Keep It Simple
So on Monday we talked about Dish Networks poor earnings for the 4th quarter of 2008. Today we are going to take a look at what Dish needs to fix. And I will admit its not all a quick fix and some things might be harder to fix then other.
First up is an issue where your damned if you do and damned if you don’t. That issue is “Free” in this day and age people expect things for free. They want free installation, free equipment and even programming.
Charlie Ergen is a guy who does not like giving stuff away for free. And in his new customer promotions that ended 2008 Charlie really didn’t give anything away, and a lot of retailers think that cost him. Dish introduced their new “Get Happy” $9 promotion and I am getting mixed response to this promotion from the retailers.
One of the problem I see with the $9 Get Happy Promotion is that after 6 months the customer is going to be in for sticker shock when they see their bill at its real full price. I can see churn going up for Dish as these customers opt for the next discount promotion from whoever comes along.
And that’s another problem for Dish and DirecTV, there seems to be no brand loyalty most customers these days only go with who offers the best deal at a time. When the promotion is over they are willing to break any contract and go with any provider who is offering a better deal.
As a owner of a site that deals with consumers I see this happen all the time, and what gets me is some of these bargain shoppers get upset when they are charged an early termination fee. These folks will do anything to get out of these fees which is really unfair. If people have a contract they should honor it.
So while giving stuff away might spike sales does it create a good customer? That is the problem Dish Network faces.
Then the other problem Dish faces is how to keep existing customers from leaving.
I have given a number of these suggestions before but still they hold true today.
First give the customers what they want. Satellite customers originally chose satellite television as it gave them channels that were not available from cable. In this day and age of digital cable, and IPTV you can get your channels from any source. It makes no sense to me that many popular channels are not available on Dish Network. Channel such as LOGO, MLB, Yes Network, Noggin (24 Hours) and many others are not on Dish Network. This has customers looking elsewhere to get this programming.
Second start a loyalty program. For each dollar a Dish customer spends they get a “Charlie Buck” applied to their account. Dish could work with a clearing house and offer products from an online catalog with all kinds of gifts, from magazines, to travel to dish network equipment and even program discounts. Just think the longer a customer remains a customer of Dish Network the more they can save up for bigger items.
Third get rid of all these stupid additional fees. You keep hearing how great Dish Networks rates are, however in the commercial they don’t mention all the hidden fees, such as DVR fees (which are charged per DVR), non phone line fees, HD tuner fees and so on. I find it amazing that the company can charge customers $10 a month extra for HD programming fee, then charge a $7 HD Equipment fee on top of that. If Dish wants to sign up customers they need to include the HD programming in their base packages at no extra cost. After all its what cable companies do, and then (and only then) a $7 HD equipment fee charge per month makes sense.
Forth simplify your programming packages! It was so easy before, you had Americas Top 150, America’s Top 200 and America’s Top 250. If you wanted locals you ordered them ala carte. If you wanted HD same thing… ala carte. Ordering was easy and you knew exactly what you were getting. It was like ordering food at your favorite fast food restaurant.
Today however Dish has a bunch of packages and with them its hard to tell what your getting. Packages like Dish Family, Classic Bronze 100, Classic Bronze 100+, Classic Silver 200, Dish DVR Advantage and America’s Everything Pack (which by the way doesn’t give you everything!)
And don’t even make me start on how they renamed their equipment recently!
The motto at Dish should be KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid!) they need to return to making ordering Dish Network service as easy as ordering lunch.
As you can see there is no overnight fix for what has ailed Dish Network for the last 3 quarters but these four things are a good start.
As always I look forward to your feedback! Thanks for reading!
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Brutus commented:
As an installer for dish, it even more confusing for an installer than it is for the customer. for starter, we have to deal with a myriad of dishes (8 in total, 300, 500, 1000, 1000.2, 1000.4, 500+, 1000+ and superdish)as mamy different lnbs about 3 different switches not counting the legacy ones, about 10 receivers minus the legacy ones and that to many to count. and to top it off most of them are not compatible, sometimes we don\’t even know what version of software is running on what hardware, dish
do not let us know anything at all, if a new dish or new receiver come out, which happen almost every 6 months or so, we have to find out for ourselves how to install it, and they want us to teach the customer how to use it.
Compare with directv, they have 2 dishes 1 standard and one high def and about 4 receivers. Everything is compatible from new to old.
They need to streamline their installation process, including the number of receivers and dishes, get rid of all the fees. Get rid of all dual dvrs that use the second tuner for the second tvs, because it is confusing for most customer, and most important of all, let customers have as many receivers as they want as long as they are willing to pay for it, that is why custom installer and wealthy customers stay away from dish.
sham commented:
The phone line thing is a complete sham anyway. The only thing it does is let you order PPV by remote and the viewing habbits monitoring thing, which you can opt out of, and I don\’t even order PPV by remote since the only way to get it on all recievers is to order online. They claim they also need it for sports blackouts, but that\’s complete BS. I don\’t have a phone line connected and I am able to get all of my RSN\’s and the sports packages just fine.
