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Tim in Phoenix
Joined: 21 Oct 2006
Posts: 4409
Location: Phoenix
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| Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 6:34 pm Post subject: Where do they find these people? |
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Guys
I have been a relatively happy Dish satellite user for three years now, but noticed recently that four of the forty Phoenix local channels would not tune in. They either came up flashing or not at all, signal strength zero. Dish Customer Support was clueless except to blame my antenna, a Channel Master omni with amplifier. Where I live, all the local transmitters are in one place, on South Mountain, about twenty miles away. The channels that did tune in had signals from fifty-eight up to one hundred, so the problem was pretty weird. The best advice I got was from Channel Master, their western office is here in Phoenix. Their technician sez, "unhook your terrestrial antenna and do a local search, this should blow out all local settings". I did so, followed by reconnecting the antenna and doing a fresh local search again. Three of the four missing channels now worked fine, but 10.1 still flashed in and out. Called Dish, and they insisted still that the antenna was bad. "Send me a new receiver or cancel everything" was my reply. Reluctantly they sent one, I hooked it up this morning, and the difference was obvious.
It had zero picture from YPrPb, just a purple blur.
Called Dish again, the girl insisted that my cables or my projector was bad. "Your projector only has two inputs?????" She was incredulous. When arguing with idiots, you begin to sound like an idiot yourself, so I hung up. So the new/defective receiver goes back, and we start over next week.........grrrrrrrrrrr.
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greg_mitch
Joined: 03 May 2006
Posts: 5320
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| Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 6:39 pm Post subject: |
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Sounds like user error... 
I bet Bill Gates get the same sh*t when he calls Dell tech support and gets forwarded to India.
"Did you try restarting your PC?"
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macgyver655
Joined: 22 Aug 2007
Posts: 8508
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| Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 6:47 pm Post subject: |
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Do all your dish and antenna cables come through a switch outside? Like a DP34 or DP44 or something else?
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emdawgz1
Joined: 14 Mar 2006
Posts: 7949
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| Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 6:58 pm Post subject: |
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I was going to suggest checking your switch. It may be dropping the OTA signal.
either that or if you have an ota tuner in house, check and see what it picks up.
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Tim in Phoenix
Joined: 21 Oct 2006
Posts: 4409
Location: Phoenix
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| Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 7:07 pm Post subject: |
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| macgyver655 wrote: | | Do all your dish and antenna cables come through a switch outside? Like a DP34 or DP44 or something else? |
No switch, the coax goes straight into the receiver.
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LOTREE
Joined: 19 Mar 2006
Posts: 401
Location: Paradise, Newfoundland
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| Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 8:57 pm Post subject: Re: Where do they find these people? |
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| Tim in Phoenix wrote: | | "Send me a new receiver or cancel everything" |
Having been on the front line taking calls like I've heard that that many times myself. From personal experience A) You'd get a new box B) Could care less if the customer disconnects if they have no patience and confronts attitude. At that point your brain shuts down thus a lack of caring, respect or empathy toward the individual calling.
Not slamming you Tim, really don't mean too... just giving an inside view of a call center.
What's the reasoning behind poor quality support? It comes down to MONEY. Most call centers are sourced out to 3rd party again to save MONEY. Employees are paid less, raises are poor, given inadequate training and very little hands on prior to taking the calls. The back end database/resource tools are HORRIBLE for the most part. Databases are often just internal search engines or difficult to navigate knowledgebases. Anyone contact HP support before for a general question or price on a part? You'll be given it's from $100-$350, want a battery? They can't sell you a 6 cell online, check with a local dealer. Why the run around? Because it's not inhouse HP support I'm guessing - 3rd party and they have little to do with the site, inventory and as to why you can order the 12cell and not the 6. You won't get an exact answer because the agent isn't given the tools/resources to provide one.
Tech support, for the most part, no matter what company is lacking. It all comes down to the money grubbing shareholders wanting to turn a profit higher than the year before and thinning resources to the point the agents quit in frustration. What's left? Well, those promising agents that joined the company for a possible future are gone, replaced multiple times with people that care less and less behind them. Word gets out how bad the place is to work making it harder to find tech savvy, higher educated people. Where I worked it went from having a degree/certification when I started to not having to have finished HS. The average term of a call center employee is 3months so it's a rather annoying game in trying to hit one that has been there long enough to actually help you correctly.
Now when I call support, generally I expect either 2 interactions. The agent will know their job well and answer most if not all questions or I'll be placed on hold multiple times, make up answers I know are wrong resulting in a call back or more. I never get overly frustrated because I know what to expect. The solution is giving the agent the tools to do the job and enough money to give a damn. It took me over a week to have my internet speed increased to what it should be in the new bundle. To me that's a 5min fix if you called in but 4 agents and 2 chat support people later it was corrected today. This isn't true for everyone and all centers but it's sadly the way things have gone in the last 10 years.
Hope you get it fixed though. Sorry I can't offer any help. 
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Last edited by LOTREE on Tue Jan 26, 2010 9:44 pm; edited 2 times in total
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macgyver655
Joined: 22 Aug 2007
Posts: 8508
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| Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 9:08 pm Post subject: |
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| Tim in Phoenix wrote: | | macgyver655 wrote: | | Do all your dish and antenna cables come through a switch outside? Like a DP34 or DP44 or something else? |
No switch, the coax goes straight into the receiver.
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Yep, gotta be the box then.
Having also dealt with no knowledge people when calling in a problem I pretty much now resort to,,"Hello, may I speak to your supervisor" without even asking them a question.
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macgyver655
Joined: 22 Aug 2007
Posts: 8508
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| Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 10:11 pm Post subject: |
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What size cable are you running from the antenna and are the connectors properly attached? How about a grounding block?
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rssimm
Joined: 28 Jul 2009
Posts: 48
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| Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 12:45 am Post subject: |
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10.1 is a bitch over the air here. i get prescott stations better than 10. it could be a combination of 10 being that bad and something else. which other stations were giving you issues? i've gone through many OTA antennas trying to get as many locals as i can. i came to the conclusion that the whole dtv thing sucks. more stations still nothing on.
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WanMan
Joined: 19 Mar 2006
Posts: 10270
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| Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 12:20 pm Post subject: |
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Tim, this reminds me a a case back in 2002/03 with DirecTV. At the time, I had a pair of SD DVRs (the original Philips units). Neighbor across the street took a direct hit, and anything connected to a telephone line was toast. At the time, my Internet service was phone-line fed and the original Xbox lost its network interface. Same thing on a couple of computers, and both dial-up modems in the pair of Philips DVRs.
DirecTV insisted I replace the phone lines, which I did with custom Cat5e cables. Then, they wanted me to replace the NID, I told them to go screw themselves as the telephone service was WORKING. Not about to pay several hundred dollars to the devil to replace the telephone company demarcation.
Anyway, with great laboring on the debate they finally caved in and honored the Protection Plan I had and sent out replacement DVRs. Only then I discovered the access cards would not work in the new units and I had to wait for replacements on them, too.
In this world it is far more attractive to DirecTV and Dish (and they are not alone) to lose some customer revenue since the savings on hiring incompetent tech staff positively offsets the loss.
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