I began my quest to replace my failed Sony DirecTV receiver by looking at web sites for various local stores. I wanted a Hughes receiver identical to the other two that I already had. On Monday I took a look at the Circuit City web site and found what I needed for $79.99. Not a horrible price, I thought. I’ll just pop by the Mountain View store on my way home from work and pick it up.
I went into Circuit City, found my way back to the DirecTV display and started looking for the receiver I wanted. They didn’t have it displayed. I finally flagged down a salesman and showed him the page I had printed off of the Circuit City web site. He entered some numbers into the computer and declared that they didn’t have that model. I asked him to check other stores, and he said that he had checked the main warehouse and they didn’t carry it. I was not happy.
On Tuesday I searched a couple of more websites like Costco, Good Guys, Anderson’s, etc. and didn’t see what I wanted listed. I then went to http://www.directv.com and looked for local dealers. Good Guys and Anderson’s were listed so I decided to drop by one of their stores to check.
I went into the Sunnyvale Good Guys and they had exactly what I wanted, and $20 cheaper than the price listed on the Circuit City web site. I was pretty happy about that. I took my purchase home and after a few fits and starts got my receiver hooked up and processing the signal from channel 100.
I went to the DirecTV web site to activate the new receiver and I didn’t see mine listed in the pull down menu. That was strange since my other two active and working receivers were listed in my account information. I called DirecTV and asked them to activate the new card.
The woman in tech support who I talked to seemed to get confused easily, especially if I went off of her script. I told her that I had two working receivers and wanted to add a third receiver. She got the card information for the new receiver then asked for the old access card number. There was no old card number because it was a new receiver. She finally did something and the receiver was working fine. I was feeling pretty good about then.
Later that night I went up to The Hockey Room to watch the Edmonton/Calgary game and discovered that the previously working receiver in that room was no longer working. I was not happy. I called DirecTV again and explained that I had added a new receiver, but now one of the old ones wasn’t working anymore. The woman I talked to sounded like the one I spoke with earlier – same voice, accent, and speech patterns – but she assured me that she had never spoken with me before. I think she lied. She managed to add my Hockey Room receiver but said that they were having technical difficulties and the activate signal wouldn’t go out. When quizzed, she couldn’t tell me what the problem was or when it would be corrected.
After about an hour of seeing the “Call extension 721” message on my screen I went to the DirecTV web site again and verified that all three receivers were on my list. They were. After 90 minutes of seeing the “Call extension 721” message on my screen I called DirecTV for a third time. I got a different person this time, and he seemed much more competent. He activated my access card and within seconds I had a picture again. Of course, by this time the Battle of Alberta was over (Flames over Oilers 1-0). I then verified that all three receivers were working properly (they were).
I know that tech support is probably the worst job in the world and I would never do that work again. However, you should try to staff the position with someone who can do more than read from the script. The first woman I worked with (and I’m convinced I talked to her twice) had no real clue about what she was doing. The guy I worked with later was good. If DirecTV wants to continue to take customers away from cable, they need to do a better job of filling their support positions.
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