even without ST so I can survive without that. The only deal breaker to me is if they never get decent HD service or I ahev to money for something I can get free from cable or Dish, I think DTV is better, bot not so much better to pay hundreds up front vs. free.

 

[BarBQd Iguana]

I just got off the phone with retention and they made me a good enough deal. My biggest problem was the $320 for ST and SF. ST is what has kept me with D* but couldn't bring myself to pay $320 for something that was far less last year. Anyway, they offered me ST/SF for $200 and a free HD upgrade withe the 5 LNB dish and receiver.

Maybe not the best offer I could have gotten but I felt it was fair so I jumped on it.

 

[newred5]

Called retention last night and asked if I could get the NFL Sunday Ticket offer for new customers even though I have been with D for 9 years. They gave me the Pemeir package free for 4 months for buying NFL ST for 4 payments of 69,99. I then asked if superfan was included in that , At first she told me no, but she said she would try a few things to see if it would go thru. After about 3 minutes she told me it was all set. So I got the Superfan free also. Nice customer rep , very helpful...

 

[Jimbo]

I just got off the phone with retention and they made me a good enough deal. My biggest problem was the $320 for ST and SF. ST is what has kept me with D* but couldn't bring myself to pay $320 for something that was far less last year. Anyway, they offered me ST/SF for $200 and a free HD upgrade withe the 5 LNB dish and receiver.

Maybe not the best offer I could have gotten but I felt it was fair so I jumped on it.

I think it was pretty close to that last year if you had to pay for the SF as well, like me.

Jimbo

 

[tg18083]

Are rewards to long standing customers more common with D* than with E*? Looked through the E* forum, and didn't see similar threads??

 

[wolfman]

I have no idea what E* does, but I have been with D* since 1998 and have received alot of free equipment and programming over the years. If you keep your account in good standing you can get some pretty good deals. You just have to get the right CSR which could require more than one call.

 

[High Technology]

Are rewards to long standing customers more common with D* than with E*? Looked through the E* forum, and didn't see similar threads??

My experience: ABSOLUTELY YES!

Been with both companies, and there is a night and day comparison. I had E* from 1997 through 2004. While I upgraded receivers several times with them (going from a 4000, to a 4700 for Dolby Digital, then to a 6000 for HD), I've only gotten any incentives from them in terms of getting new customer pricing on hardware after several calls and several layers of representatives. My subscription was always the full basic package with locals + 1 premium package ( + HD package once i went HD). Everything with them was nickel/dime... When I finally called to cancel and told them where I was going, they gave me the song and dance about what a valued customer I was, how disappointed they were to lose me, etc. While I hear they've gotten more realistic, I still don't think they are anywhere close to D*.

Got D* in 2004, and subscribed to the ST to get Giants in HD. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that the blackout rules applied to HD at the time (my bad), and found I couldn't get the NY teams in HD if they were on a broadcast channel in my area (this was before the NY locals were all in HD on the sats). Called D* and told them to either unblock the ST HD channels, refund the ST, or provide me with an antenna. Their immediate response was "how much would I conservatively estimate the antenna and installation would cost", and based on my $150 estimate they immediately posted a credit for that amount to my account -- no questions asked, other than I should call them back if the cost was going to be much more so they could perhaps recommend another option.

After about a year, I called to vent that the NY ABC HD station was currently suffering significant dropouts during one of the Sunday night Disney films (admittedly this only happened this one time, but of course I was HD-TiVoing the movie while my kids watched it). I explained that it was one of their favorite Disney films, and i had promised my kids that they would be able to watch it whenever they wanted since I was going to TiVo it. Their instant solution, without even hesitating, was that I purchase the DVD, and they would post a $25 courtesy credit to my account to offset for the cost of the DVD.

Please, I am not trying to touch off a D* vs. E* frenzy -- I made my choice, and while I don't like the HD-lite, I personally feel more comfortable where I am today.

 

[jeff piccolomini]

Just got off the phone with retention - got a free HD DVR for my ST renewal. Have been PO ed about the ongoing delays in the new HD DVR but this helps make it easier.

Also love this forum - would never have known these deals (or even the existence of retention) were available ! Thanks to all

 

[herkulease]

those who got the free hd-dvr did you have to pay the 19.95 shipping. I know its not much. I also had to do a 2 year commitment with 1 year of hd programing(4 months free)

i wasn't able to get them to budge on giving me super fan for free. wanted 229 + 99. but I'll try again with someone else to see if they can do something. long time directv subscriber just 1st time st sub.

 

[stickboy75]

those who got the free hd-dvr did you have to pay the 19.95 shipping. I know its not much. I also had to do a 2 year commitment with 1 year of hd programing(4 months free)

i wasn't able to get them to budge on giving me super fan for free. wanted 229 + 99. but I'll try again with someone else to see if they can do something. long time directv subscriber just 1st time st sub.

I also got the hd-dvr for 19.95, but I had them upgrade my other SD DVR to the interactive one, and they game me showtime and HD free for 4 months free

 

[jcdgoad]

I called customer retention to see if I could get a free dvr upgrade. The CSR was very nice. He said that I could upgrade for half off $50 instead of $99. I politely passed and asked if he could offer me anything else. He then offered to give me a $10 per month credit on my hbo subscription. I highly reccomend callin customer retention to see if they can give you something.

 

[jeff piccolomini]

those who got the free hd-dvr did you have to pay the 19.95 shipping. I know its not much. I also had to do a 2 year commitment with 1 year of hd programing(4 months free)

i wasn't able to get them to budge on giving me super fan for free. wanted 229 + 99. but I'll try again with someone else to see if they can do something. long time directv subscriber just 1st time st sub.

I got the HD DVR free with no shipping charges.

 

[George_T]

Called retention last night (been a D* customer since 1998). Asked the rep since I had been a long-time subscriber if there were any special deals on the Superfan package since I had already auto-renewed ST. Rep said that he could give me the Superfan package for free, no problem! He was very helpful and even tried to clarify for me whether or not live pre-season feeds of all games would be in the ST package this year (he was not certain but seemed to think that actually the internet site is reflecting that NFL Network was broadcasting live feeds of a few games in addition to showing replays of preseason games). I had already gotten a DirecTV DVR out of them for free in addition to $10/month off of my bill a couple of months ago, so I didn't ask for more. I've never have had any problems w/D* over the years.