Is Dish even trying to retain its customers?

THIS JUST IN!!! PRESIDENT OBAMA HAS PASSED TV REFORM. FREE TV FOR ALL!!!

In other news: Mitch McConnell vowed to stop President Obama TV reform bill and replace it with a coin box on every TV which will allow those who have the means to pay instantly for the TV they want to watch. McConnell was quoted as saying. "This free TV ride will end soon!"

Ghpr13:D
 
I have always looked at this as trying to figure out the motivation of the seller. If you can get a killer deal as a new customer, but existing customers can't get anything for loyalty. It's obvious that the marketing goals of the company is to get new customers. They either have no interest in existing customers or there is no competition. Since they have a killer deal for new customers, there must be competition. That narrows their motivation down to no interest in existing customers. With a service strategy like that, they are encouraging churn.

Since it seems that the entire industry has the same business model (not a lot of originality here), they are implying that if you are a value shopper (a nice way of saying someone who is trying to get the best price for a product), with everything on balance, you'll be changing providers whenever your contract expires.

This drives the cost of providing service for the provider. Someone has to pay for the killer deal. As has been mentioned earlier in this thread, if the providers took a more balanced approach, they could reduce churn and maybe make more profit. The only problem is that nasty competition thing again.

What do you do to differentiate yourself from the competition? The product is a commodity. *D's ESPN is no different than *E's ESPN. They can't offer different programming packages because the programming suppliers are deathly afraid of only getting paid by the subscribers who actually watch their channels.

They can't differentiate with service. It seems that none of them have figured out how to provide good customer service and all have settled for attempting to not piss off their customers bad enough for them to change.

All they have left is price. Since the programming suppliers charge pretty much the same to everyone, the only place to go is with new customers. Hence the mess they're in now.

When your contract is up, you need to evaluate what's available and change providers if there is a better deal. That's what the providers want. They have proven this with their pricing strategy. On the other hand, they hope that you're too lazy to shop and change, because they make a lot more money after the deals expire.

This all boils down to greed being the primary driver in the whole process. That, coupled with marketing departments stocked with none to clever marketers, and management whose idea of a long term goal is making it until lunch time has made this mess.

Personally, I am staying with Dish because there is too much effort to change. I will take their silly price increases and 'fees' until it reaches the point where I decide that pay TV is no longer worth the price. I am lucky that a $50 antenna in my attic picks up dozens on local channels.
 
Slow. Even the HR24 I have is slow. Audio dropouts (very annoying). Clunky remote. Can't do RF and IR at the same time. No OTA tuner. The AM21is a POS that can't even scan. No easy way to toggle through guide lists. EHD replaces internal and can't be moved to other receivers. Annoying bonk bonk sound when you press a key it doesn't like. Go to the bottom of a menu and down key gets the "bonk" response instead of going to the top. There is more but I can't remember now because I gave up on it and went back to my 722.

Not DVR related but DIRECTV is missing a whole bunch of national HD channels too.

Looking for more like this if anyone else has a user "feel" comparison. (Maybe I should start a new thread.... hmmmm).
 
Looking for more like this if anyone else has a user "feel" comparison. (Maybe I should start a new thread.... hmmmm).

D* DVRs only record two channels at a time, as compared to 3 with the 622/612/722 or 4 with 722K/922 (with optional dual OTA module).
Need an extra box for OTA (as mentioned prior)
No TV2 RF output
No BBCAmerica HD, AMC HD, or Epix, among a few lesser others. Compare channel line-up.
 
Slow. Even the HR24 I have is slow.
folks who have moved from E* to D* say the HR24 is as fast as a 722
Audio dropouts (very annoying).
huh? Cant say I've ever had that issue
Clunky remote.
now me personally find the E* remote clunky...but then again I'm use to a D* remote

No OTA tuner. The AM21is a POS that can't even scan.
I will agree with you on that. But right now there is only one station that I'm missing (a DT3 chanel)

Annoying bonk bonk sound when you press a key it doesn't like. Go to the bottom of a menu and down key gets the "bonk" response instead of going to the top.
you can disable that. First thing the tech showed me how to shut it off :)

Not DVR related but DIRECTV is missing a whole bunch of national HD channels too.
a whole bunch huh? OK take out the movie channels and the "whole bunch" that are missing most people have a couple they would like (I'd like TruTV but I heard its just stretch-o-vision)

But there are channels in HD that D* has that I and others enjoy. I know of a fair amount of people who came to D* just for the reason they wanted their RSN in HD all the time. Not part time or even no time.
 
