[Electronics-talk] Satellite TV, Direct TV specifically

[James Aldrich]

Hello all!

Dar and I recently had to call Direct TV to have a technician come out to 
determine what was wrong with the satellite signal in our bedroom.  The 
Living room TV and digital  Box as well as Satellite Box seemed to be 
working okay!  I guess that would be all fine and good if they would simply 
send a technician as we requested!  They seem to be so insistent that they, 
the customer representative  can solve our problem if we could tell them 
what is on the screen!  That sounds familiar right?  Depending on the 
representative, some become so indignant with us if we don't tell them what 
is on that screen!  It is almost as if they don't believe we are blind, they 
talk down to us or blame us for the trouble we are having!  We finally got a 
supervisor and we managed to get a number for our account!  The first 
technician who came out didn't know what was up or down I don't think!  He 
called in someone else and the trouble was found and fixed within a minute 
or so.  The trouble was on the outside hardware!  For whatever reason, our 
local digital TV box wasn't working but it somehow mysteriously started to 
work late last night!  Direct doesn't bring in the local channels in this 
area, have to rely on the on air signal.  Surely!  There is a better way to 
deal with this problem!  We did tell them to keep in our record that we are 
blind!  We did have a neighbor come over and he couldn't solve the problem 
either.

Direct TV works well when working properly!  I wish we didn't have to deal 
with so many indifferent customer service reps just to get something fixed! 
This of course is a part of being a large company and don't know whether the 
reps are outsourced yet or not!  Regardless of the situation, I hope 
something can be done about this and if a repair technician is requested, we 
can get one, no questions asked!  Hopefully, everything will be fine for the 
next year or so.  Dar did get a customer agreement where she pays extra for 
having the extra supportive services.  I'm certain they can solve a good 
percentage of the problems over the phone if the customer can read the 
screen!  I understand this and also understand this is how they are trained, 
but there are situations as ours where sending the technician is really the 
best plan which usually involves fewer people!  Of course, it would be nice 
if we could get screen reader technology to work on their hard disks in 
their receivers but that's another matter!

Thanks for reading!

Jim Aldrich