DIRECTV vs. DISH

Now I’ve been installing satellite services for years now and I have worked for both companies and still currently with Direct.v. Facts: for both companies, they both strive to have excellent customer service. That goes also for installs. I have been a actual employee of dish net and as well for Direct.v. Yes Direct.v in the early years had plenty of sub contractors then down sized to full contract installers. But! As of This year in the beginning of 2009 Direct.v as gone full captive of making every install office an official Direct.v owned operation (In-house). No longer having contractors on the west coast, though there are sub contract offices that work off site from main’s but ob-bide same rules as the “in-house” does. Now there, I’m not sure if the dish network sub contractors follow policies as in house workers do, But in AZ dish network sub contractors were among the worst, mainly due to privately owned retailers that sell and conduct their own installs (Always bad if done by fully experienced joe). Direct.v has always had official employees supervise every install office in the country so that very minimal slack work was gone noticed. As for customer service of call centers, I myself have had both good and bad experiences with both comp. ***Main key to having a successful conversation with a phone rep is to be clear and state every need and never miss or assume info! (Always ask questions and double check)This is probably the #1 problem any customer has with any company which determines their future relationship. I’m not siding with weather who’s better in service and price. I’m giving a in depth prospective of where a lot of customers get info crossed and mistake, then run with the wrong idea when really the missed communication was the customer (ass)(u)ming things will work out them selves or that their authority is higher then GOD because they don’t want to pay small fee’s or feel they don’t need to have a contract cause they “Rent (lease) the receivers” and don’t own them. Again this can go for any company, Cable or Satellite. Make your decision upon your strengths and favors, not on how you believe the company should be!

Im thinking of switching to Dish Network i never had has satellite before i alweys had cabel since i could rember. im chousing to switch to Dish Network mainly because of The Dvr Recorder and the package and price.

All of you are wrong. both companies are excellent. dish network has lazy installers who mess up your stuff and so does directv. directv has customer service reps that don’t do a thing for ya and so does dish. Soem sales reps lie, some don’t. plus, just because you have dish or direct does not mean that you went through corporate. There are local 3rd party retail companys that screw you over too. So to say that one is better than the other is ignorant cause it varies with every customer. sad but true.

I’ve been a DirecTV customer for nine years. Not one complaint! I would never have cable or Dish Network.

After 11 years, I finally dropped DirecTV. The prices just kept inching up and up, and when I went to cancel, they told me how great of a deal I was getting ($58/month for most stations.)

When they started carrying HD stations, they sacrificed many of the non-HD stations by over compressing them. The picture is often choppy and looks much worse than local TV.

The channel selection was good. In the end, we decided to pull the plug because there simply wasn’t much on to watch, even with 200 stations. To pay that much for something that we rarely use just didn’t make sense, so we “right sized” our entertainment.

I really cannot complain too much about this service, because it’snot actuallly mine. My girlfriend lives in McHenry, IL and she gets this black box on her smaller tv when she is trying to watch the basic channels. pleh! It’s very frustrating because we have to get out of the cozy bed and go into the living room if the program is something we really want to watch. She has also had an outage because lightning struck the Mirror? I don’t really know what happened there, probably the only time that is happened right? Well, Overall I like the programming, but I am slightly dissatisfied with the pixelation and the black box issues. However, I have Comcast at my house and I have the pixelation issues there too. I am looking at changin services, but I might try Dish network first. Less holes in the wall.

i work for dish we have alot more respect for customers than direct you dont know how many jobs i have been too where a new customer has told me that a direct opp has hung up on them on the phone or the technician has damaged their house in one way or another one of our best features is that if you want dvr direct tv needs two lines to come in the house to EVERY reciever! ours only uses ONE line so if you want two holes in your house and pay extra for the same service than well….... anyway if you do end up going with dish just ask for an IN HOUSETECH NO SUB-CONTRACTORS!! like DIRECT all of there techs are sub contractors they get paid by the job so the faster they can get it done the better not dish we have in-house techs that will take the time and effort to make sure your install is up to aaa standars trust me DISH IS THEWAY TO GO!

