What Can Dish Do?
So yesterday I have my feelings on Dish Networks 3rd quarter earnings call and also gave my opinion on why thought Charlie Ergen’s claims that piracy was one of the big causes for the poor numbers was bunk.
So today I am going to give Dish some free advice on how to fix some of the things which are plaguing the company.
First and foremost what Dish must do to keep customers is to close down all of their foreign call centers! There is nothing worse than calling for help or to ask a question only to get in an argument with the customer service rep because they don’t speak English well. I can’t tell you how many times I have personally called and have been upset over the experience.
Dish use to win the JD Powers Award for customer service all the time, but this stopped when they opened up foreign call centers. (Hmm I wonder why?)
Secondly stop all of this public fighting with your programmers. You keep say you are trying to get the best deal possible to save us the customers money, yet your costs are almost the same as DirecTV’s. As a customer is stinks waking up sometimes and finding out that your favorite channel (such as GoalTV), sporting package (MLB Extra Innings), or program package (VOOM.) I can’t remember for the life of me the last time DirecTV dropped major programming with no warning from the customer’s lineup. Dish should remember that it is me the customer who decides how much I want to pay and if I want to spend money on a channel or sports package I should be able to. I signed up for Dish Network to bring me television signals that my cable company couldn’t offer me, I didn’t hire them to be a baby sitter for my wallet.
Third enough of the pompous lawsuits. Why is everyone suing Dish? Why can’t Dish play nicely with its partners. Every time I see a press release come out stating that Dish Network is working with a new company I think to myself how long until that partnership is dissolved and Dish is suing that partner. These lawsuits do no good for the consumer and its always the consumer who ends up paying the legal bills for these silly lawsuits. While I understand Charlie has some merits it’s time to say enough is enough already!
Fourth get some real marketing! While the Frank Caliendo ads are good you get sick of seeing the same few ads running over and over again. Dish needs to invest in a few good ad campaigns which should all run at the same time and make people want to get Dish Network.
Fifth, lower some of your prices. You keep on claiming to be the “value leader” but for your customers to order a Pay Per View movie they must take out a second mortgage. In addition Dish Network loves to nickel and dime its customers from charges for changing programming to no phone line charges. Dish has so many hidden charges that it can overwhelm many customers. So enough already, you don’t see DirecTV hitting their customers with all these silly fees!
Finally treat your current customers with respect! It seems like the only thing Dish Network cares about is signing up new customers. If Dish treated their customers good then their customers in turn would give good word of mouth about Dish Network to their friends. Dish Network needs to look at the cell phone model and offer their customers new equipment or an equipment credit customers can use to upgrade their equipment and stick with Dish Network. (Or if a customer doesn’t want to upgrade their equipment let them apply that credit to their bills.) What’s happening now is customers get to the end of their contract and they shop around for the better deal and better technology. If Dish made an offer available to all of their customers it would keep many from leaving. Sure Dish has the “Dish’n It Up” promo now where customers can upgrade their equipment, but that promo is not the same for all customers. Make the deal the same for all your customers and advertise the fact that you’re doing this and you might generate some goodwill among your customer base. Show your customers you value their business and make them feel as if they are part of Dish Network.
Ultimately, learn to respect your customer and they will respect you. I got to admit it I love my Dish Network service because of their DVR’s however sometimes the actions of this company have me rethinking my decision to remain one of their customers. And if the numbers from the last two quarterly reports have any say it appears others are thinking the same thing.
Dish Tech Chat Last Night
Dish Network held its quarterly Tech Chat last night and it was (finally) a informative likable show. Dish finally listened and got the marketing out of the show and turned it once again into a show for all the Tech Lovers out there.
On the show they gave a tour of the Dish Network uplink center and showed how it all worked, plus they showed off the upcoming DTVPal DVR, the upcoming 722k DVR and a new two way remote control which looked very interesting.
Congrats to Mark Jackson and Dan Minnick for once again putting the Tech back into the Tech Chat!
Sirius / XM Channel Lineup Changes Tomorrow
With less than 24 hours until the new channel lineup and channel merges happen between XM and Sirius there has still not been any official announcement of the new c hannel lineup for Sirius XM.
