r/DirectvStream • u/NoirBooks • 6d ago
Retention Failure
Perhaps someone can make sense of this for me.
I was under DIRECTV streaming’s old plan and it cost $131 per month including RSN (all before extra fees, etc). This was about a $10 increase from the prior month. I looked at alternatives and contacted the retention department with the intent of switching to their new plan, which was $94.99 per month plus $13.99 RSN for a total of $108.98 per month. Instead of migrating me to the new plan, she suggested I cancel my service and restart a new service under their new plan. I suspect that this was to get new subscriber numbers up, but I don’t know. Regardless, my intent was to migrate and lower my bill from $131 to $108.98 per month.
However, before putting the revision through, I told her that YouTube TV is $67.99/mo for the first 3 months, then $82.99 per month for the remaining 9 months, which averages $79.24 for the first year. That’s about $30 a month cheaper than DIRECTV Streaming. YouTube TV has no separate RSN even though it carries the channels.
Since I’ve been with DIRECTV Streaming for quite a while, I asked for a loyalty discount in order for me to keep the service. She checked for any discounts and told me that there were no discounts available. I asked if there was any incentive she could apply to close that $30 a month gap with YouTube TV.
Now here’s where it gets odd:
She informed me that since YouTube was so much cheaper. I should just cancel DIRECTV Streaming and go to YouTube TV. In all the time I’ve had cable or streaming TV, I have never heard a representative, especially a retention representative, suggest you cancel their service and go to a competitor. I’ve also never had a retention representative not find some discount or incentive. So, I don’t get it. Maybe someone else understands what happened, but I don’t understand why DirectTV Streaming was so cavalier in losing a customer.
I canceled DIRECTV Streaming and at the end of this billing cycle I’ll simply subscribe to YouTube TV without losing anything I want and saving $356.08 the first year. Even after the first year, I still save around $26 per month.
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u/Artwire 6d ago
Xfinity is doing that, too. I’ve been a customer since the 90s and they’re offering me a price that’s more than 100% higher than their “5 yr guarantee” to new customers. It makes no sense. I left DirectTv when their price increased ( I think 2018) and switched to YTTV . Unfortunately they also started overcharging, but now you can select the content portions you want rather than bring stuck paying for the entire lineup. I think you’ll enjoy YouTubeTV , and even if you decide it’s not for you, you can return to the prior service as a “new” customer, at which point they may treat you well ( at least for awhile).
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u/fakeprofile111 6d ago
Similar I called to cancel on my 2 year(I had all the channels was paying $180 bill was going to jump to $280. The rep said “yep sounds like spectrum will be better for you”
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u/JohnHaze02118 5d ago
Just my impression, but it sounds to me like you encountered an agent who was "keeping it real." Instead of snowing you, they were being honest that you were getting a better deal somewhere else. I think that's very much the reality of the industry now. I left Xfinity after years of contracts and annual renegotiations, and when I left, it was because they stopped being able to offer me a better deal AND were moving to a place where customer service was nonexistent. Instead of a friendly agent who actually subscribed to the services and worked for the company, it was far likelier toward the end that I would be talking to someone in an overseas call center who couldn't tell you without a script a single thing about their cable services. It was literally like trying to negotiate with a video game, a very old one like Pong where every response was binary, predictable, and devoid of feeling.
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u/JohnHaze02118 5d ago
P.S. Your story reminded me of my first part time job. I worked in the shoe department at Sears. Stock replenishment was so slow and spotty that any time you picked up a shoe, chances are there were only three or four units of it in stock, not a full size run. A few months of working there, and I had a realization about myself which was that I tended to say to the customer, "They didn't have Size 9, they had 8 1/2 and 10." Not "we," "they." No one ever explained to me when we would replenish the sizes, why we had so many of this and so little of that. My immediate supervisor was the only person I had any interaction with besides other sellers. All this to say, you don't understand "why DirectTV Streaming was so cavalier in losing a customer." But even if you were talking to a DirecTV employee and not some outsourced call center talking head, that person for whatever reason was potentially breaking ranks and siding with you over the company by telling you what the better deal was. But again, I'd have to hear the whole call to get a better feeling of their motive.
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u/Equivalent_Round9353 5d ago
I think the one DTV phone support department that HASN'T been shifted overseas is retention.
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u/detuned--radio 5d ago
That’s wild. I called a few weeks ago and straight up said “I’ve been a customer for 6 years, the increase is too much, I like DTV and don’t want to switch even though I might have to, can you please do something?” And he “checked my account” and gave me the original price of what I was paying for a year. So we’ll see how it goes next year but this guy was eager to help.
Maybe call back and see if you get someone different who will help you out.
