installation no show?

[clovett]

Received two emails days before my scheduled installation, a call just before 12 noon from the dispatcher telling me the installer would be calling me. All good. Then zero. Now it is 3pm in my 12 to 4 window and nothing.

Is this the norm on installs? If they do not show what should I do at that point?

 

[raoul5788]

They are often over booked and therefore late. If you don't get the install today, call Directv and complain. They should offer you some freebies for your inconvenience.

 

[Joe Diamond]

Received two emails days before my scheduled installation, a call just before 12 noon from the dispatcher telling me the installer would be calling me. All good. Then zero. Now it is 3pm in my 12 to 4 window and nothing.

Is this the norm on installs? If they do not show what should I do at that point?

DirecTv rightly takes no-shows seriously and so do installers!

IF you have not spoken to the installer assigned to your job by this point something is wrong.

Things that go wrong =
Installations take different times and your installer could still be working on his first job of the day. Someone should have called you.
No installer actually was assigned your job; happens.
There is incorrect information on your work order and installer has been dispatched to your old address or he is calling an inactive or incorrect phone number.
Your installer has been overbooked and may not have noticed your job is an installation or some manager is waiting to assign your installation to the next installer he can find (rare). Someone should have called.
Your installation has been sent to a similar but different zip code or town.......someone is driving to an incorrect address somewhere (rare).

In general a no call- no show is a big deal with DirecTv but stuff happens. It is time to call them.....report what happens.

Joe

 

[clovett]

3:35 pm and nothing. I tried to call Direct tv but if you call in the appointment window it just offers you the ability to move or cancel. My install should be easy as I have already run 1694a upstairs, set the pole in 300lbs of concrete along with 18 foot of conduit. The no call from the installer worries me as that usually reflects pride of workmanship in my job. The people I work with that do not call ahead to customers are mostly bottom feeders with low tech skills. They come and go so often I don't bother to learn their names.

update 3:50

installer from 80 miles away calls and says he lives in my town and that my original installer was way overbooked and he can do the install on his return. He has new HR44's on his truck and seems thrilled that my cabling is run and my pole is set with conduit. Life is good.

 

[Joe Diamond]

Eighty miles out; damn!
I would have returned the job as a missort to be sent to a local office. 3:50PM and he is on a job but will drive to you? Expect him around &oPM or later depending on evening traffic............allow two hours for the installation as you describe it, done after dark
. He will be home between 9 & 10 PM. To get to an office 80 miles out for a 7AM start.........maybe five or six hours sleep!

Something is wrong. They can't do that many days; unsustainable!

Report how it goes. Hope there is a call center open when he tries to activate your system.

Joe

 

[Hutch1814]

Eighty miles out; damn! I would have returned the job as a missort to be sent to a local office. 3:50PM and he is on a job but will drive to you? Expect him around &oPM or later depending on evening traffic............allow two hours for the installation as you describe it, done after dark . He will be home between 9 & 10 PM. To get to an office 80 miles out for a 7AM start.........maybe five or six hours sleep! Something is wrong. They can't do that many days; unsustainable! Report how it goes. Hope there is a call center open when he tries to activate your system. Joe

We aren't "assigned" jobs anymore. We see one at a time and that's it, we can see what equipment is needed but that changed every 5 minutes (yes, the scheduler refreshes every 5 minutes and moves jobs around). As for the call centers, they're no longer activating receivers, we use handhelds and when they aren't responding its a completely automated line to activate but that's frowned upon using it. Only emergency purposes for the most part. Why the dispatch office ever said the tech would call is wrong from the get go. Most installers utilize the handhelds and the systems that come with it. We set an ETA on our handheld and an automated system calls the primary number on the account to let them know the tech is on the way. This saves from random phone calls from customers at random times to us cause they don't have our numbers and it also gives the customer the option to change appt time last minute in case something came up. Over booking is becoming a thing of the past. Indi being one of the larger markets closes roughly 3-4 jobs per tech per day. No more 7,8,9 jobs a day for us.

