Dish admits to shabby service, loses customers
May 11th, 2009, 1:03 pm · 9 Comments · posted by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
Dish Network Corporation lost 94,000 net subscribers in the first quarter, ended March 31, leaving 13.584 million with the satellite TV company. That’s a loss of 1.7 percent from a year ago.
But as part of a highly competitive industry, Dish is one of the few paid-TV companies that lost subscribers during the quarter. Comcast Corp., a cable TV provider on the East Coast, also lost customers. Here in Orange County, Verizon’s FiOS, AT&T’s U-verse, DirecTV and Time Warner Cable all gained customers in the first quarter.
Dish cited many of the usual reasons for the declines, including the nation’s weak economy, slowdown in paid-TV growth and competition from Internet and fiber-based TV services. But Dish also blamed some other unique events for its losses, according to its SEC filing.
- Signal theft and other forms of fraud.
- AT&T dumped Dish in favor of bundling DirecTV services for its phone customers.
- Competitors have been more successful at marketing the value and quality of their service.
- Admitted to not maintaining its own “high quality installations.”
- Also faulted itself for poor resolution of customer issues, poor communication with customers, and improving the quality of its subscriber equipment. Here’s exactly what the company said:
“We have not always met our own standards for performing high quality installations, effectively resolving customer issues when they arise, answering customer calls in an acceptable timeframe, effectively communicating with our subscriber base, reducing calls driven by the complexity of our business, improving the reliability of certain systems and subscriber equipment, and aligning the interests of certain third party retailers and installers to provide high quality service.”
Wow, I didn’t know companies actually admitted stuff like this.
The good news for current customers is that Dish says it is taking responsibility and spending money to fix everything. It’s upgrading customers to HD equipment, offering Slingbox’s place-shifting technology, and investing in customer service. The bad news for investors, said the company, is that these expenses will hurt margins and the company will make less money. Also, there’s no guarantee that these investments will pay off, but the company believes they will.
For the quarter, Dish reported $313 million in net income on $2.91 billion in revenues. That’s up from the same period a year earlier of $259 million income on $2.84 billion in revenues.
More from the Web on Dish Network’s finances:
- Dish Network shares jump on better-than-expected results (MarketWatch)
- Dish Network Disses Own Service; Stock Soars (TheStreet.com)
- Dish Rises Most in 7 Months as Profit Beats Estimates (Bloomberg)
More TV news:
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They really suck. Your bill is never the same two months in a row. I had them for only the time my contract forced me to continue with their lousy service. Not to mention their constant channel changing techniques. Here today, gone tomorrow, back in six months. Whatever. At least with DirecTV my bill is always the same and I always have the chanels I enjoy watching.
I have been a long time customer of Dish Network. I have been happy with them for the most part. The only problem that I’ve been frustrated with was their refusal to provide me with the newest equipment. I had the same old boxes for 10 years and was not able to enjoy the benefits of the newest upgrades and features with the old boxes. Apparently Dish is trying to rectify the customer service issues. A few weeks ago I tried again to have them replace my old equipment… and they did with no arguement. I called on a Thursday night I had the new stuff on Saturday morning and I ended up with a slightly lower bill to boot.
Sports fans just have to have Directv!
I have Dish and I am not a fan of it. DTV wanted to do a credit check- and they said, I owed them 3 hundred before I could even get the service.
But they do offer you stations one month or three months and they remove it. That is BS
All the satallite dish companies suck. They only offer bundles full of crap that we never watch. They need to let the customer pick and choose what they want so we can get just a few of the channels that we really only watch and not a bunch of junk that we don’t need and never even want. They also need to bring the price down for smaller packages and make it affordable for for people on fixed incomes and retired. They claim to do that but by the time your finished it’s over 60 bucks and loaded with channel you never watch.
I have been a subscriber for abou 8 years and have been very happy with the service. They have been responsive to my needs and have replaced equipment immediqately when required. I have just switfched to HD, have a new HD DVR box coming tomorrow and look forward to continuing Dish Network services. I have FIOS on my property but elected to stay with Dish rather than switch to FIOS.
We’ve lost all of our taped shows 4 times since receiving their DVR (system has been corrupted message) a little more than 2 months ago and they are now telling us that it is because we don’t turn our receiver off at night (something they never told us to do in the first place, do other people have to turn the receiver off nightly?). So I guess I can’t turn the TV off and go to sleep anymore, I’ll have to go back out to the living room to turn off the receiver before I can go to sleep. Seems a bit crazy. Can’t say that I’ve been thrilled with their service. I know a few people who have had serious issues regarding charges for receivers when they move, do not get automatic credit card billing with them and if you do, be sure to change your credit card number if you decide to cancel their service. Getting $300 back was virtually impossible for two people I know.
The three years I had Dish it was the cheapest, best service I ever had! Great service and good channel line up
Now A-Del-Pee-On Ya and its evil twin Totally Worthless Crap by far have the worst service, most expence $60 a month for crap basic, worst line up (mostly home shopping and Hispanic channels)
I would love to have a bad Dish service over the very very bad Totally Worthless Crap service!
[...] was to pay for it — a likely reason why most of Orange County’s paid TV services have thrived this year despite the economy. [...]