Press Release: DISH Tops Satellite and Cable in American Customer Satisfaction Index

[Jason Nipp]

DISH NETWORK TOPS SATELLITE AND CABLE IN AMERICAN CUSTOMER SATISFACTION INDEX

Subscribers most satisfied, most loyal and have fewest complaints

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. – May 18, 2010 – DISH Network L.L.C., America’s fastest-growing pay-TV provider, is now No. 1 in customer satisfaction among satellite and cable companies, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).
In this year’s survey, DISH Network scored a 71 for customer satisfaction – a significant seven-point increase from 2009 and well above the 2010 pay-TV industry average of 66. DISH Network scored three points higher than DirecTV, four points higher than Cox, 10 points higher than Comcast and Time Warner, and 11 points higher than Charter. Phone companies Verizon and AT&T rated highest in the category with scores of 73 and 72, respectively.
In addition to receiving the highest scores for customer satisfaction among satellite and cable companies, DISH Network topped satellite and cable in customer loyalty and perceived value. DISH Network also received the fewest complaints in the entire industry for the second year in a row, and advanced in areas of customer expectations and perceived quality, with scores above the industry average.
“DISH Network’s dramatically-improved ranking in the ACSI survey is testimony to the considerable strides we made over the past year to re-establish our leadership in customer service,” said Charlie Ergen, Chairman, President and CEO of DISH Network. “We know our customers have many choices when it comes to TV, which is why we remain committed to providing them with best-in-class service at an unmatched value.”
The ACSI is a national economic indicator of customer evaluations of the quality of products and services available to U.S. household consumers, and reflects customers’ overall satisfaction with the service. Consumers were surveyed in the first quarter of 2010 for their ratings about perceived overall quality, perceived value and expectations. The ACSI survey is produced by the Stephen M. Ross Business School at the University of Michigan, in partnership with the American Society for Quality and the international consulting firm CFI Group.

###
About DISH Network
DISH Network L.L.C., a subsidiary of DISH Network Corporation (NASDAQ: DISH), provides more than 14.3 million satellite TV customers, as of March 31, 2010, with the highest quality programming and technology at the best value, including the lowest all-digital price nationwide. Customers have access to hundreds of video and audio channels, the most HD channels, the most international channels, state-of-the-art interactive TV applications, and award-winning HD and DVR technology including 1080p Video on Demand and the ViP® 722 HD DVR, a CNET and PC Magazine “Editors’ Choice.” DISH Network Corporation is included in the Nasdaq-100 Index (NDX) and is a Fortune 200 company. Visit www.dish.com (http://www.dish.com/), follow on Twitter, @dishnetwork (www.twitter.com/dishnetwork), or become a Fan on Facebook, www.facebook.com/dishnetwork (http://www.facebook.com/dishnetwork).

[GrumpyBear]

Good job Dish. Now they need to beat the Telco's.

[Aztec Pilot]

Improvement in customer service is always welcome. Nice job!

[phrelin]

Yeah, great job!

After looking over the web site, I still want to know. Who is ACSI?

[Dario33]

:up:

[nmetro]

While DISH may be tooting their horn; it is time to put this into a bit of perspective. Effectively DISH got a C- grade from consumers. Verizon and AT&T got a C. Charter got an F, Comcast and Time Warner got a D-. Direct TV and Cox got a D+. Industry average was a solid D. At least DISH improved from a D- to a C-.

I suspect the survey asked what grade do you give your provider. Let's face it number grades do not look as bad at letter grades (less subjective looking).

Don't get me wrong; I am please with DISH service. But in my mind, polls and surveys are too subjective to get anything meaningful.

[BattleZone]

Yeah, great job!

After looking over the web site, I still want to know. Who is ACSI?

It's made up of Charlie, John, and some of their poker buddies... :lol:

[kcolg30]

Now if they can remove the DVR, receiver, PPV and VOD fees we got ourselves a perfect provider....:D

[wilbur_the_goose]

Info on ACSI: http://www.theacsi.org/

[Stewart Vernon]

I agree about perspective... Raving about a C-grade for satisfaction isn't great... but wasn't DirecTV just doing this recently in their commercials "To tell the truth" where they previously were #1 in satisfaction?

