Buyers remorse about getting 1 Hopper vs 2 Hoppers?

sparc

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Jul 24, 2006
1,721
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I was talking to the tech who replaced my hopper the other day and he said there's been more customers deciding later on that there's too many conflicts with just one hopper in their system. So, they're having to go back out and add a 2nd hopper to these installs.

Seems like one more Dish misstep in the making where customers aren't getting sold the right sized system.... even noticed a few posts about this on the forums here
 
sparc said:
I was talking to the tech who replaced my hopper the other day and he said there's been more customers deciding later on that there's too many conflicts with just one hopper in their system. So, they're having to go back out and add a 2nd hopper to these installs.

Seems like one more Dish misstep in the making where customers aren't getting sold the right sized system.... even noticed a few posts about this on the forums here

I don't see this as Dish's fault. Unless they drill down into the viewing habits of individual accounts before recommending a specific setup based on a household's viewing habits (which would be disturbing IMHO), they're never going to know what a customer needs better than the customer. I personally went from a 722 and 722K feeding three TVs (4 sat tuners and 3 OTA tuners) to 2 Hoppers and 1 Joey. It took some persistence, but I knew that 1) I didn't need a 4th outlet and 2) 3 tuners would not be enough given how much the old system was used.

The one exception is if a customer wanted an additional Hopper, but Dish refused because of the 1 Hopper 1 Joey policy. It would be interesting to see how many people did not get an additional Hopper because they did not want to pay the additional $100 up front.
 
Yup.

Brand new Dish customer since this past Sunday.

Hoping the tech shows up to replace a Joey with a Hopper today... Still hasn't called to confirm time :/

Free for first one.. $200 for second.

To me, It seems too easy to disrupt the viewing of another person.

And while Prime Time Anytime is awesome, it only leaves two tuners available for the rest of the house to battle for.

If they could add the ability to pick which 4 channels you record on a given night for PTAT, that would help a lot.

Ie. Monday my 4 are ABC CBS NBC FOX.
Tuesday, my 4 are CBS CW NBC A&E

Etc

So, wife gets a Hopper to record her PTAT and whatever else, and my son and I will get another and his Joey so we know we won't disturb her.

I do think the literature is misleading somewhat, but may not have been intentional.

Record ABC CBS NBC FOX and two channels of your choosing! Oh, bythe way, the rest of the house will have to watch one of those 6 programs.

Yes, 3 tuner system for whole house. But, PTAT uses one tuner for the 4 recordings, and then there are two left for everyone else.

Should just be more clear. Maybe a nice matrix lol
 
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I was talking to the tech who replaced my hopper the other day and he said there's been more customers deciding later on that there's too many conflicts with just one hopper in their system. So, they're having to go back out and add a 2nd hopper to these installs.

Seems like one more Dish misstep in the making where customers aren't getting sold the right sized system.... even noticed a few posts about this on the forums here

How can it be!? Dish did their research and found that people didn't use more than 2 tuners at a time on their previous 2 tuner DVRs.
 
When I changed over to dish I was polite but persistent on. Two hopper/one Joey set up for the above reasons. Love the system but two hopper/one Joey made the most sense. I have the Joey (bedroom) connected to a hopper in the basement so conflicts dont occur and then the other hopper in the living room

When Two hoppers can connect to each other that will be great!
 
I tried telling everyone 2 months ago before the hopper even came out that 3 tuners where not enough, and everyone jumped on my back saying I was bashing Dish.

I see your tech did mention that they where installing lots of second hoppers, I find it hard to believe that there are lots of people willing to pay $199.

The real question is how many of those second hoppers are being installed for free due to customer retention to stop customers from cancelling?
 
How can it be!? Dish did their research and found that people didn't use more than 2 tuners at a time on their previous 2 tuner DVRs.

well what i'm saying is that their research could still be right. Dish isn't "selling" the system properly and what's happening is that some 2 Hopper customers are actually getting sold the wrong 1 Hopper system. They might have had 4 tuners on their old equipment and still expected 4 tuners with the new equipment.

I'm not at all saying that Dish is underestimating the demand for 2 Hoppers. I'm saying these 2 Hopper customers were wrongly sold a 1 Hopper system in the first place.

That's the huge challenge for Dish making sure the 1 hopper customers get sold 1 Hopper and the 2 Hopper customers sold 2 Hoppers. Otherwise what happens is unsatisfied customers or they have to start making some easy upgrade concessions for a 2nd hopper.

Funny thing as Claude mentioned that there is a $199 barrier for new customers to get a second hopper, so these customers might be only going with 1 hopper due to price and not realizing the consequences.

