I’ve been a customer of DirecTV since January 2004. My bill with them is $96, which I pay on time every month. In fact, I’m on the auto-pay plan with them so they get their money when they want it. They’ve provided a service and I’ve compensated them for it. Not only am I a loyal customer, but I am a good customer.
So why is it that companies treat their best customers the worst? I’ve had a couple problems with bad receivers and each time they’ve sent me some refurbished piece of shit to replace it, and/or an older model receiver than the one I needed to replace. And when I bitched about it I got the “too bad, so sad; there’s nothing we can do about it” response.
Now I’m finally ready to upgrade to HD service. To do that I need a new receiver and a new satellite dish. So I call and see what DTV can do for me. Not much, apparently. They’ll give me the dish and installation free, but they want $200 for an HD DVR. And no deals on programming. Full price for everything. My monthly bill will increase about $40/month because their pricing structure and programming packages have changed since I signed up and I’ll need to select a current package.
So I shopped around. Comcast has a nice deal, but after a promo period they’d rape me even worse monthly than DirecTV. Verizon FiOS, on the other hand, which I already have broadband and home phone service through, is offering me the following:
First month of programming free. Savings: $57.99
Three SD (standard definition) receivers for $12.99/mo for 12 months. Savings: $60
HD DVR: 12 Months free. Savings: $239.88
DirecTV wanted me to pay $200 up front and an extra $40/month right off the bat. And I’m a great customer! Verizon, who I am a new (TV service) customer of, wants to give me over $350 in savings during the course of the next year, including $82.98 in the first month. And the kicker is that even after the 12 months are up, my bill will only be $15 more than what I pay now, as opposed to $40 if I upgrade with DirecTV.
On the other hand, if I was a new DirecTV customer, I’d get the HD DVR free (savings $200), three months of HD programming free (savings $30), HBO/Starz/Showtime free for three months (savings $105) and other discounts totalling $23/month for 12 months. Total savings: $611!
So why in the hell does it pay to be a good, solid, loyal customer when you’ll just get treated worse than someone with no track record with the company when you want to change/upgrade your service? It doesn’t make sense.
Oh, well. After next week when Verizon installs my new service it won’t matter anymore.
Over the summer, we had a lovesick 14 year old girl calling our house at all hours, wanting to talk to my son. I got fed up and called AT&T to see what they could do about it. It turned out they couldn’t do much, but the woman I spoke with offered us a deal if we bundled our DSL,landline and swapped our Direct TV for Dish Network. We now pay $110-$115/month for all three and pay one bill instead of three seperate ones. We rarely used our landline for anything but internet, so it’s cut to the bone with no long distance, caller ID, etc. We get no premium channels like HBO and we don’t care about sports. But we do get the news and favorite channels that we like, and the DVR, and figure there are other, more productive things we could be doing besides watching TV. The only people who called us on the landline were telemarketers, everyone else has our cell numbers. And that’s for two Dish network receivers, and it cost us nothing to switch, on the contrary, we got about $150 in rebates. We’re satisfied with the service, so maybe call around and see what deals different companies can offer you.
I can’t wait to get Verizon and kick Comcast to the curb!!! I feel the same as you. It sucks all the way around. Verizon DVR had better be as good as TiVo though. Comcast’s sucks ass!