Being #1 at poor service isn't a great thing to brag about... but it seems companies are just leapfrogging each other at that level rather than actually aiming for even a B-rating, much less an A-rating.

[GrumpyBear]

ACSI is the same company Direct uses in its TV ad about customer satistaction as well.
Its in the fine print at the bottom. Direct uses ACSI ratings in shareholder info as well.
Good job over last yr, but beat the Telco's, and bump up into the 80s before doing to much bragging. Granted this is really in response, to the To Tell the Truth adds. Can of hard for Direct to make the claim, of being ranked #1, if Dish is rated higher on the survey Direct is using, as its reference. Say good buy to that TV add.

[James Long]

Satisfaction is such a fleeting thing ... ask any DirecTV customer how satisfied they are with DISH service or vice versa. When you ask people about the company they are customers of you are taking many different survey groups and comparing them instead of having one controlled group.

Making your own customer happy is important ... but I don't see 100% satisfaction as obtainable. Nor would I relate a % happy/unhappy as if it were a letter grade. The survey participants were not asked to give a letter grade for their company that would be averaged for a result.

Look around at other satisfaction indexes. Is anyone satisfied? 70s are pretty good.

That being said ... a three point lead isn't much. It is good to see the improvement over DISH's own score from previous surveys. After all ... in a survey of one's own customers, it is only one's own score that truly matters.

[xzi]

It's probably pretty easy to get the "least number of complaints" when you also have the least number of subscribers out of the bunch, too.

[SteveHas]

The what index?
Who paid for this study by such a famous arbiter of customer satisfaction?

[GrumpyBear]

It's probably pretty easy to get the "least number of complaints" when you also have the least number of subscribers out of the bunch, too.

Actually with these kind of sampling polls, the fewer users/subscribers would work against you.
The fewer people in the poll, when they only sample, lets say 1000 users, the more likely they would find a disgruntled user, vs a happy to satisfied customer. The more people in the pool of users, the more chances of avoiding disgruntled users.

I still say the reason for the announcement, is to squash the Direct To Tell the Truth commerial, as Direct uses the ACSI as its reference for number 1 vs Cable and Dish Network. Kind of hard to keep running that commerical when your own reference can't used anymore.

[Stewart Vernon]

I agree that 100% customer satisfaction is likely unattainable... but I firmly believe that should be the goal!

One thing that I believe all people and companies over the years have done... is to lower expectations, and thus, lower achievements.

IF 100% satisfaction is the goal, and you get 80-90 then you can be happy you did so well and still have a number to aim for.

IF you set the bar to 80-90, then getting 70 seems like a good number... and you've succeeded in lowering the bar to aim at next time.

The "acceptable risk" scenario was originally meant to help you not be frustrated at achieving the unattainable perfection... but instead, has been twisted to justify not trying to be as good as you can be, because you've capped your "likely" maximum success at a lower threshold.

[harsh]

I agree that 100% customer satisfaction is likely unattainable... but I firmly believe that should be the goal!I disagree. Satisfaction with customer service is but one of many metrics that can have money poured on them. As the cost of customer service satisfaction grows asymptotically to infinity as the percentage approches 100, a prudent company will strike a balance somewhere beneath.

Such is not to say that DISH Network shouldn't try to do everything right, but it must be balanced with the idea that some customers will not allow themselves to be satisfied. It is also important to consider that most customers probably don't interact with Customer Service on a frequent basis.

[Hoosier205]

Good for Dish. They were bound to achieve something eventually...

[Stewart Vernon]

I disagree. Satisfaction with customer service is but one of many metrics that can have money poured on them. As the cost of customer service satisfaction grows asymptotically to infinity as the percentage approches 100, a prudent company will strike a balance somewhere beneath.

Such is not to say that DISH Network shouldn't try to do everything right, but it must be balanced with the idea that some customers will not allow themselves to be satisfied. It is also important to consider that most customers probably don't interact with Customer Service on a frequent basis.

I think you might have missed the point of what I said.... because you essentially said exactly what I did, but with more words.

100% satisfaction will be unattainable, but it should be the goal... in order to ensure you actually achieve the best possible result.

