F...My Cable Company!

[joecrisp]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

I think part of the problem being a rep at a cable company is that the cable company makes you so mad in the first place by charging so damn much. So like you said Joe, naturally callers are going to get mad at that. DirecTV customer support reps probably don't face as much anger from the get go, because in general, that company keeps people happy with it's core service. Maybe that's why their reps seem so friendly.

I used to catch a lot of hell as a DirecTV installer, actually. Maybe their customer service has improved a lot in the past five years, but when I was working for them, one of the customers' biggest complaints (aside from the picture going out when it rains) was the crappy customer service over the phone. Plus, most customers were locked-into contracts that required them to pay a penalty for cancellation of service, and they had to purchase the equipment. So if the equipment went bad, they were "SOL".

As far as prices go, if you look past the sign-up promotions and actually study what you get for the price, cable and dish's non-promotional standard rates are about the same, though there is always some variance from market to market. I'd expect that's pretty much how it's going to work with Verizon, as well. I think if politicians' claims were to come true that consumers will save $30 to $40 on services per month, we'd see a lot of bankrupt telecommunications companies. Well, a lot more than there are now, at least.