I have no idea how many customers are doing this either, but it was interesting that it already came up as an issue with the average tech. Dish may have to make it cheap to add a second hopper even soon after the original install. It's a workaround, but it seems expensive to have to do two installs rather than get it right the first time.
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Their research is wrong.

The whole issue is that the second hopper costs money, PERIOD! The second you tell customers the second hopper will cost them an out of pocket fee, you kill the entire sale for 95% of customers out there.

So inturn you get sales people going around pushing this garbage (IMHO), and making people think this is all they need and never even go as far as to mention the fact that a second hopper could be required or is even an option.

I have been doing Dish Network sales for almost 15 years now, I can tell you right now that the limitations of the number of tuners is not even being told to customers. Their may be a disclosure required to be read to the customer, but I doubt the customer even understands what the disclosure means.

Its the same thing we used to go through with customers who wanted to watch and record a show on their 722. Sales people would say you can record 2 things without an issue. Tv 1 can record 1 thing and TV2 can record the other
 
Yup. Two Hoppers fits our viewing habits very well and with two TVs (LR & BR), what do we want with a Joey?

I am not convinced that Dish really thought this one through. I already have an EHD, so I can live without the full integration right away but we still have no need for a Joey. I know the Joey setup will work for many families - but for us, not so much.

We would love to have two Hoppers, but first, the policy must change.
 
The whole issue is that the second hopper costs money, PERIOD! The second you tell customers the second hopper will cost them an out of pocket fee, you kill the entire sale for 95% of customers out there.

Maybe Dish is willing to play that game? Sell new customers on one hopper systems and then when someone complains, give them a second for free.

Not the way i'd do business, but i guess it would be a solution. I'd rather sell people the right thing the first time.

I'm not even complaining as i'm happy with my 2 hopper system now that's it's running ok. Just some interesting observations talking with a tech.
 
datwell said:
Yup. Two Hoppers fits our viewing habits very well and with two TVs (LR & BR), what do we want with a Joey?

I am not convinced that Dish really thought this one through. I already have an EHD, so I can live without the full integration right away but we still have no need for a Joey. I know the Joey setup will work for many families - but for us, not so much.

We would love to have two Hoppers, but first, the policy must change.

A local retailer can configure a 2H/0J config.

Sent from my iPad 2 using Forum Runner
 
I'm not at all saying that Dish is underestimating the demand for 2 Hoppers. I'm saying these 2 Hopper customers were wrongly sold a 1 Hopper system in the first place.

2 Hopper customers should have known they were two Hopper customers and ordered as such. And I would guess that many who did, ultimately took to cheap.
 
2 Hopper customers should have known they were two Hopper customers and ordered as such. And I would guess that many who did, ultimately took to cheap.

I consider myself a fairly knowledgeable person about this stuff and it was a hard decision choosing between 1H and 2H and weighing the costs and making sure everything would fit my needs. I was waffling between both. I'm just glad I went 2H in the beginning or it would have been a miserable experience trying to get a second hopper later.

Looking at it from the perspective of an average customer who probably doesn't know about satguys, i don't envy them having to get their info from the Dish website or an average CSR. I had a heck of a time getting the right info through their normal customer service and that's knowing everything i already learned from satguys.
 
I'm about to become a new Dish customer. Was planning on 1H/2J (with one of the Joey's on a modulator and shared with lightly used TV's). Now I'm thinking 2 Hoppers will be necessary. But until the Hoppers can talk to each other, I think I will need a Joey next to one of the Hoppers, just to make it possible to view anything at the main TV. Is there any other option? How are others dealing with this?
 
davelanton said:
I'm about to become a new Dish customer. Was planning on 1H/2J (with one of the Joey's on a modulator and shared with lightly used TV's). Now I'm thinking 2 Hoppers will be necessary. But until the Hoppers can talk to each other, I think I will need a Joey next to one of the Hoppers, just to make it possible to view anything at the main TV. Is there any other option? How are others dealing with this?

No there is no other option. You can always return the Joey when integration is rolled out.

Sent from my iPad 2 using Forum Runner
 
Ok so if I go with 2H/2J and eventually return one Joey when integration becomes possible, how do I order this? The Dish network website wants to sell me 1H/3J when I put in 4 TV's.
 
Ok so if I go with 2H/2J and eventually return one Joey when integration becomes possible, how do I order this? The Dish network website wants to sell me 1H/3J when I put in 4 TV's.

Send a DIRT member a private message on the forums (look on the main page for the usernames in red)

They are your best bet for getting accurate information as official social media reps from Dish.

you could also reply to this thread here and they'll message you:

http://www.satelliteguys.us/hopper-zone/279754-hopper-upgrades.html