Ok, since I amm a CSR for one of DTV's contractors, I feel somewhat obligated to respond to this.
They give you a (2) hour arrival window and they are still late. Hey - the contractors in your area give 2 hour windows? We only give 4 hour windows....-
They review the systems functions at warp speed 11. Hey! If I knew all those things, I wouldn't have called you guys... slow down. One of our service techs is like that - the other is very nice though, and makes sure you understand it before he leaves.
-The Direct TV remote is terrible. No light, poor ergonomics, ugly, black lettering on a dark grey background (brillant). Considering the number of people per day I refer to DTV tech support (8666786664 for those who are still having trouble) I can believe that.
-They use your phone to activate the system and it takes the guy 20 minutes on your phone. Yeah, but it's all 1800 numbers. Otherwise, thay have to activate on their own cell phones - and a bigger bunch of prissy second-pinchers you will never ever meet. Trust me on this.
-They don't even work for Direct TV, they are subcontractors who appear to be guessing the answer for most questions. This is true - however, DirecTV is in the process of going with just one contractor company per region, and they are held to rather exacting standards - no bucket mounted dishes here!
-They drill holes and then just leave the debris. Some do, some don't. That is strictly a personal style issue.
-They try and use the previous cable clamps and save 0.02 and the clamps fall out (1) hour later. Huh. Hadn't heard that one before. Of course, the story of the day at work was about the tech who ran a phone line across the yard, around a tree, behind the air conditioner, and through a wall, when he could have gone about 3 feet through the crawlspace...
-(1) hour after they leave, your TV does not work and you get the message, "Searching for satelitte #771" and then you have to call and reschedule another appointment. Yeah - that happens a lot. However, you have about a 50% chance of fixing it if you unplug the reciever for 5-10 minutes and then plug it back in. Sometimes it is a software error - obvious in instances when all the recievers in the house work except for one.
Some very astute observations overall. However, you missed the part about the tech that doortags a house, which you put him on hold and call to verify, only to discover that the person is home, and that they saw some guy in a blue shirt casing the joint a few minutes before and were just about to call the cops (techs are required to give three descriptions of the home before they can tag it).
Then there are the techs that decide that they just don't want to work that day, which means us CSRs have to call all of the jobs they were supposed to do, and tell them that we are trying to reroute their job, and if you are fast enough and lucky enough you can get off the phone before they ask why, since we are not supposed to tell people that the tech called in, or that he got in a fight with his first customer and has been suspended for the rest of the day, etc..etc..
Then there are the techs that somehow got lost on the way to their next job, and you are pretty sure they are parked on the side of the road somewhere comparing their navel lint to the lint between their toes. That, or fishing. Jerks.
There are many, many, many other things I could say, but I think I shall leave it here. Just remember, as frustrated as you get by us telling you the tech isn't coming, we get far more frustrated with the techs, since they leave the getting cussed at part to us!
Mare