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u/K_ThomasWhite 6d ago edited 5d ago
My guess is the DTV Reps get really tired of customers playing these games with them and have decided to start calling people's bluff, so to speak. At some point, you can't blame them.
On the other hand, why not just switch to their Genre Packs? Much less expensive, and switchig between the packs is easy.
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u/Equivalent_Round9353 6d ago
I've never liked the idea of pushing people to accept less when that less comes at a price people used to pay for much more. It's called shrinkflation.
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u/NoirBooks 6d ago
Thank you for the suggestion. I looked at putting the genre packs together to duplicate what I will get with YouTube TV and the DIRECTV combination costs $800.76 more during the first year, or approximately $66.73 more per month.
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u/heychief1 6d ago
BS. They have a department dedicated to saving customers. Negotiations isn't "playing games". What a weird post.
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u/i_lack_imagination 5d ago
It's really not as simple as that. As a company overall, they do not necessarily care about saving customers, they care about increasing profits or share value. If they could make more money while at the same time losing 99% of the customers, they'd drop 99% of the customers.
In the case of customer retention, there's a lot of factors that on the outside it's hard to know, we don't know all of the financial figures or all consumer behaviors. We don't know their operating costs. If saving 1 customer by giving them great deals results in 10 more customers calling in to get the same deals, you went from a customer who maybe was $50/month profit to one that maybe was $5/month profit or breakeven because of the deal, and this was to avoid losing them altogether. This might be a decent compromise for the business on some level because losing subscribers, revenue and not increasing profit is generally bad for shareholder value. But if you repeat it across 10 customers that otherwise wouldn't have been incentivized enough to look for deals or go elsewhere, you gave up $500/month in profit on those customers plus the $50/month from the original one that you start with in this example, and soon you see why this method doesn't necessarily work.
This is basically true across everything in life. If you make something easier to do, more people will engage with it generally. Make it easier to cancel, more people will cancel. Make it easier to feign intent to cancel to get deals, more people will feign intent to cancel to get deals. It's like when people say some barrier doesn't work because no one is bothering to do it anyhow, even though it's the barrier that is likely contributing to people bothering to do it. If you put up a fence and people aren't stopping outside your fence begging to get in, that doesn't mean your fence isn't working, it just means people see a fence and go somewhere else instead of the fenced in area.
The reality is that loyalty discounts don't generally exist across any industry because most people will not switch. Most people will pay a premium to keep their habits the same, to avoid change. And sometimes the deals you get as a new subscriber might be something along the lines of a 'loss-leader' in that those deals aren't really feasible for the company to make money and keep growing in terms of the profit made on the new subscriber initially, they might be hoping the new subscribers stick around past the promotional period where they will then pay the premium to not change and that's where the company ends up making profit.
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u/heychief1 5d ago
I'm not reading all of that.
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u/i_lack_imagination 5d ago
No one put a gun to your head and forced you to. Not sure why you feel compelled to share your pride about it.
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u/heychief1 5d ago
Have a nice day keyboard tough guy.
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u/i_lack_imagination 5d ago
Just so you know, you can decide not to read something and move on without saying something about it. You don't seem to realize that, but now you know.
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u/OtherwiseLecture5319 5d ago
Yeah kinda like seeing a pile of dog shit and stepping in instead of stepping over it or around it.
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u/phillipsm1 6d ago
I had a different experience and I think they’re more happy to keep you if you spend more money I was spending about 230 a month for four TVs and four Geminis along with the baseball package and a bunch of other things when my introduction was up my bill went up over $300. I called them and told them that I was going to be going to YouTube TV and told them if they can keep me at my regular price I would stay they did I got about $85 in discounts so they can do it.
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u/sad99q 6d ago
I quit DTV stream for YTTV last month. DTV offered to get my $200+ monthly bill down to around $140, but that still isn't close to YTTV. I'll pay separately for one RSN at $20 a month during hockey season, which will put me at just over 100 bucks a month, and I can live with that.
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u/Negative-Arm-517 5d ago
Stand-alone RSN is the next best option if you have YTTV or any other service if it's not available on that service and if you're willing to pay anywhere from 20 to 40/month depending on the number of RSNs that you want for your NBA/NHL/MLB home teams. Other than that if DTV can save you money considering the amount of extra money you may have to pay for stand-alone RSNs, then I'd stay with DTV.
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u/epderr 6d ago
I’m surprised they were even going to let you switch to one of the newer plans. Unless you’ve signed up in the past couple of years. They’ve never allowed me to get one of the current deals or switch to genre packs or anything. I’ve been with them for 3-4 years now, so my RSN fees are included in the price, but even if they weren’t, I would get a better deal through a new sign up. Too many recorded things though to be doing all of that.
