 |
A project to make businesses more aware of their customer experience, and how to fix it. By Mark Hurst. |
| About Mark Hurst | Mark's Gel Conference | New York Times Story on This Is Broken | Newsletter: Subscribe | RSS Feed |
Search this site:
Categories:
- Advertising
- Current Affairs
- Customer Service
- Fixed
- Food and Drink
- Just for Fun
- Misc
- Not broken
- Place
- Product Design
- Signs
- Travel
- Web/Tech
Previous: Red Cross sign | Main | Next: Zappos.com search page
March 21, 2007 12:03 AM
Broken: DirecTV promotional offer
Dale Crawford writes:
I recently activated DirecTV and got the following form along with my sign-on package. The offer is for $150.00 “Cash Back,” but when you read the fine print, you learn that “Cash” according to DirecTV is a $10 per month credit on your bill for 15 months.
Furthermore, this “cash back” cannot be redeemed for actual cash. I think that when it’s time to pay my bill, I should pay in “Cash.” I’ll give them a $10 credit towards me paying my bill every month for 15 months.
Adding insult to injury, the form clearly states that reproductions of the redemption form are strictly prohibited. That’s all well and good, except that the original form itself is a photocopy.
Now that’s broken.
I see no problem. You get $10 off the total cost each month. When I signed up I received a $10 credit each month for 12 months.
My friend has had prbs with DTV too, he talked to one person who said that replaceing a broken reciver under warrenty would not extend his contract (less that a year old) however when he wanted to upgrade to HD they said he was still in contract. This is almost three years of dtv and hes still in contract?!
I recently upgraded to HD with DirecTV. When I had originally signed up, they were doing their "one free reciever" promotion. I ordered four receivers and had to pay $5 a month for the other three. When I upgraded to HD, the receiver that I was getting for free is the one that I wanted to upgrade. They told me that, since their one-free-receiver promotion didn't include HD receivers, I would have to start paying an additional $5 per month in addition to the $11 for the HD package. After a few months, I realized exactly what had happened, and called up DirecTV to change my free reciever to one of the other three.
After having a terrible time tying to solve a very simple problem with DirecTV's customer relations-I decided to pass my concerns on to their Senior Management. I managed to locate the Email for their new Customer Relations Senior VP-Ellen Filipiak. She was kind enough to Email me back telling me that DirecTV's Business Operation Analyst, a woman by the name of Heywot Bitew, would "resolve" the problems that I had and was apologetic for her staff's actions.
If you have the opportunity, I encourage you to read actual Emails as it really sheds a light into the attitude and poor customer relations policies of DirecTV. My google blog is: http://oregonsand.blogspot.com. Long story short-Ms Bitew did anything BUT resolve the issue. Seems Ms. Bitew is under the impression that the treatment I received is "not the norm" for her customer relations. From what I can see from boggs on the internet-I beg to differ. Right or wrong-I encourage you to share your experiences by phoning Ms. Bitew or Emailing either Ms. Bitew or Ellen Filipiak with your concerns. I am concerned that perhaps Ms. Bitew and Ms. Filipiak may not be getting accurate information as to just how bad their customer service is-so I encourage anyone that has had, or is currently experiencing problems, with DirecTV's customer service to give these two executives a clearer picture of just what is happening in this department.
To reach Heywot Bitew: Email:HZBitew@directv.com Her direct phone line:310-964-6508
To reach Ellen Filipiak, Sr VP of Customer Relations: Email her at: eafilipiak@directv.com
And you may want to send a copy of your EMails to DirecTV's investor relations. Their Email is investorrelations@directv.com
Comments on this entry are closed
Previous: Red Cross sign | Main | Next: Zappos.com search page
First!
Fry's does this with it's rebates all the time. I remember one where it said that you would get $15 back, but the fine print says that the maximum value that you can get back is $10. In addition, I never got any money back from this rebate.
Posted by: karusho at March 21, 2007 03:46 AM