Tata Sky DTH Customer Service!

I am a regular on most forums on DTH and Tata Sky on the internet. One of the questions that has been doing the rounds lately is that of the pricing of the sports package...of Tata Sky v/s the others. I wasn’t really sure of how the others had priced their sports package. I thought lets bounce this off Tata Sky’s Customer care. Frankly wasn’t expecting too much of information from them about competition, but thought lets give it a try.

Hence I called up the western India customer service, a certain Pooja took the call. After the courteous opening statements, I asked her if she could help me with a comparison of Tata Sky pricing vis-a-vis Dish TV, Big TV and Airtel Digital TV. She could have very conveniently said that she would be able to help me out with TS pricing but not others.

However she didn’t. In fact she asked me a counter question “Sir are you referring to any particular package, or the Set top box price or the base pack?” I wasn’t expecting this. If she’s asking this question, means she’s obviously going to provide some answers here. I went on to say, “The sports pack”...”How do other service providers compare on the Tata Sky Sports platinum pack?”.

Quite to my delight, she actually gave me an elaborate run down of each of the competition packages and their pricing, channels bundled, taxes, everything (in reference to Tata Sky). And also quite expectedly drove home the point that TS’s pricing was the most flexible. I didn’t mind that, In fact I somewhere knew that. What impressed me was that she was armed with all the information required for the call.

This is in quite contrast to most customer service reps across brands, who are themselves unware (most of the times) about their own product, leave aside competition. They keep you on hold (while they gather information from their Supervisors/colleagues) or keep transferring you until you reach “nowhere”. End of it the customer who’s called gets frustrated and ends the call. Haven’t all of us experienced this?

And here is Tata Sky, whose execs are not just prompt but are also equipped with sufficient information to finish a call entirely to the satisfaction of the calling customer. No transfers/ no holding of line nothing. This girl didn’t just give me TS information but also provided a perspective of how it compares with competition and in detail. Great Job Pooja. Great Job Tata Sky!

Post Script

If you’re interested in knowing the sports channel package comparison, see it below:

Tata Sky
ESS Channels
Add on Package: ESPN Star Sports Monthly Pay Pack
Channels offered: ESPN, Star Sports
Price: INR 40
Add on package: Star Cricket Monthly Pay pack
Channels Offered: Star Cricket
Price: INR 25
Lock In Period for ESS Channels: 30 days
Neo Channels
Add on Package: Sports Gold
Channels Offered: Neo Cricket, Neo Sports
Price: INR 30
Lock in Period for Neo Channels: 30 days

BIG TV
ESS Channels
Add on Package: Sports 1 Plus
Channels offered: ESPN, Star Sports
Price: INR 40
Add on package: Uni Plus (alacarte channel)
Channels Offered: Star Cricket
Price: INR 25
Lock In Period for ESS Channels: 180 days
Neo Channels
Add on Package: Sports 2 Plus
Channels Offered: Neo Cricket, Neo Sports
Price: INR 30
Lock in Period for Neo Channels: 180 days

Airtel Digital TV
ESS Channels
Add on Package: ESPN Plus
Channels offered: ESPN, Star Sports, Star Cricket
Price: INR 45
Lock In Period for ESS Channels: None
Neo Channels
Add on Package: Neo Plus
Channels Offered: Neo Cricket, Neo Sports
Price: INR 30
Lock in Period for Neo Channels: 6 months

Dish TV
ESS Channels
Add on Package: Sports 1
Channels offered: ESPN, Star Sports
Price: INR 39.33
Add on package: Star Cricket Alacarte Channel
Channels Offered: Star Cricket
Price: INR 28.09
Lock In Period for ESS Channels: 1 month
Neo Channels
Not Offered

SUN Direct
ESS Channels
Alacarte ESPN
Price: INR 42.70
Lock in period: 30 days
Alacarte Star Sports
Price: INR 42.70
Lock in period: 30 days
Alacarte Star Cricket
Price: INR 35.96
Lock in period: 30 days Neo Channels
Not Offered

In summary
Objectively if one has to evaluate these prices across sports packages along with their availability with a given DTH provider, it’s quite obvious that the price difference is clearly a function of the channel/ channel combination and duration of association with that channel(s) that a particular user is looking at. Also when evaluated along with the lock in period associated with a particular package, along with the channels bundled in a given add on pack and whether a given channel is available on a particular platform (as you would have noticed Sun Direct, Dish TV do not carry Neo channels in add on packages), the comparison actually tends towards a relative parity across providers (Despite the sports package recent price increase by TS)!

Hence I think DTH not about the channel packages and their pricing (as it’s more or less subjective based on the user’s requirement), it’s more about the complete experience that a DTH service provider delivers!