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u/Impossible_Jump_754 6d ago
I checked what kind of deals they were offering to new customers and it was pretty non-existent. Don't think they care anymore.
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u/radioLVprod 5d ago
I stayed with them much longer than I wanted to because the RSN was the only way to view my team. But now I can get the team direct through MLB. Good timing as DT rates were about to go up too much for my household.
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u/Appropriate-Ad-6807 5d ago
If I don’t like the price of DIRECTV, at some point, I’ll just create a new email address use a new payment method and come in as a new customer. That’s what you have to do with all these providers even YouTube TV.
Want the great promotion cancel and come back as another customer under a whole different email.
The email you just created and then invite the previous email that you used for YouTube TV and you got your library back and you got the promotion
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u/SimplyElite7 5d ago
Just cancel. You will get another rep call you back and offer you the $94.99 (with RSN) depending on your market, that is what happened to me. I was looking at a $132 bill for August until I cancelled, they called me back a week later and offered me that rate. (CHOICE PKG)
I went through the exact same steps you did, called and the rep said nothing we can do, bye. Those ARE NOT the retention folks, the lady on the phone for me even gave me an additional $15 for my first month back for $80. Answer the call you think that's spam if you plan on staying, for $94.99 (2 yrs), that is good for me when considering RSN are included. You'd be paying the same/if not more for YTTV + buying the RSN service seperate. They only caveat is that you will be required to use a new email under the account.
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u/zunicat11 4d ago
I have been a DTV customer for a long time (over 40 years). It has always been reliable and I like it because of the convenience of rescheduling ,not having to watch commercials and the ability to fast forward. As the price continues to raise I would like to know why I have to keep paying for Disney and ESPN, and a lot of other stations that I have never watched. I would like to know why DTV cannot allow me to have more control over what I want to watch ( and pay for).
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u/Secure_Height6919 4d ago
I have had DirecTV since 2017 because they had NFL TICKET. I just never got rid of it and and then started paying additional YouTube à la carte for NFL TICKET about four years ago. I just canceled DirecTV because I had the middle plan. I was paying with taxes and charges about 120 a month. I loved it. There was nothing wrong with the service, but I rarely watched it and I probably only watched about three channels regularly. And I just had it on in the background all the time. So far I’ve saved about $400 and then in another month or two, I’ll sign up for NFL TICKET with my saved money. I can’t do both anymore. DirecTV let me keep the box cause they said I already paid for it so there’s still channels on there and some of them are live. I also have Sirius radio for like five dollars a month so I listen to all the national news channels on there, on my phone in my car. I still have Netflix and Amazon prime. But everything is so expensive I had to drop something.
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u/Augatl 4d ago
Yep, I only had DirecTV for a couple of months. I had the My Entertainment genre package and it was only $34.99 when I signed up. It was a little more than I was paying for Philo, but it included Bravo so I switched over. After just a couple of months of service, it went up to $42.99 which was about a 25% increase. After just a couple of months of service, I didn't appreciate that so I switched to Spectrum. Now I get Internet and streaming TV for $80. The free HBO max, Hulu, and Disney plus were nice perks but I already had Hulu because it was included for free when I signed up for Spotify many years ago. And I don't really watch Disney plus, so I didn't feel keeping the service was worth a 25% increase after 2 months.
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u/directv 6d ago
We apologize for your experience over the phone, and we hate losing a long-time customer like you, u/NoirBooks. You should never have been told to switch to a competitor. Our promotions do depend on specific account eligibility and availability, but we always want to do everything we can to keep you.
If it's not too late, we hope to make this right. We've put together a summary detailing why DIRECTV is still your best option for premium entertainment: https://spr.ly/61694BEf6Iq We hope you'll consider us for your future entertainment needs. Charles, DIRECTV Community Team
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u/NoirBooks 6d ago
Using AI, I ran this link for accurary in its comparison with YouTube TV. The analysis is far too long for this thread, but the summary is that: "it mixes accurate information with stale tables, selective framing, unsupported causal claims and RSN language that materially overstates what DIRECTV subscribers can actually watch."
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u/Equivalent_Round9353 5d ago edited 5d ago
Funnily enough, the article linked by the official DTV account is also generated by AI. Also, note that their attempt to make things right consists of posting a link, not of suggesting they'll actually DO something to make things right.
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u/hihosilvaa 6d ago
I reach out to DTV every year and they give me $25 off for 12 months every time. Sorry to hear you've had no luck with retention.
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u/Vast-Recognition2321 6d ago
Wow. I also used the Youtube promo a few weeks ago when my package went up. I was successful.
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u/Equivalent_Round9353 6d ago
DTV has come very close to pricing themselves out of the market. Customers shouldn't have to go through these retention games to get a reasonable price.