DirecTV received just under 3,500 calls in the last 6 months

[BlueK]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

Here's what I don't get. A BCS game is great because we get to play a good BCS opponent, with more national exposure. Right? So why don't we schedule those games during the regular season, when we have the chance?

Am I crazy to think that we are better off taking the guaranteed vs. BCS game versus taking the div 1aa and utah states in hopes of the unlikely BCS bowl?

it's a two-way street. Look at A&M's recent schedules and tell me they'd have any interest in playing us. Maybe if we changed our name to NW LA. Tech. they might be interested.

[BlueK]

Originally Posted by CJF

I agree that the numbers can be skewed, but why would I take them with a grain of salt? We live and die by our call center data. It's gone over with a fine tooth comb daily. We get the pulse of our customers through that data. And over a six month trend, with commercials telling me to call DTV and Dish, and missing another football season, under 3,500 calls made is screaming scary data if you are Craig Thompson. That data dictates where money is spent. Additional training, additional scripting, commericals, web spends, etc. If you take that with a grain of salt you're sticking your head in the sand. That's what the MWC has done throughout this entire ordeal.

living and dying by that data is probably not very wise if you understand the idea of a representative sample in statistics. Why are you assuming that the people who actually call are at all representative of the entire audience? You just can't automatically make that assumption.

[CJF]

Originally Posted by Spaz

'Taken with a grain of salt' meaning there are many factors involved that can affect the overall impact of a deal such as the Mtn.

Of the 100,000 people 'interested' in a certain channel (the number pulled from where the sun don't shine, for use in this argument), what percentage actually make the call to tell you how they feel? Let's just assume it's 10% (which is probably an overestimation, IMO). Now, how many of that 10% are able to find the RIGHT number to call, and then actually get through to the right location where they can give their information?

Then, you're relying on the person taking the data (I'll leave it to you to determine how often a 'mistake' is made in this case) to do so correctly.


Lastly, factor in the fact that MANY potential customers have given up by this point (persistence is NOT most American's strong suit), and I think you'll find far more subscriptions brought about by the Mtn than were indicated by the number of requests.

That is what I meant by 'grain of salt'.

The data is not exact. I'll grant you that. When you're dealing with over 750k calls, you're going to have some agent error in the dispositions. However, Dish and Direct to make a lot of their business decisions based on that data.

One thing I think would be interesting, and I would have asked for it yesterday if my friend wasn't trying to finish his weekly reports, is the last 18 months worth of data. I know for a fact that Dish and DTV got slammed with calls for about 2 hour period in August of 2006. I happened to unleash about 200 outbound agents on them when one of our dialers went down. Removing those calls, I would be interested to see what six month period had the most volume. My guess is that it's not much different today than it was 18 months ago.

I do agree with you that some who are currently Dish customers will switch. I don't think it's going to be significant. I would guess most lived through two years, they'll not go through the hassle believing that Dish is going to be on board soon also or flat out don't know DTV has it. I think DTV will get back most if not all their customers they lost from Comcast. I think DTV knows this and that is why they publicly welcomed Dish to get involved in the distribution. It won't hurt them at all and it might hurt Comcast. That's just my reading into things though.

[CJF]

Originally Posted by BlueK

living and dying by that data is probably not very wise if you understand the idea of a representative sample in statistics. Why are you assuming that the people who actually call are at all representative of the entire audience? You just can't automatically make that assumption.

Those are your potential customers. You use that data to decide how to procede. If you have 750k calls over a six month period and say 50k are asking about a paticular programming option, you get that programming option. That data tells you exactly how effective your ad spends are. It tells you areas you need to address quickly for your current customer base. In an effort to reduce churn and drive incremental accounts, you have to rely very heavily on that data.

[BlueK]

Originally Posted by CJF

The data is not exact. I'll grant you that. When you're dealing with over 750k calls, you're going to have some agent error in the dispositions. However, Dish and Direct to make a lot of their business decisions based on that data.

