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Open Letter to Tom Rogers, Tivo CEO and Tivo Management

21K views 112 replies 38 participants last post by  cherry ghost 
#1 ·
I have been a Tivo customer for over ten years. My original Series 2 Tivo was a great product at the time, but since then every unit I've owned (Series 3 HD, Premiere XL, Premiere XL4, Stream, Mini and now Roamio Pro) has had so many bugs, including the service outage by Tivo’s servers all night yesterday.

You can browse the support forums here at Tivo Community and on Tivo’s own website and see numerous problems users have been experiencing due to poor engineering and software bugs. When is Tivo management going to get its act together and get the engineers and support staff to resolve all of these problems everyone is having in a timely manner? Does the management board even know about these problems? Do you use Tivos the way most users do on a daily basis to know how many problems there are, or is this just another case of a company being run by a board of executives with business degrees and no depth of understanding of the product that they’re selling?

Among the long list of problems I've been experiencing: Padding time to Season Pass recordings creating a 2nd manual recording, numerous problems connecting to Wifi, frequent problems connecting to the Tivo outside my home network, Tivo Desktop for Mac not having been updated in several years, Roxio's Tivo Transfer not working at all with the Roamio Pro, the iOS Tivo App showing the wrong disk percentage, the inability to transfer some older recordings from another Tivo. The list goes on and on. When Tivo’s servers went down last night, there was no way for Tivo owners to know that the errors they were getting were a result of the servers being down. This information should have been made available on Tivo’s website. This shows an incredible lack of communication between Tivo and their customers.

These are issues that have been ongoing for months, and in some cases, years. The Level 1 phone support staff doesn't know how to solve these known issues. Incredibly, many aren’t even aware that these problems are known issues. They make you go through their canned troubleshooting guide over the phone, which is an incredible waste of everyone’s time. The Level 2 support staff seems to know about some of the problems, but the Level 1 staff makes it really difficult for Tivo owners to get through to them. It seems that the only decent support for Tivo owners is on their website forum and here at Tivo Community, but we only have the ability to make each other aware of known problems, not fix them.

This is completely unacceptable for an $1,100 product (Roamio Pro with Lifetime Service). I wish there was a better alternative for a standalone DVR besides the cable companies’ DVRs, which have far fewer features. Currently, I’m only a Tivo customer out of a lack of better options.

Tivo management, please take the necessary steps to recognize the numerous problems Tivo users are having and find a way to get the engineering and support staff to fix them and communicate with customers in a timely and efficient way.
 
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#77 ·
While I sincerely appreciate Margret’s presence here, one has to respectfully question why a Vice President of Design & Engineering is addressing specific problems and complaints here at Tivo Community and posting updates on Twitter. This is extremely inefficient and it is indicative of structural problems within Tivo, Inc. Assuming that it is a separate department, this should be the job of Customer Support and it shouldn’t be happening at Tivo Community and Twitter, it should be happening at tivo.com. Margret should be coming here for design suggestions and ideas, not to report bugs back to her engineering team. The fact that she is doing this just shows that customers are not having their problems properly addressed through phone support and at tivo.com. The reason this is happening is because the proper structure isn’t in place at Customer Support and at tivo.com to allow this to happen, which is why I suggested a central organized database of Known Issues, as opposed to the plethora of support articles on tivo.com that are completely disorganized and impossible to navigate.

Once an existing structure is in place, it takes a tremendous amount of effort and resources to change it, which is why this problem has persisted for at least the ten years that I’ve been a customer. It takes someone at the top, presumably the CEO, to realize this and say, “this isn’t working, we need to change things.”
 
#78 ·
While I sincerely appreciate Margret’s presence here, one has to respectfully question why a Vice President of Design & Engineering is addressing specific problems and complaints here at Tivo Community and posting updates on Twitter. This is extremely inefficient and it is indicative of structural problems within Tivo, Inc. Assuming that it is a separate department, this should be the job of Customer Support and it shouldn’t be happening at Tivo Community and Twitter, it should be happening at tivo.com. Margret should be coming here for design suggestions and ideas, not to report bugs back to her engineering team. The fact that she is doing this just shows that customers are not having their problems properly addressed through phone support and at tivo.com. The reason this is happening is because the proper structure isn’t in place at Customer Support and at tivo.com to allow this to happen, ”
I tend to agree with you but propose that perhaps it is like this because they are understaffed and Margret has taken this on by herself (on her own) to try and improve things for customers. It could be her hands are tied and can't hire anyone else and/or can't get other departments to cooperate or follow-through and is doing what she can, even though it means doing it herself. She might even be going around prevailing policy.