IF you handicap yourself from the start by aiming at 80-90% satisfaction, then you've assured yourself of not meeting your goal, and then 70-80 is your highest target achievable.

Don't break your neck trying to get perfection... but if you don't aim high, you most assuredly will hit low.

[joshjr]

DISH NETWORK TOPS SATELLITE AND CABLE IN AMERICAN CUSTOMER SATISFACTION INDEX

Subscribers most satisfied, most loyal and have fewest complaints

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. – May 18, 2010 – DISH Network L.L.C., America’s fastest-growing pay-TV provider, is now No. 1 in customer satisfaction among satellite and cable companies, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).
I thought D* was the fastest growing provider. Havnt the sub increases per quarter been better for D* & yearly too. I guess then again fastest growing can mean anything & not just sub count.

[James Long]

I thought D* was the fastest growing provider. Havnt the sub increases per quarter been better for D* & yearly too.No, they haven't.

[harsh]

I think you might have missed the point of what I said.... because you essentially said exactly what I did, but with more words.No, we're not saying the same thing. It is important to be able to both meet the goals and more than once in a while, exceed them. Setting all goals for ideal is lazy and fails miserably as a metric for relative success. It isn't inspirational measuring things by how little you missed the mark. Why bother if you know there's no way of winning?

Good business plans are a formula for success and they need to distribute resources in a way that offers the best return on investment.

[Slamminc11]

I thought D* was the fastest growing provider. Havnt the sub increases per quarter been better for D* & yearly too. I guess then again fastest growing can mean anything & not just sub count.

have you not been paying attention for the last few quarters? Dish is adding subs at more than twice the rate Direct is...

[Hoosier205]

have you not been paying attention for the last few quarters? Dish is adding subs at more than twice the rate Direct is...

Yet they still can't succeed.

[GrumpyBear]

No, we're not saying the same thing. It is important to be able to both meet the goals and more than once in a while, exceed them. Setting all goals for ideal is lazy and fails miserably as a metric for relative success. It isn't inspirational measuring things by how little you missed the mark. Why bother if you know there's no way of winning?

Good business plans are a formula for success and they need to distribute resources in a way that offers the best return on investment.
There is no way in the real world, a service organization will ever reach 100% satisfaction. Shooting for it, and striving for it, is a good thing, a rational person understands, that when dealing with John Q Public, there is just no way its going to happen.
Just ask anybody that has done support work, that has resolved a clients issue quickly, and compelely just to recieve back a customer satisfaction report on the incident, with a poor rating. When somebody follows up, client was happy with the resolution, but gave a poor rating for no other reason than they felt that they shouldn't have had to call in, as the problem shouldn't have even existed, or because the fix was to easy. Nothing Lazy about it at all, about looking at something with a Rational eye.

[harsh]

Nothing Lazy about it at all, about looking at something with a Rational eye.What is rational about setting a goal that you know you'll never reach even if you divert all of your resources to it?

[GrumpyBear]

HUGE difference between striving for it, on every call and every visit, which Dish and every company should be doing, vs realizing that reaching that 100% goal number, just isn't possible when dealing with the public. You can't please all of the people all of the time, there are some people, you WILL NEVER satisfy.
What would be truely lazy is not even striving for 100% satisfaction. Being rational about the goal, though keeps business plans, realistic.

[jclewter79]

Yet they still can't succeed.

What are you speaking of when you say they still cannot succeed?

[GrumpyBear]

What are you speaking of when you say they still cannot succeed?

What he means, is Dish CSR's haven't been able to get on Two and a Half Men, like a Direct CSR was able too, this last monday.
Nice to know that Direct CSR's, can give you perscription for Medical Ganja, by doing a webcam Dr's visit, when they aren't answering phone calls from Direct's users.

[Hoosier205]

What are you speaking of when you say they still cannot succeed?

Coming in at a distant second place in every category but this one.

[sigma1914]

What he means, is Dish CSR's haven't been able to get on Two and a Half Men, like a Direct CSR was able too, this last monday.
Nice to know that Direct CSR's, can give you perscription for Medical Ganja, by doing a webcam Dr's visit, when they aren't answering phone calls from Direct's users.

