//UPDATE #1: DirecTV contacted me via Twitter within 20 minutes of my posting this. I will let you know the outcome of the transaction, but I’m at least impressed with their speedy response time.

//UPDATE #2: Their new DM (July 28, 2010, 11:01 AM) : “This has been escalated for special handling. We’ll check with the team to have them contact you ASAP. Thanks.”

Here comes a post that social media analysts hate when they show up, but when they handle them properly it turns them into heroes.

I’m going to write about a bad experience that I’ve had with DirecTV. Now, those of you keeping score at home know that I only just ordered DirecTV last week and won’t be getting the service installed until August. But, I’m already getting burned by their customer service.

I signed up for their advertised promotion last week. I received a letter in the mail yesterday that had what I thought might be an even better deal, so I called the number on the direct mail piece to ask a couple of questions and see if I could possibly get locked in to this better deal.

I got on the phone with Sharon, a very pleasant woman with a thick southern accent, and began to explain my situation with her. She said that since I had already placed an order, I would have to speak with another sales department to see if I could have the new deal applied to my upcoming installation.

I got transferred to one of their overseas call centers. I don’t recall this girl’s name, but again, very pleasant. I explained the situation again and asked if I could get the new promotion applied to my upcoming order, and she said I needed to call the number on the mailing I received. Once I mentioned that they transferred me to her, she put me on hold for a couple of minutes. When she came back, she explained that I would probably have to call the number on the mailer, have them cancel my existing order and start all over again.

I repeat to her, “So, it sounds like the best course of action is to cancel my order.”

She replies, “Yes sir. You will need to cancel your order.”

I had a few more things that I wanted to know before I could really know if this was a better deal than what I already got, so I say, “OK, sure. But first I have a couple more questions.”

Here’s where it starts to go south. FAST. In the time that it took me to utter that sentence, our eager customer service associate cancelled my order. No chance to clarify any fine print or get more details on the service I was interested in.

When she let me know she had already cancelled my order, I kept it together. In my mind, it’s not cool to get angry and abusive with call center personnel. They’re not the people you’re usually mad at. Except this time, she was the one I was mad at. She shouldn’t have been so quick with the mouse finger. She put me on hold again as she “attempted to get my old order back” and then came back and began the process of setting me up with a new order, complete with another credit check. I asked why she needed to do that again when I was already approved just days before. If I wanted any service from them at all, I had no choice. I begrudgingly gave her permission to do it again.

As we got deeper into the 20 minute re-ordering process, it turns out the new promotion really wasn’t better than the one I had already ordered. The new promotion gave you a free HD DVR and HD receiver with your order, but it required that you get a bigger programming package than what I had already ordered. It also required that you sign up for whole-home DVR service, which I had opted out of in the previous order. These were the things I wanted clarification on before canceling. Yet here I was, forced into ordering all of this just because of someone’s clerical error.

We’re getting close to being done with the order. She’s listing out all the services, discounts and fees when she drops another unpleasant bomb on me. My previous order came with free HD for the life of the account when I signed up for automatic bill payment. I lost that because of this mistake and now will have to pay an additional $10/month for HD channels. Mind you, she’s already gotten me for over $20 more per month than I was paying in the previous order before this unpleasant surprise.

At this point I mentioned that I had regretted making this call because I had a much better deal in my previous order. I wanted this to go on record “for training purposes” or whatever the hell they wanted to use this horribly failed customer interaction for. The girl admitted that this was all her fault and offered to cut the HD fee in half for 12 months.

Not good enough, I say.

Worst of all, her mistake forfeited my August 2nd installation date. Now I won’t receive installation until August 9th.

The only plus in the whole transaction was that I was getting refunded the $99.00 I had to spend on the HD DVR in the first order.

In the end, I’m getting a better service offering than what I ordered previously, but I’m also paying for a better service offering that I chose not to order the first time around because it wasn’t what I wanted to pay for.

Needless to say, I’m not happy. This could have all been avoided if the call center associate wasn’t so fast with her fingers. And, it seems to me that the solution that would make me happy would be very simple:

Give me back my free HD for life. Waive the whole-home DVR fee for 12 months. Give me back my August 2nd (or better) install date. It couldn’t have possibly disappeared that fast.

The programming package is a moot point. At the end of the 12 months I’ll just downgrade, since I’m getting it at the same price as the lower package in the first order.

DirecTV, I’ll be getting in touch with you soon with my complaint. If your social media analysts are out there keeping track, then you’ll find this and be in touch with me sooner than that.