From an installer, thanks again Dish...

I certainly hope all the good sayers here NEVER expect to run to the store, buy gas, eat out, go to the game or anything else that would require some "other" person/employee to work so they could enjoy their holiday with the family ... what a bunch of hypocrites!

That's the thing, I never expect stores to be open on holidays. I don't want to work them so I refuse to go to any stores or call any service providers during these major holidays. It comes down to people who don't care about or respect others. Its the "me, me, me, right now!" attitude that people have nowadays. Very sad way to be.
 
It can be a very frustrating profession but yet it is the one we chose. We knew going into it that there would be a chance for service calls on holidays and other crappy days. We have the option to decline these service calls though or talk to the customer and try to reschedule. Luckily most customers are willing to reschedule, some are just irate and chew our butts that it doesn't work because TV is the most important thing in their life.

I get more frustrated with the service calls that deal with non-warranty issues. Like stated before, most service calls are for the TV being on the wrong input. This drives me CRAZY!!! I'm not sure who is worse the CSR or the customer. We are usually able to talk to the customer over the phone and solve the problem which tells me the CSR is either lazy or is not tech savvy. We actually refuse a lot of service calls because they are not technically warranty problems and the business rules state that they should not be covered. I can understand that Dish wants to keep the customer happy so they say they will cover the service anyway but do not send that work order to me and expect to do it for $15.

It gets more and more frustrating as new installs dwindle while upgrades and service calls sky rocket. It's hard to make money this way. I don't think there is anything harder in business than trying to make a good profit while making customers happy. People do not like to part with their hard earned money.
 
That's the thing, I never expect stores to be open on holidays. I don't want to work them so I refuse to go to any stores or call any service providers during these major holidays. It comes down to people who don't care about or respect others. Its the "me, me, me, right now!" attitude that people have nowadays. Very sad way to be.

I agree! I was trying to word my response, but you said it better than I could!
 
That's the thing, I never expect stores to be open on holidays. I don't want to work them so I refuse to go to any stores or call any service providers during these major holidays. It comes down to people who don't care about or respect others. Its the "me, me, me, right now!" attitude that people have nowadays. Very sad way to be.

I agree ... and to add insult they generally want some of it free!
 
Here is what really happens.

The calls get routed for service calls every day. You may get a service call from Dish once per month, but there really might be several service calls that Dish actually goes out and dispatches on.

80% of the time, the local DNS or RSP office gets the trouble call and they send on of their technicians to take care of it, and you never see a notification or get a chance to take care of your customer.

When the DNS or RSP office is swamped with work, and see its a retail trouble call that they can refer back to you, they go ahead and dump the job on you. Thats why you end up seeing more trouble calls on Holidays and on weekends such as early on a Sunday Morning.

You can reject 1 trouble call per month, I would go ahead and reject it and let Dish service your customer that day and let the DNS or RSP figure out how they are going to get someone out there on short notice.

If they ding you $100 for the trouble call, who the F*** cares. Its costs me about $65 to roll a truck and send one of my technicians for what usually is a Bullsh!t trouble call.

Take the $35 loss, be with your family and call it a day.

The other things that I used to do when I got a trouble call on a Holiday is to call the customer and see if they want to reschedule and most of the time I would offer to take care of them sooner. If I got no ansewer, or got any type of crap about how it has to be that paticular date, I would just say Thank You very much, have a nice day and reject the trouble call and dump the job back on Dish.

I used to love rejecting trouble calls that they send over last minute that where in BFE
 
Blue/black/snowy screens should be up to Dish tech Support and not to an installer who has to drive 20-30 miles.

It often is. The frontline CSR has a set of tools to follow to attempt to help get the customer back to the proper channel. It's hit-or-miss if the frontline CSR can get it done, either due to their own ability to handle tech, or the customer's ability to follow directions.

In that troubleshooting flow, there is a point to transfer to advanced tech support, so they can help. The advanced tech support agents have absolutely ZERO desire to set up a technician visit for a black/blue/snowy, as those calls are almost always (correctly) marked invalid tech calls by the installer that shows up. I can promise you, those advanced tech support agents will (generally) bust their tails to get the customer back on the right channel/input. But some customers can't follow directions (see my post earlier in the thread).

I can only speak for my site (well, speaking for myself, not in any official capacity), and the advanced tech agents at my site, but I can tell you, they're very dedicated to the job, and aren't going to set up a technician to placate a customer, and it really is a last resort for the black/blue/snowy.
 
To paraphrase, you ranted about having to work on July 4th which clashed w/ your vacation plans (I'll admit i'd be upset to)..but now stated you did the job the evening before?

My real problem here is you calling people "idiots" which you seem to do often. Not everyone is tech-savy, and if someone isnt' faillair with the TV, it does not make them an idiot.

Cheers, K

PS- If the TV was on the wrong channel, Dish tech support should have figured it out.
Something as basic as the TV being tuned to the wrong channel shouldn't have even gotten as far as a tech visit.

And, people are idiots.
 