The irony is, Directv doesn't have India based CSRs, but Dish does.

[GrumpyBear]

The irony is, Directv doesn't have India based CSRs, but Dish does.

Now, Now, Now, who said he was based in India? Are you saying we have no US Citizens or workers visa people that would look like that and talk like that?

Granted. He could have been in Pakistan, too.
:D:lol::D


Yes I do get the Irony, though, its just a national viewpoint, that all call centers nowadays are based somewere else. I just found it funny, they used DirecTV.

[James Long]

Yet they still can't succeed.Coming in at a distant second place in every category but this one.I suppose the best advice is "don't feed the troll'.

Recent Successes:
Launching and putting in to service in under two months Echostar 14.
Launched 3-20-10 and in service to customers at 3:00am ET this morning.
(Before that other company's December launched satellite served customers.)

Convincing Congress to change the law to make providing all LIL markets cost effective. (DISH already covers more markets LIL than DirecTV will by the end of the year, if DirecTV's promises are kept.)

Convincing the Federal Appeals Court to review their case en banc and allowing continued use of their DVRs.

Adding more HD in the past year than ANY other provider. Carriage of 29 HD channels DirecTV has not even announced.

And that doesn't even scratch the surface of profitability, etc.

Plenty of success.

I'm sure the trolls will try to diminish the success of DISH ... perhaps their provider's successes are not good enough for them. But DISH is doing fine. Good enough that their successes speak for the company.

[sigma1914]

I suppose the best advice is "don't feed the troll'.

Kinda like they feed a "Super" troll in D12's thread?
Recent Successes:
Launching and putting in to service in under two months Echostar 14.
Launched 3-20-10 and in service to customers at 3:00am ET this morning.
(Before that other company's December launched satellite served customers.)

Was E14 a new type of satellite technology that had BSS that needed testing? Is E14 needed to support another sat so the older sat can be repaired, thus resulting in more bandwidth? Oh no, I guess D* could just squeeze channels on TPs by reducing resolution. Convincing Congress to change the law to make providing all LIL markets cost effective. (DISH already covers more markets LIL than DirecTV will by the end of the year, if DirecTV's promises are kept.)
Good job...$$$ talks.

Convincing the Federal Appeals Court to review their case en banc and allowing continued use of their DVRs.
Drawing out a multi million dollar court case...not a hard task

Adding more HD in the past year than ANY other provider. Carriage of 29 HD channels DirecTV has not even announced.
Most of which are premiums. One could easily point out the many full time RSNs Directv has over Dish. Directv = HD sports leader; Dish HD Premium leader.

And that doesn't even scratch the surface of profitability, etc.
Who made more money? ;)

Plenty of success.

I'm sure the trolls will try to diminish the success of DISH ... perhaps their provider's successes are not good enough for them. But DISH is doing fine. Good enough that their successes speak for the company.

Kinda like "Super" trolls try to diminish a thread tracking D12's success? Hmmm.

[tsmacro]

I suppose the best advice is "don't feed the troll'.


I'm sure the trolls will try to diminish the success of DISH ... perhaps their provider's successes are not good enough for them. But DISH is doing fine. Good enough that their successes speak for the company.

Yeah I do find it kind of ridiculous that there's people that somehow feel threatened when there's good news about Dish that they feel the need to try to diminish it somehow and even more pathetically they think they way to do it is with snide comments on an internet message board. Really? It's not good enough for you to be happy with choice of tv provider, you just can't feel good about yourself unless you also are trying to point out that other providers are somehow inferior to your choice? Are you really so fragile that your sense of self-worth is connected to who you pay for tv service? Who knows maybe someday we can all get to a place where we can all be happy with our choice and be happy for everyone else's as well without feeling the need to take pot-shots at one another. Well one can dream I suppose. :sure:

[Paul Secic]

Actually with these kind of sampling polls, the fewer users/subscribers would work against you.
The fewer people in the poll, when they only sample, lets say 1000 users, the more likely they would find a disgruntled user, vs a happy to satisfied customer. The more people in the pool of users, the more chances of avoiding disgruntled users.

