E* Customer Service Ratings Drop

[Tom Bombadil]

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/tech/article/0,2777,DRMN_23910_5166215,00.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!

 

[dishcomm]

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

Bergen County! My old stomping grounds..I grew up there!....Northvale...Went to northern Valley Old Tappan HS....How 'bout you?

Oh yeah..back to the thread.....I'm a tech...You guys on the consumer side have it bad..I know..I hear it from the customers all the time....Forutubnately we use a differen number and our calls are routed to domestic calls centewrs..However, these CSR's aren't perfect either..At times we need ot make changes to the work order to accomodate the custs wishes and the first words out of the CSR's mouth are "I can't....At that point I want to strangle that person....I battle for my customers and usually get what I need to do the job....But the service at the consumer call centers seems to be generating far more complaints...
What frightens me is now they have put some pencil pusher in charge of overseeing installations and service..I'm sure the CFO is a nice guy, he's good with this kids and wears a polo shirt to work. BUT he probably doesn't know squat about what we do and now I fear this guy is going to make our lives miserable by micromananging service...If that does happen service in the field will go down hill..Fast....We do enough as it is..a lot of what we do for free now, we used to get paid for...So as people trying to make a living serving the customers we are doing more work for less pay....How long can that continue..Customers service is important..I stress CS ..But that service comes at a price....Walk into a Nordstrom's Dept store...They kiss your butt there..But everything is very expensive. Outstanding customer service...Walk into a WalMart and they look at you like you are there to ruin their day..Everything is very cheap because there is little service..
Sad part is customers of satellite tv have come to expect everything for free..They want Champaigne customer srvice on a beer budget..It just isn't going to happen..
We'll see I guess....

 

[Sapient]

I haven't had any problems with CSRs being unable to speak English. My problem with them is that they can't handle any issue that is even slightly out of the ordinary.

My original installation ended with me having a dish that was slightly out of alignment. A second tech came out, made it worse, told me he needed to mount a tripod, and would be back in two weeks to do so. Over that time, my reception gradually got worse and worse. When I called into Dish, I found that the tech never scheduled the appointment and that Dish did not actually provide tripod mounts.

I just asked them to send someone out to properly point my dish and compensate me for the time I was unable to watch my channels. I had to go through three levels of support and eventually yell at the floor supervisor to get anything done. Even then, they would not come out until I bought a tripod which I did not need and is still sitting in my garage. The real problems with their support is not that they are farming out the work to other countries. It is that their people only know how to select common problems listed on their computer screens and do what the computers tell them to do.

 

[long_time_DNC]

Yep, that seems to be the case...most of the time, you can't get answers to your questions until you work your way to 2nd level support...then you usually get some kind of decent response.

 

[grendyl]

I have found the American tech support equally clueless (and care about as little if not more so since this job is no big deal for them) so I don't think hiring Americans by default equals better service. I think it's just a case of being more forgiving with more local ineptitude.

 

[ChetK]

I think if they activated the USB support for external hard drives on their 622's, it would render them better customer service results.

 

[Stargazer]

I am surprised that they are even #2 on the list but I suppose it takes time for a larger part of the subscriber base to call in with a problem and see the results you get these days compared to the past. The service is most definitely worse unless you know who and how to contact the right person. This Asian call center thing is making it that much worse. I agree with another post in this thread where it was stated where they cannot handle anything slightly out of the ordinary (or slightly more difficult). These CSR's read the information off of the computer screen but has no knowledge themselves. Advanced tech support is better but there is a certain process you have to go through and when notes are not taken and you have to call in again, you have to go through the whole ordeal all over in order to get an RA# (get the product replaced). Sometimes you can't get it done because they are convinced it is something different than the actual problem when the call you made the previous time was supposed to take care of everything. This is an issue I have every once in a while.

 

[dishcomm]

I haven't had any problems with CSRs being unable to speak English. My problem with them is that they can't handle any issue that is even slightly out of the ordinary.

My original installation ended with me having a dish that was slightly out of alignment. A second tech came out, made it worse, told me he needed to mount a tripod, and would be back in two weeks to do so. Over that time, my reception gradually got worse and worse. When I called into Dish, I found that the tech never scheduled the appointment and that Dish did not actually provide tripod mounts.

I just asked them to send someone out to properly point my dish and compensate me for the time I was unable to watch my channels. I had to go through three levels of support and eventually yell at the floor supervisor to get anything done. Even then, they would not come out until I bought a tripod which I did not need and is still sitting in my garage. The real problems with their support is not that they are farming out the work to other countries. It is that their people only know how to select common problems listed on their computer screens and do what the computers tell them to do.

There ar emany complaints out htere...Unfortunately no one says a word when everything works fine...People only comment when something is wrong. .A thread like this will perpetuate a negative and highly inaccurate portrayal of the level of service..
There is many times more good service than poor..Let's focus on that..Instead of dredging up people with an axe to grind.

 

[long_time_DNC]

It'd be nice if they'd put some more horsepower behind their website... It took me 10 minutes just to log in, check something on my bill and log out. I have a very speedy broadband connection and it never takes more than 15 seconds (if even that) for any website to load.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

The thread illustrates that customer service satisfaction levels are dropping. This has been a major positive for E* over the years. E* & Charlie freely admit that they are down and that they are pouring millions into trying to improve.

Some of the posters have recounted experiences that show why they are less satisfied.

The numbers are still okay for E*, so its not a huge problem yet. But in an industry where the vast majority of one's customer contacts are either via phone, internet, or through their TV, you've got to make those contacts positive - quick and competent. If contacting your services is perceived to be a hassle, you will lose a lot of business.

Over the past 6-7 months I have contacted E* five times. Three went well, the other two were hassles. I must say that I now hesitate to call E* unless I have to, because it can be difficult & time-consuming to work with whomever answers my call.

 

[Stargazer]

Maybe that is what Dish Network wants, for us to not get the problem resolved over the phone with them because of the cost.