A letter I wrote to Direct TV... No response of course:
I have never been as frustrated as I have been EVER than I was yesterday with your “customer service”. I understand you probably get tons of emails daily from angry customers especially if they all have to deal with what I have with only 48 hours with your company so far. First, we were scheduled for installation on Saturday the 22nd between 12-4pm. We received a confirmation call at 330 saying he would be there within half an hour and by 530 I was on hold for 45 minutes trying to find out where he was. They said he was not able to make it but NO ONE CALLED. I spent my only day off work sitting at the house not able to get anything done because I was waiting and then had a no show. Finally t hey agreed to come out Sunday morning since I refused to take another day off work and my husband is a marine recruiter with crazy hours so the weekend was the only option. They showed up around 9am…and had to return 3 times in the day, the last time around 130 pm. The installer kept forgetting pieces of equipment he needed so he couldn’t set us up, and then called later to say he installed the wrong receiver and was almost to our house so we turned around from our lunch date and came home. The cable works great we are excited to have DVR etc.
Of course…36 hours after installation I received my bill (funny your cancellation policy is 24 hours, and I don’t get my bill till after that time frame). My husband had spent about 45 minutes on the phone on May 10th around 10pm with a very nice woman who helped us pick the best program for us that would help us save money. We are a newlywed military couple living on a tight budget and what she proposed would save us about 30 dollars a month than the cable company we had been using. We were so excited! Plus you guys offered more/DVR, HD/receiver in our bedroom for still, a cheaper price. The representative broke down the costs. Provided us what our first month bill would be, arranged set up, set up the referral discount through my father who raves about direct TV, etc. She was wonderful. She said she was taking care of everything and there was “nothing else we needed to do”. However she never EVER mentioned a rebate, never mentioned if we didn’t do the rebate we would be paying almost double, never mentioned we had to go online to get a rebate, said she was taking care of things which I assumed that meant this was the price that’s what I will pay. My bill clearly showed that was not the case. I called during my lunch break yesterday and after 45 minutes on hold waiting for a supervisor after your customer service agents told me there was nothing they could do this was my bill price, My lunch break ended and I tried again after work.
On my second call after 30 minutes on hold waiting for a supervisor I spoke with someone, who as a training coordinator who spends all of her day teaching people how to provide good customer service, has no business being in the customer service world. He was unbelievably unhelpful, told me it was all my fault for not reading my husband’s emails the night we set things up with the agent to see the price, told me too bad, etc. I told him we were NEVER told about the rebates and he said well I know I always check my emails for order confirmations…so if you had done that you would have seen your price and known to s submit a rebate. So it is now my responsibility to do the job of your agent and make sure I was told all of the correct information? He told me things get left out in phone calls sometimes, so I should have double checked. Should my husband have read the email sure, but should your agent have given us correct information, YES! This was not a minor detail to leave out…this was the difference between joining direct TV or not. I am now paying MORE than I was with my last company without internet access…are you joking!?!?! So after 36 hours of having direct TV I said I wanted to cancel…not forever but so we could set the rebate up correctly now that we have been informed (very rudely, but still informed) and install all over again. He told me the cancellation fee was 480 dollars which is absolutely insane in the first place…I hadn’t even been using your “services” for 48 hours…I was horrified…being on a budget means we carefully searched for a company that would save us the most money…you…if you were an honest company. I understand customer service representatives make mistakes…he kept asking me what do you want, a phone call that she has been reprimanded? NO not at all, I want to be taken care of in spite of her mistake. Should she be fired, of course not! She made a mistake but as a manager it is their job to fix the issues that are caused. Is the customer always right, maybe not but they need to feel like it. He told me if I didn’t like his solution of submitting the rebate and waiting 8 weeks for it to come into play (meaning…I pay 2 months of an EXTREMELY high bill) then I could not submit the rebate and pay the high bill until my contract ends. Unbelievable. That is not a solution it is a “too bad…you’re out of luck” comment.
When I love a company everyone knows…when I feel like one is shady, has lied to me, treated me very poorly, and I want nothing to do with them. MORE people know. You have the potential to be a very great company and I’m sure one caller means absolutely nothing to you in the big scheme of things…but for my company it means a lot. We bend over backwards to keep our customers coming back for more, and want each individual to feel like they are the most important client. They are, if you lose one it won’t be long before others start to leave as well. I am not looking for anything great, I’m looking for the price I was promised before my first bill is due. Or I want completely out of direct TV which I know the company doesn’t want, and my husband certainly doesn’t want. I know 34 dollars on a bill isn’t too much to ask …I don’t know why I cannot get any results or any sort of empathy from a lack of instruction by a CSR. Please let me know what you can do. Again, I know you’re a very important guy, if you have read this far…thanks. Otherwise, I will continue to send my letters daily online until someone pays attention.
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