...Or, why Hughes will never know why we left.
Living where I do in a mountain valley, my only choices for Internet are dial-up 
over ancient phone lines or satellite. For the past few years I have struggled along using Hughes Net. I did try to switch to Wild Blue a few times, but they were always “full” and not accepting new accounts.
Hughes Net, on the other hand, keeps mailing advertisement for new clients, no matter how "full" they are.
Thus, when the promise of Starlink came along, I hurried to pay a deposit and get on the waiting list. It took 18 months, but in September, our new dish finally arrived.
The difference is stunning. Where I was getting 10 mbps on a good day and perhaps 2 on a bad day, I now get 70+ on a bad day. Today it’s 220. (Hughes advertises 25 mbps, but that’s only if you’re plugged directly into the router and it’s not the peak usage time of day.) And, with Hughes, sometimes there’d be a couple hours in the afternoon with no service at all.
With Hughes, I couldn’t watch videos even if they would come in. That would quickly use up my whole month’s allotment of data. If I had company and they used the internet, I had to buy extra tokens. Starlink has no such restrictions.
Starlink does cost $17 more per month than Hughes, but along with speed and unlimited data, it includes streaming. My husband is loving being able to find and watch old Westerns and other movies, and I’m enjoying old episodes of Columbo and Quantum Leap.
So what does this have to do with feedback?
Today I received an email from Hughes Net asking me to fill out their questionnaire to let them know why I unsubscribed.
That would have been fine, but they are not going to learn much from it.
The choices did include “The service wasn’t up to expectations.” The rest of the choices all began with “The service was excellent, but…” They listed price, being unable to load some pages, speed, and a few other things, but you had to choose only one from the list.
They did ask if there were other issues, then went to a page where you could say that your first choice was the issue, or change it to one of the “excellent, but” choices.
They still won’t know the reasons why they’re losing subscribers.
If they really wanted to know why people were leaving, they’d have allowed multiple choices, eliminated the “excellent” preface, and made a place for comments.
Maybe knowing the reasons why would allow them to make changes in order to compete with Starlink. As it is, the lady at the UPS drop-off told me that more Hughes equipment is coming in for return every day.
Do you ask your clients for feedback?
If you do, good for you!
If you think you should, but haven’t started, please feel free to visit my website and copy the feedback letter you’ll find on this page.
This is similar to the after-closing feedback I sent to all of our clients when I was a broker. We found that by mailing it and including a self-addressed, stamped envelope, we got good results.
And, following advice from some marketing guru, we always used the biggest, prettiest return stamps we could find. (It's supposedly some kind of psychological thing telling people they shouldn't waste those pretty stamps.)
Wishing you years of positive feedback...
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