However with that said I have managed to obtain an official version of the new XM channel lineup which you can download by CLICKING HERE. (Requires Adobe Reader to view)
In addition I have received word from DirecTV that the XM lineup on DirecTV will be changing tonight at Midnight Eastern Time. Besides some channels changing names a number of channels are being removed from the DirecTV Lineup.
The XM channels being removed from DirecTV by Sirius/XM are as follows:
Oprah and Friends - The Rhyme - Raw - Beyond Jazz - High Standards - Fine Tuning – Chrome - VOX - Aguila – Vibra - Caricia – Viva - The Virus
DirecTV will be adding 3 new XM channels to their lineup and those channels are:
Hair Nation (classic hard rock) - Coffeehouse - The Bridge (coming 1/1/09)
In addition I have been told that DirecTV will be adding additional music channels to its lineup in the near future and that those new music channels will not be coming from XM. No word however who that new music provider may be.
Still no word yet on what the new Sirius music lineup will look like or how the Sirius lineup will change tomorrow on Dish Network.
vurbano commented:
Its amusing that Ergen think that some guy doing a Bill Clinton imitation is going to sell Satellite service? What an idiot
topcat0399 commented:
Only one point missing - take care of your Techs, make it so they WANT to be a good FACE for Dish Network. Make it possible to make Dish a CAREER and not just a JOB IN PASSING. And not just DNSC techs, but ALL of them.
Isaac commented:
Scott, your are on the money! Since dishes takedown of Voom I downgraded my service to almost nothing.
How can I respect a company when they take 15HD channels down in one swoop in the dark of night. There customer service in the worst!
PacificSatMan commented:
Maybe I'm alone here, but as a former DirecTV subscriber I am still much happier with DishNetwork. There's not enough space here to type all the issues I had with DirecTV. The few issues I have had with Dish were corrected with a few phone calls and requests to speak to American based management.
TV Marketer commented:
It's funny that Dish launched a multi-million dollar ad campaign and yet was unable to generate one new sub! I mean c'mon. Network TV, spot, cable, outdoor, national print, local newspaper, the whole works. I saw all the executions and it just reeked of non-creativity.
You gotta think that their CMO really should be looking behind her should over
shoulder. If I created a campaign like that, I'd be worried.
Patty Wynn commented:
SCOTT: There’s a confirmed rumor that many service providers have been approached by a major telecommunications vendor, with specific marketing programs that promote and support free HDTV’s to get new customers, and MANY are considering this as a HUGE break through for customer acquisitions! Now “that” would be revolutionary for all providers and garner Dish a 1st place position in all markets if they moved fast! People would flood into Dish’s customer base by the hundreds-of-thousands (maybe millions)!! Check it out.
Sunshine 99 commented:
I agree and will leave them later this week, don't want to but they seem to be so internally focused and don't care about the user anymore. I am going back to cable due to triple play but may revisit Directv once economy recovers a little.
MLBurks commented:
I left Dish because they dropped MLB EI and they won't be carrying the MLB network either. And another reason is because of the fear that one day my favorite network will be dropped in some kind of dispute.
Get Serious commented:
Are we to take anyone seriously with so many incorrect words and sentence fragments? Why should Dish take anyone seriously, no matter how valid the points, if the article is not proofed?
TroyT commented:
You made so many "hit the nail on the head" comments you should be running Dish! I left Dish when it came time to go HD. At the time my only option as a long time customer was to purchase the new receiver at full price while new customers could get the same receiver for free! This was especially hard to take when I could walk into any CostCo and pick up a DirecTV receiver for a fraction of the price. I've been with DirecTV ever since!
Kyle Luna commented:
According to the EPG, DirecTV will be using DMX as an alternate music service in addition to XM soon, probably just to fill in the missing genres though.
Guillermo commented:
I was dish customer until CSR became into firewalls instead customer representatives, add Voom off and they stupid fees, fee 4 extra receiver, fee 4 HD, fee 4 keep my privacy without share my SSN, and many other stupid fees, I was very happy saying to my friends get dish but now some of them returned to OTA or DTV, old customers will return if old CSR and services without fee return, btw american CSR 4 America.
Tim Grimm commented:
I've said it before and I'll say it again, Dish lost me as a customer when they dropped the VOOM channels. I know that some people don't get that but it's the way it is.
As you've written here Scott it's really pretty simple, as long as Dish Network continues to disrespect its customers it will continue to lose them.
I think that Dish is in serious, SERIOUS trouble.