The data isn't worthless. Although there may be some errors in the collection, that isn't the real problem with using it to guess what those who didn't bother to call are thinking. It's that there is no way to know for sure if it accurately represents what's out there because it's not a random sampling of the audience. Self-selectors are often not representative of those who don't call. All you know is what that group thinks. There is also no way of knowing how many people care about the channel and didn't call. The only way to get a good reading on that would be to design a study using a random or as close to random sampling of the audience you can get, and ask them about the mtn. But that's really expensive and not worth the trouble, so they don't do it.

[Spaz]

Originally Posted by CJF

The data is not exact. I'll grant you that. When you're dealing with over 750k calls, you're going to have some agent error in the dispositions. However, Dish and Direct to make a lot of their business decisions based on that data.

One thing I think would be interesting, and I would have asked for it yesterday if my friend wasn't trying to finish his weekly reports, is the last 18 months worth of data. I know for a fact that Dish and DTV got slammed with calls for about 2 hour period in August of 2006. I happened to unleash about 200 outbound agents on them when one of our dialers went down. Removing those calls, I would be interested to see what six month period had the most volume. My guess is that it's not much different today than it was 18 months ago.

I do agree with you that some who are currently Dish customers will switch. I don't think it's going to be significant. I would guess most lived through two years, they'll not go through the hassle believing that Dish is going to be on board soon also or flat out don't know DTV has it. I think DTV will get back most if not all their customers they lost from Comcast. I think DTV knows this and that is why they publicly welcomed Dish to get involved in the distribution. It won't hurt them at all and it might hurt Comcast. That's just my reading into things though.

My experience with inbound customer data may not be indicative of DTV's, but it seems to me we always got the LEAST intelligent 5% of the customers calling per year.... Personally, I'd hate to make business decisions based on those customers.

Like I said, I only have data on two people. Me & My brother are both currently cable subscribers who will be switching now because of the Mtn on DTV. I'd be very surprised if we're so atypical that we don't represent a good portion of the BYU fandom.

[Spaz]

Originally Posted by BlueK

The data isn't worthless. Although there may be some errors in the collection, that isn't the real problem with using it to guess what those who didn't bother to call are thinking. It's that there is no way to know for sure if it accurately represents what's out there because it's not a random sampling of the audience. Self-selectors are often not representative of those who don't call. All you know is what that group thinks. There is also no way of knowing how many people care about the channel and didn't call. The only way to get a good reading on that would be to design a study using a random or as close to random sampling of the audience you can get, and ask them about the mtn. But that's really expensive and not worth the trouble, so they don't do it.

Not as expensive as you'd think. There's market research companies available that can sample a large number of 'random' people...either customers or not...in a relatively short time period, and at a relatively low cost.

IMO, it'd be far more cost-effective in driving marketing policy.

[il Padrino Ute]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

Here's what I don't get. A BCS game is great because we get to play a good BCS opponent, with more national exposure. Right?

Not necessarily.

[Flystripper]

Originally Posted by BYU71

On the other hand there is the argument you are getting fed at McDonalds. Does there come a point where the fan base becomes tired of McDonalds. One could argue the enthusiasm for BYU football started to subside in the late nineties even before the Crowton era.

At this point I would be happy with Outback Steakhouse...It doesn't have to be Ruth's Chris...although Ruths Chris is preferable.

[Flystripper]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

BYU71, it's not "what games are exciting?", it's your implied suggestion that BYU's schedule in the past was consistently better than it is now. That simply wasn't the case.

BYU's schedule now is not significantly worse than what is was in the past. This statement is beside the point. I don't care about the past. College football has changed significantly. BYU can't be content to just schedule like they did in the past. If BYU is serious about being a big boy, today's college football landscape demands BCS games to garner respect.

BCS programs play 8 BCS games a year and BYU thinks they have a tough schedule with only 2.