Saturday, October 27, 2007

No one ever leaves the Tivo family.



A few days ago one (out of 3) of our Tivo's died.

So, Mr S. calls customer support to cancel service on that machine. Later that day I get this email from him:

"Man, have they got good salespeople on the cancel-the-service line.

First, the guy sounds just like "Kenneth the Page" from "30 Rock" (Tina Fey show). He's southern, and polite, oh-so-perky-and friendly.

So I tell the guy I want to cancel, and after he asks (politely) why, and I explain that our box is dead. First, he says "oh, I'm so sorry.", as if our dog had died. :-) Then, he offers me a deal -- for $69, they (Tivo) will send us a new dual-tuner series 2 box. It's not HD, but it will record 2 shows at once. We don't even have to send them the old dead tivo, just throw it out.

I told him I talked to my wife about it."


Since things are pretty crazy right now, Ms S. just got around to calling them back this morning. We decided that we will deal with the whole Tivo thing when we get back from our trip.

Since he was trying to cancel the subscription on the dead Tivo box, Mr S. got the "dont leave treatment again". But this time slightly more aggressively. First they offered him a deal on a dual tuner series 2 Tivo.(again) For $69.00 they would send a series 2, and we would just throw out our old box.

When Mr S. declined, they offered an HD box for $200.00. When he turned that down, they offered the same HD box for $25.00 less. He also turned that down. They then canceled the service on the box.

This is the slightly irritating part though. We are one week into our billing cycle, and they don't credit you for the rest of the month you are no longer getting service on that box.

I just want to point out (again) this was our third active Tivo account. We are still customers. Have been - since the beginning of Tivo time. They could have just credited that money to one of our other machines. But, they just absorb that month's payment. It is only around 5 bucks. But this is the kind of petty thing that pisses off current customers, and leaves a bad taste in the mouth of former customers, so that they'll be less likely to come back.

On one hand - they give you a sweet deal to stay, but if you don't - they give you a giant fuck you.

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