I still say the reason for the announcement, is to squash the Direct To Tell the Truth commerial, as Direct uses the ACSI as its reference for number 1 vs Cable and Dish Network. Kind of hard to keep running that commerical when your own reference can't used anymore.

The Direct To Tell the Truth commercial makes the Dish guy looks dumb. Dish should do an ad with pixelation on a Directv TV.

[sigma1914]

The Direct To Tell the Truth commercial makes the Dish guy looks dumb. Dish should do an ad with pixelation on a Directv TV.

What pixelation? :confused:

[Kent Taylor]

Let's wander back on topic, please.

[Hoosier205]

I suppose the best advice is "don't feed the troll'.

Recent Successes:
Launching and putting in to service in under two months Echostar 14.
Launched 3-20-10 and in service to customers at 3:00am ET this morning.
(Before that other company's December launched satellite served customers.)

Convincing Congress to change the law to make providing all LIL markets cost effective. (DISH already covers more markets LIL than DirecTV will by the end of the year, if DirecTV's promises are kept.)

Convincing the Federal Appeals Court to review their case en banc and allowing continued use of their DVRs.

Adding more HD in the past year than ANY other provider. Carriage of 29 HD channels DirecTV has not even announced.

And that doesn't even scratch the surface of profitability, etc.

Plenty of success.

I'm sure the trolls will try to diminish the success of DISH ... perhaps their provider's successes are not good enough for them. But DISH is doing fine. Good enough that their successes speak for the company.

...yet they still rely on HD-Lite and over-compression. :lol: Even when Dish tries its best, it still can't manage to come out on top. Congratulation on burning all that fuel by the way. Hey, at least this one made it into orbit.

When you value quantity over quality: Dish Network just makes sense.

[Hoosier205]

The Direct To Tell the Truth commercial makes the Dish guy looks dumb. Dish should do an ad with pixelation on a Directv TV.

DirecTV doesn't have a problem with pixelation. However, Dish Network does have a major problem with reduced resolution and macroblocking.

[James Long]

Yeah I do find it kind of ridiculous that there's people that somehow feel threatened when there's good news about Dish that they feel the need to try to diminish it somehow and even more pathetically they think they way to do it is with snide comments on an internet message board. Really? It's not good enough for you to be happy with choice of tv provider, you just can't feel good about yourself unless you also are trying to point out that other providers are somehow inferior to your choice? Are you really so fragile that your sense of self-worth is connected to who you pay for tv service? Who knows maybe someday we can all get to a place where we can all be happy with our choice and be happy for everyone else's as well without feeling the need to take pot-shots at one another. Well one can dream I suppose. :sure:I could not have said it any better myself.

I sink to their level of 'comparison" language on occasion because that is the only language they seem to understand. When speaking to a three year old you use different language than when speaking to college professor or professional. Sometimes one has to speak troll. But one does not have to make it their life's work to trash other companies just to feel slightly better about one's own personal choice of provider.

DISH Network be fine ... in the ebb and flow of the marketplace they have held their place and they remain a successful business.

[James Long]

Let's wander back on topic, please.
I agree. We have a general satellite forum if someone wants to start a comparison thread. Or they can use one of the existing threads there.

[sigma1914]

Let's wander back on topic, please.

I agree. We have a general satellite forum if someone wants to start a comparison thread. Or they can use one of the existing threads there.

After you got the last word in, though. :lol:

[Kent Taylor]

After you got the last word in, though. :lol:

Finished?

[sigma1914]

Finished?

I was long ago. The "Super" wasn't, but it turns out he was unaware of your post before his was submitted.

[Stewart Vernon]

The last word should be people back on topic. If there is a last word other than that, it probably means this thread has ran its course.

Back to topic.

[dcandmc]

Ran across this today:

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Extra/customer-service-hall-of-shame-companies-2010.aspx?slide-number=5#q=10%20companies%20we%20love%20to%20hate: No.%206%3A%20Dish%20Network%20had%20to%20pay%20up

[GrumpyBear]

I think people need to keep an eye out, to see if the service to tell the truth commerical is played anymore. It just came out, and I haven't seen it for several days now, were I have seen a couple of the other ads.

