I am subscribed to the Israeli Satellite company “YES” for too many years. They have great promos and commercials, all end with a person asking questions like “Do you want to see good movies?”,”Do you want to watch the best series in the world”, and a chorus of people saying “YES! YES! YES!”.
Lately I have a feeling they are asking themselves (or maybe they already produced the corresponding TV commercial) – “Can we treat the viewers badly and they will still be loyal to us?” and they envision the chorus of people like me saying “YES!, YES!, YES!”.
I wonder what it takes someone to decide to leave his provider. I guess that high charges, lack of content, bad service (no reception during storms) are the usual suspects. I guess they are proactively handling these issues, but are they also doing everything they can not to hurt my experience as a viewer, or they just say to themselves “Naaahhh, no one will care about it, no one will complain and no one will abandon the service just because of these glitches, so let’s not spend any cent on fixing these things“.
I do not want to put myself in YES CEO’s shoes. The fact is that so many things irritate me – but it might be me. I just think they do not care about me.
This week, I felt the last straw on my back.
So I already got used to (mostly on Discovery channel, which is my favorite):
- The fact they have different translators for the Electronic Programs Guide, the promos and the shows themselves – so the same show has three different names ! (Try to look for a series you just saw its promo in the EPG – you just don’t know under which name it will be found). Not to mention the very low level of translation work in some of the shows…
- The fact that the translation subtitles are sometimes out of sync (sometimes 30 seconds), or missing lines (mainly in BBC). Even if you do not read it, your brain reads it and you (I) cannot really concentrate.
- Promos to shows that are aired on channels that YES did not buy. Promos to shows with the time in other countries, not including Israel.
- Commercials in Romanian ! yes… a few weeks ago it looked like they just took a Romanian discovery channel – as is, with the commercials and put it on air in Israel (with translation of the shows).
- The fact that they put nature and tech shows on History Channel, moved a history series to Biography channel etc. You know why? because then you will have to pay for other channels.
But this week, they really made me angry. Almost 6 month ago YES launched a new channel – YES sci-fi, with a lot of publicity and commercials. They especially promoted something that looked like their flagship series – The Event. I got hooked to it – it is fast-paced, high tension, conspiracy sci-fi series – a combination of LOST, The X-Files and 24. There are few series I watch, this is one of them. For the last 21 weeks, I was waiting every Saturday night for the next episode and watched it (I know I can download everything from the Internet, but I do not).
It was all fine until this week. Last Saturday they aired episode 21. From the level of tension, it felt like the season is going to end soon. This is THE event (pun intended) every cable/satellite provider or TV channel is waiting for – the flagship seasons’ finale. This is the time to ring all bells, and make a huge noise – promos, specials, promos and more promos.
Did they do it? NO, they just did the opposite. The worst thing they could do.
While checking what’s on TV, I browsed through the EPG to see the future programs on the sci-fi channel for Tuesday (Shavuot holiday). Then I saw that they are airing a rerun of all episodes in a row from episode one. I thought to myself “Well, they usually do it for people who want to catch up – after all it is a holiday – a great way to prepare people to the final episode.” BUT THEN I SAW IT – as I was scrolling through the EPG, I saw it – Episode 22, the season’s finale, is aired right after episode 21. The first time the loyal series viewers can enjoy the last episode is at around 01:30 AM. Not on the usual day, not in a normal hour, without any notice.
So do they really care about me ? NO !, NO !, NO !
Will someone leave YES because of such experience? I guess no. And if he will, they will never know, not to mention will not care.
By the way, Episode 22 was good. Can’t wait for the next season.
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Watching The Wheels 
I know I’m replying not to the point, but sometimes it’s so good not to have cables at all… try it 🙂
and P.S. – I do care about you 😉
I know it is an option, but I do not believe it will work for me 🙂
YES – and HOT – can continue to provide poor, uncoordinated service because they know that even if you get so frustrated you unsubscribe from one and subscribe to the other, you’ll end up with the same level of service and even higher levels of frustration. Perhaps they are more coordinated than we think.
Patricia,
Thank you for reading and commenting.
I could not fail to disagree with you less 🙂
The post does not refer to the service, but you are absolutely right. And they are coordinated, even if not actively. A few months ago there was a survey in the newspaper dealing with the wait time on the phone in the mobile operators call centers. It was appalling (12-15 minutes). For an operator, there is no incentive to change the waiting time, because they know the competitors are not better :(.
Maybe it should be the reason for the next customer rebellion.