Had my dish moved, then the tech hauls in a Polk soundbar.

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KAB

KAB

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Sep 20, 2005
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Fishers, IN
Tech did and good and in under an hour. He came in and went through the check switch. My JBL soundbar was clearly in sight. He comes back in with a big bag with a Polk logo on it and says he wants to demo it for me. I told him he was wasting his time and he should get on to his next appointment. Made me wonder how much tech time is squandered with sales pitches.
 
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KAB said:
Tech did and good and in under an hour. He came in and went through the check switch. My JBL soundbar was clearly in sight. He comes back in with a big bag with a Polk logo on it and says he wants to demo it for me. I told him he was wasting his time and he should get on to his next appointment. Made me wonder how much tech time is squandered with sales pitches.
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Amen. My installer tried to sell me a sound bar for "each of my TVs" despite each already either having a nice sound bar or a 7.2 Dolby Atmos AVR already.
 
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I had the exact same situation when I had wireless Joey installed. The tech told me that he had to show me the extras by his boss. That they were under pressure to sell any extras they could . The tech took a picture to prove that he showed off the extras so he wouldn't get in trouble.
I felt bad for him but all the extras were over priced and I already had what he was selling.
I really wish that they wouldn't have to do the hard sell stuff.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
 
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So, if the tech had done a good job for me then instead of offering a $20 tip, I'd ask what equipment I could buy from him that was around $20. I'm sure he'd prefer a long term job security gesture over a short term cash windfall.
 
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Interesting. I’ll have to keep that in mind- if I move to an H3, or to FiOS.
 
Unfortunately, it is what it is. Sales have become the primary focus and for internals, the expectation is an average of $23 per job. For my company, it's $16. It's one of the metrics that are used to determine pay grade. And now, the Insurance upgrades are being pushed. Sadly, some offices ARE doing stupid things like forcing techs to demo - and prove they did it with pics, etc - to each customer. I only make offers where I see opportunities. Saturday, I had 2 customers with Brand new Samsung 4K TV's. No audio equipment, so they jumped on the Sound bars, but if you HAVE anything that doesn't look like it came from 1964, then I'm not even mentioning it. BTW, over priced?? Polk's SB1 Soundbar and Sub is $700 bucks on their website. Their Magnifi-Max is $500. The DSB1 we have - Soundbar and Sub - is $350. Now, to be fair, the stuff we carry is 2 years old and probably out of date and no longer even offered by Polk anymore. If Dish was smart, they'd move on to a newer model.

So yeah, it's a PITA for the tech and customer in some cases, but Jeez, the guy is just doing his job. Just say not interested. It doesn't cost you money to listen to the guy tell you what he's got. You MIGHT just like something we carry
 
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When my H3 was installed, I got the sales pitch for the sound bar that would be so much better than the outdated junk I had. That outdated junk was a fairly new (and fairly expensive) Onkyo AVR with hardwired (run in the walls) discrete speakers placed is good positions in the room. I realize the pressure they have, but he lost all credibility with that, wanting me to purchase something far worse than what I already had.
 
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comfortably_numb said:
Sigh. Techs shouldn’t have to be salespeople

:facepalm
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joegr said:
When my H3 was installed, I got the sales pitch for the sound bar that would be so much better than the outdated junk I had. That outdated junk was a fairly new (and fairly expensive) Onkyo AVR with hardwired (run in the walls) discrete speakers placed is good positions in the room. I realize the pressure they have, but he lost all credibility with that, wanting me to purchase something far worse than what I already had.
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And that's exactly why it doesn't work. They are not salesmen, not often going to be knowledgeable about the product and that industry. Can't blame the installer I'm sure most of them don't want anything to do with it.
 
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joegr said:
I realize the pressure they have, but he lost all credibility with that, wanting me to purchase something far worse than what I already had.
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Think of how the tech feels. He may very well know the equipment he’s pitching is inferior to yours, but he has to try and sell it anyway.

Being able to make a sale takes a special skill. It’s a different skill than being a technician. I couldn’t sell anybody a tinkers dam. I feel sorry for you techs.
 
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This reminds me of when I was a telephone installer for Pacific Telephone back in the 60s. Along with your installation duties you were pressed to sell extension phones ($1 a month), color phones (one time $5), and Princess phones ($.50 a month). My boss was always on my case that I was low man on the selling board. I told him that, if I wanted to be a salesman I would have taken a job with the marketing department where I would make a hell of a lot more money than being an installer. I never, and I mean never, did a cold sales pitch. My only sales would come when a customer asked how much a color phone or an extension phone or a Princess phone would cost. I was big on the extension phones and the color phones when asked. Installation was free so adding an extension phone was only a dollar a month more. Mind you phone service was less than $8 in those days if you had a single party line. The 3 cents a day spiel for an extension worked wonders! :)
 
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joegr said:
When my H3 was installed, I got the sales pitch for the sound bar that would be so much better than the outdated junk I had. That outdated junk was a fairly new (and fairly expensive) Onkyo AVR with hardwired (run in the walls) discrete speakers placed is good positions in the room. I realize the pressure they have, but he lost all credibility with that, wanting me to purchase something far worse than what I already had.
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Right! There's no WAY I'd try to sell a sound bar/system to someone that has a nice Onkyo, Denon, et al receiver and is already all setup. Now if you have some old Analogue iLive or something, we'll talk lol

Fortunately for me, I used to sell Home Improvements back in the day so I'm comfortable talking to people anyway, creating rapport as soon as they open the door and I try to have as much product knowledge as I can, but you are correct, many techs are not salesmen, aren't even socially adept but are under immense pressure to sell. SO my point is don't take it out on the tech, like you said, he probably isn't comfortable offering things and doesn't even want to do it anyway
 
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HipKat said:
Right! There's no WAY I'd try to sell a sound bar/system to someone that has a nice Onkyo, Denon, et al receiver and is already all setup. Now if you have some old Analogue iLive or something, we'll talk lol

Fortunately for me, I used to sell Home Improvements back in the day so I'm comfortable talking to people anyway, creating rapport as soon as they open the door and I try to have as much product knowledge as I can, but you are correct, many techs are not salesmen, aren't even socially adept but are under immense pressure to sell. SO my point is don't take it out on the tech, like you said, he probably isn't comfortable offering things and doesn't even want to do it anyway
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They should offer to wall mount the TVs in the house. A lot of people pay good money for that.
 
dare2be said:
So, if the tech had done a good job for me then instead of offering a $20 tip, I'd ask what equipment I could buy from him that was around $20. I'm sure he'd prefer a long term job security gesture over a short term cash windfall.
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If a Dish tech accepts a cash tip and it gets back to management, he's fired, so if you tip, keep it between you and the tech.

Yeah, toss that around for a few minutes
 
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