I had Dish for six years. I had a 510 DVR which was rather flaky (it would freeze up, lose programming and require a reset twice a week.) I liked it though. It was very simple to use and the parental controls were logical.

Due to a special, I switched to DirecTV. I checked out the Dish website to see if they could give me a comparable upgrade for less or at least without the 2 year commitment. They didn’t. I suppose I should have called Dish immediately since when I did call to cancel, they offered me a “free upgrade”, but didn’t go into details.

The installer completely messed up the DirecTV installation. It arguably wasn’t his fault since the stupid salesman didn’t convey what to do. On the other hand, the installer only talked to us AFTER the dish was put in precisely the wrong place. I decided to cancel, but got told so many different things about 24 hours and 3 days and so forth that I just threw up my hands and decided to live with it.

I have one standard definition TV and rarely watch sports. So far, except for a few channels where the audio is a fraction of a second out of sync (Dish had that on occasion too), the DirecTV has been very good. The channel guide is much better than that of Dish as is the way it takes care of recording conflicts when setting them. DirecTV’s web site is better than Dish. I really like how DirecTV stores series in folders. We record a lot of old shows and it keeps the menu from being cluttered.

On the other hand, Dish’s parental controls made more sense to me and the guide was easier to use (though on the 510 at least, the DVR timers control was really messed up and confusing.)

In the end, despite the better guide on DirecTV, I think I would have preferred sticking with Dish. But I say that with six years of familiarity. I may change my mind two years from now.

One last thing: I have NEVER had a problem with Dish or DirecTV phone support. Both companies have had very professional operators and support staff who have been very helpful on the rare occasions I needed it.

The reason I didn’t rate this five stars is that there are still minor software design issues and more channels than Dish have the audio a few milliseconds behind. Oh, and the skip feature on DirecTV is idiotic—it’s really fast forward 30 seconds.

(Once I go HD, it would be nice to have the cash to do a side-by-side comparison for several days.)

My conclusion: for standard definition non-sports people, it doesn’t make much of a difference which one you go with.

I never thought that Directv had 1080p for the on demand like Dish did. When I switched I was a little apprehensive because the Dish reps were telling me how much more advanced their equip is. I was pretty sick of Dish and all their bull-oney that kept feeding. I couldn’t even get HD on the 2nd tv hooked up to their system! Let me tell you- Directv HD DVR is awesome! I have the On demand with the 1080p, all my family photos are downloaded onto the HD DVR,the DVR scheduler that I use on my cell all the time, I play Gamelounge like all the time, and their interactive features are so much better to the eyes than Dish. I can’t wait til the end of the year when Directv has TIVO back! (Tivo got into a lawsuit with Dish- HA FIGURES!) I don’t really care for Dish’s service or the fact that they’re cheaper. I rather get what I pay for in customer service and products!

I’ve had Directv from 1998. Always done my homework with them and they’ve always sent me copies of my customer agreement, my bill, even helped me understand the economics of why the price increases were happening whenever I’ve requested. (Hey it’s not like the whole industry doesn’t see the price increases from their programmers) The customer service people helped me understand everything on my account before I did anything on my account. Completely patient with me & spoke to me like a person who just needed help. Upon upgrading my equipment to HD DVR they very politely said “since it’s a discounted equipment that costs the company a lot of money to make we would like to ask your permission to stay with us for 24 mos, is that ok?” WHAT A SWEETWAY TO ASK ME! I totally didn’t feel like I was being pressured by some sales rep trying to make their commission. I rarely call them for any problems. Maybe about 0.5% of the time we get some bad weather that causes the dish to go out. Their customer service is great! I feel like an appreciated customer. The technician that installed the equipment was very polite and walked me through the house showing me all his plans first of what he was going to do and also asked my permission before I started! I totally felt like I was the boss of the company! A VIP in their eyes. I just want to let people know that they’re really working for me!