RJK1977 commented:
I have Directv, and the only fees i have are my extra receiver fee ($4.99) and my protection plan ($5.99). My DVR fee and HD ACCESS fee are included in my PLUS HDDVR PACKAGE. Charging customers phone line fees and HD equipment fees is to much like cable companies. People go to satellite not just for extra channels, but to get away from hidden fees from cable companies. I give Dish about a another year or two before the long over due spiral down hill begins, if it hasn\’t already started.
Bobbo commented:
Please bring back GOL TV!
1947 commented:
And settle the dispute with Fisher Comm.
Shoufeng commented:
They just should go to chapter 7 and liquidates completely. Everything from them sucks except the equipment!
dishshmish commented:
dish is dead. they seem to have forgotten that customers are their life blood and they should be doing everything possible to get them, to keep them, and to keep them happy. for a very long time, I was more than happy to evangelize for dish. but over the past three or four years, charlie and jim decided how they looked on the CNBC ticker was more important than on how they looked to customers. then we started getting treated quite badly in our interactions with them. the emphasis they used to place on customer service was gone. and that's the most important loss. I was more than willing to pay a premium for dish's service as long as I was treated well. you can debate about channel line-ups, packages, HD quality, etc... all you want. it's being treated like a dumb ass fool I can't stand.
TroyT commented:
There's no way these companies will retain customers if they continue to give new customers everything for free and charge the existing customers huge prices for upgrades and additional equipment. You'd be an idiot if you didn't switch companies and take advantage of the new customer specials. Plus do they really think we don't pay attention to the micro fees? When it comes time to pay the bill we see the bottom line. Why are they charging extra for high def? What they should be doing is encouraging everyone to switch to a high def capable receiver so that they can drop the low def channels and reuse them. Why waste channel space on low def channels when the receiver could easily downgrade the signal for older tvs?
TroyT commented:
There's no way these companies will retain customers if they continue to give new customers everything for free and charge the existing customers huge prices for upgrades and additional equipment. You'd be an idiot if you didn't switch companies and take advantage of the new customer specials. Plus do they really think we don't pay attention to the micro fees? When it comes time to pay the bill we see the bottom line. Why are they charging extra for high def? What they should be doing is encouraging everyone to switch to a high def capable receiver so that they can drop the low def channels and reuse them. Why waste channel space on low def channels when the receiver could easily downgrade the signal for older tvs?
Media Man commented:
Good comments so far- I would go further and get rid of the tier packages (AT 100, 200, 250-). Instead combine all of them into one core package for a decent price point ($30) and then create separate packages for everything else- HDTV, movie channels, sports, locals etc.
riffjim4069 commented:
Your blog is on target and it pretty much mirrors what a bunch of us have been saying at Satelliteguys.us the past year or two. Dish Network needs to get rid of their confushing packages, goofy fees (mutiple DVR fees for example), and their HD programming fees. HD is no longer a premium service...not since they dumped VOOM anyway.
Dish Network cannot compete with the Cable/Telco Triple Play (since they no longer have a relationship with AT&T), so they should work to differentiate themselves from DirecTV by providing better overall value for each and every subscription package. Right now, DirecTV is eating their lunch.
Finally...IMPROVE YOUR HD QUALITY already!
jself1982 commented:
I agree with the nickels and dimes fees. With my crappy local cable company, its $4.95 for an HD receiver which inturn allows you to receive any HD version channel as long as you sub the the SD version as well. No extra fee for their HD. With that said, Dish Network has the best equipment out there and they do need money to keep the research and development budget going but really, $7 per HD receiver is a joke. Even $5 per SD receiver is a joke when cable offers 1 free SD receiver and then $3 or so for additional receivers. The DVR fee should be a flat rate no matter how many DVR\’s you have. For people who purchase the equipment outright shouldn\’t have the same fees as those who lease receivers.
As far as the contracts, you can opt out of the contract for either a $49 or $99 fee and you can still lease the equipment, thats better to pay upfront than to be stuck with some outrageous contract fee. Under a contract or not the benefits seem to be the same with the exception of premiums free for 3 months. The installation is still free if you opt out of a contract.
HDRoberts commented:
Good post. However, I disagree with you on the $9 \”get happy\” promotion. DirecTV has been very successful with their initial discounts. It makes them appear on par or cheaper than Dish to many new subs, even though that special pricing only lasts so long. This new promotion is a good start, but rather than being 6 months, it should last a year (at perhaps half the savings rate) to get people hooked. Just advertising their regular prices versus DirecTV\’s discounts has not worked.
I agree on the channels. There are other SDs like Sprout and American Life. You could also add many Viacom and Fox HD channels to that list. I also agree on the fees.
The names are also stupid as you say (although it used to be AT100, not AT150). They need to kill 100+ (I think $2 more gets you the whole classic 200) and DVR advantage (unnecessary if they simplify the fees). And while I live the Turbo backs, perhaps they should not be advertised to avoid confusion.
