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Retaining Customers
Last winter I had a vacation stop on my account. When I talked to the very helpful rep. I told him that I didn't want to start up my service in the spring this year as it was too expensive. He checked our account and told us we had a preffered customer awards and that our billing in the spring would be cut to just over half of what we were paying and with this would I like to still discontinue. I said that with this discount I would remain a customer. He was really great and told me to call if the discount was not on our billing when we began service again.........
Well the discount was not there and the person I talked to could have cared less that this is what we were told and more or less said we can take our business elsewhere without even trying to keep us as a customer. Really disappointing, PLUS we then had to pay the reconnect and the months full price service x 2 months since we called just after billing cycle was done and they bill for a whole month cycle.
I just wanted to put out there this was poor customer service. With all the streaming options now you should train your tech's to attempt to retain a customer......
Juniper
ACE - Expert
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23K Messages
5 years ago
Agents cannot check what discounts might be available in future months. They can only see what is available that day. Any discounts applied go into system that day starting with the next bill, but while service is suspended there is nothing to discount so those months of the special are just lost.
Several months ago their CEO announced that going forward discount offers would be pulled back. They are making sure customers are not operating at a loss. Hopefully in the future discounts will be back, though expected in moderation.
When you suspended your service the agent gave very bad info, possibly to avoid a disconnection on their stats. You can certainly submit a complaint with a supervisor on that prior agent. That doesn't change what options you had when the suspension ended as they can only see what is currently available, and as mentioned discount offers are practically on hold.
As for final billing, DirecTV's Terms of Service updated over a year ago. They changed to flat billing, so you pay for the entire service month instead of prorating to an exact disconnect day. So if canceling it is best to do so at the end of the service month to get the most out of what you are paying for. Here is the notice they sent us customers in 2018.
Streaming options have come a long way, but are not nationwide. A lot of people still do not have good enough internet (if internet at all) to support streaming. My household's usage cannot handle streaming-only TV on top of everything else, so for us satellite TV is still the better option. In the end they will not work hard to retain customers who are not profitable. That doesn't excuse the first agent for giving misinformation, but in the end they are a business. If they only lose money with you, then you are not worth it as a customer is the bottom line.
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