[hallrk]

Ran across this today:




I can tell you from personal experience that their contractors that install are nothing but incompetent. I recently scheduled them to install a 722 as a free upgrade from my 501. They sent a kid out with all of three months experience in installations. I could tell from the start he didn't seem to have a good grasp on how to install it. He was constantly on his phone trying to get help from his supervisors, which is OK but not very confidence building for the customer. He finally said he needed to go on the roof to change the LNB or something like that. He had a smaller ladder and tried to up from the front of the house but said the pitch of the roof was too steep. I'm sure he was just scared of heights. He didn't have a 40 foot ladder to go up the side of the house that the Dish is located. So he had to call another isntaller to bring him the ladder. It didn't really take long for this one to show up. He went up and changed the LNB. He said he had to change it because I still have a legacy receiver. When he was done with that, the guy that brought the ladder took off instead of waiting to see if we could get a signal through the 722. Of couse when he tried, no signal came through. After getting on his phone for quite some time he finally came and said he would have to get back on the roof but he couldn't get the 40 foot ladder back. At this point I said forget it. I canceled the order for the replacement 722. I had had it. He had been there for over 4 hours and I had nothing! I couldn't even get any signal for my two receivers. I told this place they need to send someone out the next day,Pronto! The next morning the field supervisor called said he would be out to fix everything to put it back the way it originally was. He and another came when they said they would and did fix it.
The field supervisor though was a real butt. I had to prompt him to tell me what had gone wrong (the kid had did something wrong with the LNB's) and he didn't even offer a simple apology. The other person that was their to help did apologze for the problems when he came back to fill in some small holes that were left in my siding. But it really wasn't his place to apologize.
This was a just real nightmare and quite honestly I hope to never deal with a DISH installation or anything for that matter again. Right now isn't a good time for me to change services completely but I will be when that time comes. DirecTV is probably out because I think the same installers do them and I do not want to ever have these people on my property again! I live in Northern Virginia so anyone familiar with that area probably knows who the DISH installer is in that area.
Also I did call DISH directly to complain. They sympathized but all they could offer me was three movie coupons. Big Whoop!!!

[GrumpyBear]

Not all installers are equally competent. Sorry for your frustration.
Last installer I had was great. Dish Network, called me to inform me that I was having a problem with my Dish, I didn't even notice I was having a problem, but Dish said they were recieving error reports, and that it should be replaced.

Next morning installer arrived, not only did he swap out the Dish and mast completely, he ran all new cables, tucked everything up nice an neat and was done in under 3 hrs, to fix a Problem I didn't even know I had.

[phrelin]

My daughter in San Francisco has had good experiences with Dish Network installers who are Dish Network employees.

In many rural areas it's another story. In my area 120 miles north of San Francisco installers are "subcontractors" of the contractor to Dish Network, a contractor who is located hundreds of miles from here. In every case, I got exactly what the contractor paid for - a guy with his own small pickup with some - but not a full complement of - parts and supplies whose meter wasn't working right. Even though I already have ladders in place because they never have long enough ladders, considering travel time these subs aren't likely to net minimum wage on the job even though I'll give a $20 pity tip.

When I upgraded to HD three guys showed up - one who had seen a dish but not an HD DVR before and was fully bilingual - and two new trainees who spoke little English so it was fortunate that I still remember some Spanish.

They brought a 1000.2 to the redwoods where the likelihood of a parcel having line-of-sight to 110/119/129 from one point is maybe 20%. Even though I already had a 500, they couldn't fully complete the install because they didn't have a dish of any kind for a wing dish. They did throw a DPP44 on the roof where it ultimately failed because it baked in the sun in Summer and sat in water in the Winter. Two different guys came out at different times to improperly locate the wing dish for 129. I finally moved it myself so I could get a reliable signal.

When the DPP44 failed, the guy who came out to replace it (I told the TSR exactly what was wrong and it was on the work order) didn't bring a replacement DPP44. But, because there were four separate coax runs from the Dish, he could use a DP34 I noticed he did have on his truck. After I had argument with his supervisor on his cell phone, he ignored his supervisor and did as I asked properly installing the DP34 under the eaves. He got a big tip.

I never ever let these guys hook anything up to my A/V system. They can watch, but don't touch. I don't know how people around here without some technical knowledge get a decent install.