 

[Joe Diamond]

We aren't "assigned" jobs anymore. We see one at a time and that's it, we can see what equipment is needed but that changed every 5 minutes (yes, the scheduler refreshes every 5 minutes and moves jobs around). As for the call centers, they're no longer activating receivers, we use handhelds and when they aren't responding its a completely automated line to activate but that's frowned upon using it. Only emergency purposes for the most part. Why the dispatch office ever said the tech would call is wrong from the get go. Most installers utilize the handhelds and the systems that come with it. We set an ETA on our handheld and an automated system calls the primary number on the account to let them know the tech is on the way. This saves from random phone calls from customers at random times to us cause they don't have our numbers and it also gives the customer the option to change appt time last minute in case something came up. Over booking is becoming a thing of the past. Indi being one of the larger markets closes roughly 3-4 jobs per tech per day. No more 7,8,9 jobs a day for us.

I haven't been keeping up,
That one job at a time sounds like a crock! You need the whole day in front of you to deal with local road issues. AND you need to be able to tell dispatchers without map skills to stuff it. Working after dark and then driving home just makes the day too long. The lack of sleep catches up with you. Setting ETAs, likewise can burn you (or your phone time). I would tell the first customer an exact time of arrival.......after that it would be a guess. Forcing jobs into a full day is just nuts.

Let us see how this one rolls,

Joe

 

[Hutch1814]

I haven't been keeping up, That one job at a time sounds like a crock! You need the whole day in front of you to deal with local road issues. AND you need to be able to tell dispatchers without map skills to stuff it. Working after dark and then driving home just makes the day too long. The lack of sleep catches up with you. Setting ETAs, likewise can burn you (or your phone time). I would tell the first customer an exact time of arrival.......after that it would be a guess. Forcing jobs into a full day is just nuts. Let us see how this one rolls, Joe

FS scheduler has been live nearly 18 months. All it's caused is headaches and less productivity. It's the same system ATT uses. It's "suppose" to assign the next closest job to you but once a tech falls behind, game over. Playing catch up the rest of the day

 

[Joe Diamond]

There are many places you can see but can take hours to reach by road. Even GPS services will run you down a river bed or across an old airport. AND there is no real reason for real time control by the CSPs and their toys. I did see an appliance repair service that gives the customer a view of where the tech is........you don't know what he is doing but you can see all his stops numbered and can figure out when he is heading to your address. Worked pretty well.

It will be interesting to see how this system moves forward without techs willing to put up with the crap.

10:20 PM EST & no word on our boy yet.

Joe

 

[Jimbo]

FS scheduler has been live nearly 18 months. All it's caused is headaches and less productivity. It's the same system ATT uses. It's "suppose" to assign the next closest job to you but once a tech falls behind, game over. Playing catch up the rest of the day

Most of the time, ATT jobs are given one at a time, it's very rare that we get a days worth of work loaded in the morning so you can see where your going.

They may "Soft" load you, but that just means they will take the job you were counting on and move it to someone else often.

 

[Jimbo]

There are many places you can see but can take hours to reach by road. Even GPS services will run you down a river bed or across an old airport. AND there is no real reason for real time control by the CSPs and their toys. I did see an appliance repair service that gives the customer a view of where the tech is........you don't know what he is doing but you can see all his stops numbered and can figure out when he is heading to your address. Worked pretty well.

It will be interesting to see how this system moves forward without techs willing to put up with the crap.

10:20 PM EST & no word on our boy yet.

Joe

The Manager can see where the tech is your talking about, right, NOT the sub ... I hope.

 

[Joe Diamond]

The Manager can see where the tech is your talking about, right, NOT the sub ... I hope.

No, everybody sees. The company dispatcher tells the customer where the tech will be going and gives an ETA. The word ESTIMATED is stressed and from the their website all can see the tech start his van at 7:00AM in his driveway. As the day went on all could watch him drive to appointment #1....then #2 etc. as he made his way through the route. We got a call as the guy finished the job before our address. He came and fixed a stove under warranty.

The one drawback was the tech had zero parts aboard! So he made one trip to diagnose the problem....then another to install the parts he ordered during the first visit. The parts arrived by UPS and then the service call was scheduled. It shot two different days. There was no doubt where the tech was or when he would arrive. I think it was Home Depot that used the service. Cool!

I asked the tech about the system and he liked it. He reported sometimes they would route other techs in front of him to keep him on schedule and sometimes have him pick up extra jobs if he was running ahead. All customers had his cell # if they had to cancel for an emergency. When he got home he turned off the truck and he was done; out of service.

Joe

 

[clovett]

First the tech drove about 60 miles to get to my install. I tried to say it was on his return trip but apparently not very well. He lives about 15 min from my house. Guy was great. Dish is locked in well and the pictures on my TV's are stellar. I just have to install the genie go and it's all done.