To be honest.. For the amount of money Dish pays me each month to maintain my customers under the service plan, I will go kiss their feet on Christmas morning if that is what they want.. I get maybe 1 or 2 calls a month.. Not going to say how much that comes out to per service call.. But it's good pay.. If I have to go out of town for some reason, I just pay someone to go do the call.. And I still come out ahead.. If you are in this business to make money and take care of your customers, then there should no be any complaints about this policy which has been in effect for years..
Perhaps, the money they pay you goes a lot farther in Alabama than wherever the OP resides.
 
No child left behind, Gary.

Idiots, just like the folks that can't navigate a simple intersection and continue to cause accidents. The result is that now all crossing traffic is controlled by either a green arrow or a red light. No more proceeding with a left turn under the premise of yielding the right-of-way.

And the folks that cannot understand the setting of channel favorites list, so DISH defaults the receivers to revert to ALL CHANNELS so the idiots don't call because they can't see their channels after somehow getting their system onto some alternate favorites list.

We do society a disservice when we remove the Darwin factor :D
 
That's the thing, I never expect stores to be open on holidays. I don't want to work them so I refuse to go to any stores or call any service providers during these major holidays. It comes down to people who don't care about or respect others. Its the "me, me, me, right now!" attitude that people have nowadays. Very sad way to be.

I find it hard to believe you have never ever steeped foot inside any kind of store on any holiday.
 
I find it hard to believe you have never ever steeped foot inside any kind of store on any holiday.

Not any major holiday. If I have the day off then I don't bother to go to any stores or call any offices. There are more than enough things that I can do that doesn't involve needing something at a store or calling somebody for something. I honestly can't believe some people think that going 24 hours without TV or some other non-necessity is a crime against them.
 
Not any major holiday. If I have the day off then I don't bother to go to any stores or call any offices. There are more than enough things that I can do that doesn't involve needing something at a store or calling somebody for something. I honestly can't believe some people think that going 24 hours without TV or some other non-necessity is a crime against them.


I've had older women cry on the phone because their TV wasn't working and they may have to go the weekend without it. It blows my mind how dependent people can be on TV. I understand that it can be important but there really are other things out in the world. God forbid you go watch TV with someone else and maybe talk to them. :eek:
 
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I've had older women cry on the phone because their TV wasn't working and they may have to go the weekend without it. It blow my mind how dependent people can be on TV. I understand that it can be important but there really are other things out in the world. God forbid you go watch TV with someone else and maybe talk to them. :eek:

Ditto, but even worse, in that I have taken a call from an elderly lady, living alone, one afternoon, and I was able to schedule a tech visit the next day between 8a-12noon. She got very, very upset that she wouldn't be able to watch TV that night. This wasn't a black/blue/snowy, it was a 015 signal loss issue, so I couldn't work with her to get it on the right channel/input, since that wasn't the problem.

I've also had people threaten to cancel if I could not get a tech to their house within an hour or two, and they were calling at 8:00 pm.
 
This thread has got to the point where only 1 word comes to mind, "whatever" :rolleyes:
 
Really? Your blaming Dish?

This is my opinion. I am a former EchoStar FSM/FSS III, and now the Dish Manager/Lead installer at a local retailer. I have been in the industry since 2002 and worked many many long hours and have done many after hours service calls (We have a special after hours rate and people pay it). We don't get many service call requests from Dish CSR's. Why? Because we do it right the first time! We educate and install properly! I understand that there is the occasional "stupid" call, but it's generally from a "grandma" that can't remember her own name to begin with or someone who is tech challenged.

We should not post blame on a company that has been a 24/7 operation since day 1, we work in a service environment, and "WE" need to be able to provide service 24/7.

Just saying, If "YOU" install a system and the customer calls Dish because you may not be available, don't blame Dish, "YOU" did the install! Take pride in what you do and you won't have as many service calls!
 
This is my opinion. I am a former EchoStar FSM/FSS III, and now the Dish Manager/Lead installer at a local retailer. I have been in the industry since 2002 and worked many many long hours and have done many after hours service calls (We have a special after hours rate and people pay it). We don't get many service call requests from Dish CSR's. Why? Because we do it right the first time! We educate and install properly! I understand that there is the occasional "stupid" call, but it's generally from a "grandma" that can't remember her own name to begin with or someone who is tech challenged.

We should not post blame on a company that has been a 24/7 operation since day 1, we work in a service environment, and "WE" need to be able to provide service 24/7.

Just saying, If "YOU" install a system and the customer calls Dish because you may not be available, don't blame Dish, "YOU" did the install! Take pride in what you do and you won't have as many service calls!


I won't argue with having to fix your own mistakes. That makes perfect sense and we have no problem doing that. The majority of our service calls are user error, failed receivers and improper upgrades done by Dish. Even though Dish did the upgrade we are still responsible for that customer since we are the original retailer.

This is going on for us right now as I type. I sent my tech to our customer's home to check out one of their old 301 receivers and find out that they got upgraded to a 722k. The receiver failed and we will replace it for her but we're going to charge her around $140.
 

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