Personally, I am staying with Dish because there is too much effort to change. I will take their silly price increases and 'fees' until it reaches the point where I decide that pay TV is no longer worth the price. I am lucky that a $50 antenna in my attic picks up dozens on local channels.
There isn't 'too much effort' to change. I just did and if you know what you want up front it would be good. So far the grass is greener on the other side (and cheaper for a while).
 
D* DVRs only record two channels at a time, as compared to 3 with the 622/612/722 or 4 with 722K/922 (with optional dual OTA module).
Need an extra box for OTA (as mentioned prior)
No TV2 RF output
No BBCAmerica HD, AMC HD, or Epix, among a few lesser others. Compare channel line-up.

Yeah, I will miss AMC HD, but not until Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead start. <Crosses fingers> Maybe D* will get that remedied in the next few months. Lifetime Movie Network is also just SD, but the Mrs. won't care much about that. When I did a side-by-side of America's Top 200 and Choice Xtra, D* offered a lot more, though.

Specifically, I would just like to know how everyone's experience with the DVR and user interface are on D* vs. the 722 with E*.
 
I get what the OP is saying, I switched from Dish to Direct on 1/13/11, I'm a former Absolute sub and Dish customer for 10+ years. I know it costs less to keep an existing customer than to acquire a new customer, Dish doesn't seem to comprehend this. (In fairness, Dish isn't the only Fortune 500 corp that has this problem, just that it made me make a decision about keeping or switching providers). The ending of Absolute was handled in typical Dish fashion, the follow up calls from retention were pretty much useless and nobody was sure "should I stay or should I go" because you couldn't receive a definitive answer. I'm not mad about that, I just wanna know what my pay tv's gonna cost and what I'm gonna get: pretty simple questions, IMO. And yes, at least to me, it is about economics.
After having Direct and using an HR24 for a month (after being used to a 501, 921, and finally a 622), it's been a learning curve. I don't notice the HR24 being much slower to respond than the 622, and I agree that having to go from 3 tuners on a 622 to 2 on a HR24 would be a problem for most subs (I've got a Pal DTV dvr hooked up for ota so I wasn't using the ota on the 622). I wouldn't have a HR21 (this is the only Direct dvr I've used before) because it is real slow & clunky compared to a 622. I'm getting used to the Direct interface, it still seems somewhat strange to me but I expected that after all the years with Dish. I think the picture quality is slightly better (HD) on Direct (I rate it as follows: blu ray is 10; ota is 9.5, Direct is 9.00, Dish is 8.50--I think Direct has slightly more "depth", therefore a somewhat better hd picture. My comparison was based on the local news on KPRC-2, the Houston NBC affiliate, except for blu ray, which I consider the benchmark.) I haven't noticed any more audio or video dropouts than with Dish so I figger that's a wash. I did notice a little less rain fade with Direct than with Dish, I'm guessing that's probably due to a stronger signal with Direct than what I was getting on the 129 stations with Dish, I'll see if this holds up after our normal thunderstorm patterns in the spring and summer. Since it is about economics to me, I'll see what my options are in two years when my Direct commitment is up; either way I'll be paying more than what Absolute was costing.:mad:
 
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Since it seems that the entire industry has the same business model (not a lot of originality here)..... The product is a commodity. *D's ESPN is no different than *E's ESPN. They can't offer different programming packages because the programming suppliers are deathly afraid of only getting paid by the subscribers who actually watch their channels......
.....

Yes indeed. Everyone essentially gets a hefty tax for ESPN whether they watch it or not.

In the long run this business model will only serve to drive customers away from all these providers. They are pricing themselves out of business and if they don't find a way to offer more granular options I predict there will be more of a move to OTA antennas and IP streaming like netflix. I don't like that Dish is forcing me to buy 200 channels that I never watch just because the few that I do are in a package that requires it. This whole thing of raising the rates then saying you get free Starz, which I have no interest in, is a prime example. As you say, Dish isn't the only one doing it. They risk having done to them what VoIP did to land line phones.

The only way for the customer to mitigate this is to go through the pain of switching every couple of years or simply unplugging all together.
 

nps/aad/sobongo

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