I got a HR4-700 and a C41 client. Fast as lightning. Tons of options I could not be happier. I have the standard flooded cable from the dish to the splitter then everything else is 1694a. I mentioned that most people say this is overkill but he disagreed and says that by the end of next year boxes may have cable with a 4GHZ sweep rating between them.

He gave me the option of remotes and we took the older style. I really like them.

He said it usually takes 10 min for the box to authenticate and that it needed port 1701. I went in my router and port forwarded the HR44 through port 1701 and it authenticated immediately. On demand filled in a few hours.

I gave him a really good tip, he seemed suprised. Even with the pre work I did the install took 3 hours. And I cut down half a tree, everyone needs an emergency chain saw. He said my post was one of the best he'd seen in 5 years. It's set in 320lbs of concrete and backfilled with a stainless bolt through it in the concrete.

 

[Jimbo]

No, everybody sees. The company dispatcher tells the customer where the tech will be going and gives an ETA. The word ESTIMATED is stressed and from the their website all can see the tech start his van at 7:00AM in his driveway. As the day went on all could watch him drive to appointment #1....then #2 etc. as he made his way through the route. We got a call as the guy finished the job before our address. He came and fixed a stove under warranty.

The one drawback was the tech had zero parts aboard! So he made one trip to diagnose the problem....then another to install the parts he ordered during the first visit. The parts arrived by UPS and then the service call was scheduled. It shot two different days. There was no doubt where the tech was or when he would arrive. I think it was Home Depot that used the service. Cool!

I asked the tech about the system and he liked it. He reported sometimes they would route other techs in front of him to keep him on schedule and sometimes have him pick up extra jobs if he was running ahead. All customers had his cell # if they had to cancel for an emergency. When he got home he turned off the truck and he was done; out of service.

Joe

Thats sad when the customer can track the employee, I can see angry sub bitching about why it took him so long or why he went this way vs that way ect.

 

[dalyew]

My installation last month happened earlier than the appointed time. I scheduled for a 12-3 pm install and got phone calls & emails all week reminding me and confirming that time. Up to the evening before I got a phone call confirming the afternoon installation. Next morning around 8 am I was awoken by a phone call from Directv confirming my morning installation. Thought this was just an erroneous message but got a call from the installer that he would be there in 10 minutes. I told him I didn't schedule that time and it was inconvenient for me to accommodate him so soon. It was a Saturday morning and we were up in the wee hours of the morning entertaining guests the night before. The installer sounded very annoyed and insisted he had a work order and couldn't promise me that someone would be available in the afternoon to do the install. Had to wake my family up to let them know the installer was coming ahead of schedule.

I had to show him the emails I was receiving from Directv all week about the afternoon installation. He showed me his work order showing the 8 am installation and that's all he was concerned with. Normally I would throw out someone with that kind of attitude but I guess I could understand his frustration, plus I hadn't had my morning coffee yet. Family was pissed but the installation went well after that.

 

[raoul5788]

Did you tell Directv about this snafu? They should know about it, and you may get some compensation for your inconvenience.

 

[Joe Diamond]

Thats sad when the customer can track the employee, I can see angry sub bitching about why it took him so long or why he went this way vs that way ect.

Jimbo,
I asked about that and he said it has not been an issue (yet). But I have had DirecTv & CATV customers attempt to divert me to their work.......knocking on doors where I am working.....wandering customer property....to get me to abandon jobs in progress to fix their rigs. I think most people do not really care when work gets done as long as it is predictable. I have had the other side also....". . .how much more time will you need before you get the hell out of my house?...

I get a sense that what is going on now are parallel systems telling customers two different things. Techs deal with driving conditions and installations that can vary is duration. They communicate in real time as they unravel their days. The micro managers with computers in front of them make random promises. Most of the time they meet somewhere near the middle. Sometimes folks wait all day for news nobody is going to arrive. Occasionally there is a no call - no show. I think most jobs go in as scheduled but this varies from office to office.

Joe

 

[dalyew]

Did you tell Directv about this snafu? They should know about it, and you may get some compensation for your inconvenience.

I thought about it as that's usually my MO but I've really enjoyed my Directv system coming from Dish that I made it slide.

 

[Jimbo]

I thought about it as that's usually my MO but I've really enjoyed my Directv system coming from Dish that I made it slide.

You can still call and let them know about it .... I'm sure they would like to know, or you can fill out the email page where you give your feedback on the website.