Let me tell you a story about what makes good customer service by opposite example. If you read this blog regularly, you know that I mentioned twice before that my Dish Network service has been out for about the last week. When I finished checking my connections and pretending to know what I’m looking at while poking at the satellite dish, I finally broke down and called technical support. After about 15 minutes of automated menus that walked me through very simple to moderately complex operations, I finally got to speak to a real person. This person repeated several of the steps I had just gone through.
After realizing that my problem was more serious, and not a simple case of something being unplugged—it didn’t matter that I told him that’s what I checked before I bothered to call—he said he’d dispatch a technician to come and take a look at it, but the earliest time was next Monday (today). I said okay, because what else could I say? Then I had to ask twice about not being charged for the satellite service while it was down. When he professed to not understand what I was asking I had tell him that I was not willing to pay for satellite service that I would not be receiving. He then said I’d get prorated credit for the time I was down.
What upset me about this whole process was the fact that I had to protest before I got credit for service that I wouldn’t be receiving. A good company would have done that without asking, and just told me that I would be getting credit for time down.
The technician came today and after some troubleshooting, replaced my receiver (just as I had believed was the problem all along). So everything is back to normal, I just have a little less faith in Dish Network. At least the replacement unit didn’t cost me anything.