Such business politics are not uncommon... in fact, I know them all too well. So I can be critical of TiVo as a whole and yet still praise Margret for what she is trying to do (and actually getting done).
 
#79 ·
I tend to agree with you but propose that perhaps it is like this because they are understaffed and Margret has taken this on by herself (on her own) to try and improve things for customers. It could be her hands are tied and can't hire anyone else and/or can't get other departments to cooperate or follow-through and is doing what she can, even though it means doing it herself. She might even be going around prevailing policy.

Such business politics are not uncommon... in fact, I know them all too well. So I can be critical of TiVo as a whole and yet still praise Margret for what she is trying to do (and actually getting done).
I agree with everything you said and I praise Margret's efforts too, which is why I addressed this thread to the CEO. It is his responsibility to make this happen.

I have worked for enough large organizations in my lifetime to know that problems, lack of communication, politics and bureaucracy exist in every large organization, whether it's public or private, government or corporation. It's up to the person at the top to fix the problems and cut through the bureaucracy.
 
#80 ·
While I sincerely appreciate Margret’s presence here, one has to respectfully question why a Vice President of Design & Engineering is addressing specific problems and complaints here at Tivo Community and posting updates on Twitter. This is extremely inefficient and it is indicative of structural problems within Tivo, Inc. Assuming that it is a separate department, this should be the job of Customer Support and it shouldn’t be happening at Tivo Community and Twitter, it should be happening at tivo.com. Margret should be coming here for design suggestions and ideas, not to report bugs back to her engineering team. The fact that she is doing this just shows that customers are not having their problems properly addressed through phone support and at tivo.com. The reason this is happening is because the proper structure isn’t in place at Customer Support and at tivo.com to allow this to happen, which is why I suggested a central organized database of Known Issues, as opposed to the plethora of support articles on tivo.com that are completely disorganized and impossible to navigate.

Once an existing structure is in place, it takes a tremendous amount of effort and resources to change it, which is why this problem has persisted for at least the ten years that I’ve been a customer. It takes someone at the top, presumably the CEO, to realize this and say, “this isn’t working, we need to change things.”
Then I still don't understand why you chose to post your letter here rather than mail it directly to Tom Rogers. Frankly I suspect you were (as I said earlier in more dramatic words) trying to whip up political pressure from Tivo forum readers. If your answer is something like "I doubted it would ever be read by him" then you have to acknowledge that Margret has aided your purpose by getting it some attention within TiVo at higher levels, despite your criticism of the appropriateness of her role on the forum

In your suggestions for "structural" changes in customer support, I believe you:

1. Underestimate the technical complexities of the range of problems that Tivo's can experience. Each of the ten or so major cable MSO's presents different issues and dealing with CableCARD and Tuning Adapters while being at the mercy of the cable operator's generally poor and unmotivated support is a major challenge.

2. Overestimate the resources that a relatively small company such as Tivo can afford to put into customer support -- and into engineering field work to address problems specific to a particular cable system thousands of miles from Tivo's location.

Poor customer support is not a problem specific to Tivo. For a product that is technically sophisticated it is a questionable that a CSR staff having the knowledge we would like them to have is practically achievable even if massive resources are available for salaries and training. If a company Tivo's size were to spend such resources, the price of Tivo's might have to double. And the intelligent database that would be smart enough to make up for CSR's lack of detailed technical knowledge would be either very costly to develop or impossible.

Just for the sake of discussion, who can provide examples of companies no larger than Tivo (in terms of employees and sales) -- and selling a consumer-priced product as technically complex as Tivo -- that has much better customer service?
 
#81 ·
Then I still don't understand why you chose to post your letter here rather than mail it directly to Tom Rogers. Frankly I suspect you were (as I said earlier in more dramatic words) trying to whip up political pressure from Tivo forum readers. If your answer is something like "I doubted it would ever be read by him" then you have to acknowledge that Margret has aided your purpose by getting it some attention within TiVo at higher levels, despite your criticism of the appropriateness of her role on the forum

In your suggestions for "structural" changes in customer support, I believe you:

1. Underestimate the technical complexities of the range of problems that Tivo's can experience. Each of the ten or so major cable MSO's presents different issues and dealing with CableCARD and Tuning Adapters while being at the mercy of the cable operator's generally poor and unmotivated support is a major challenge.

2. Overestimate the resources that a relatively small company such as Tivo can afford to put into customer support -- and into engineering field work to address problems specific to a particular cable system thousands of miles from Tivo's location.

Poor customer support is not a problem specific to Tivo. For a product that is technically sophisticated it is a questionable that a CSR staff having the knowledge we would like them to have is practically achievable even if massive resources are available for salaries and training. If a company Tivo's size were to spend such resources, the price of Tivo's might have to double. And the intelligent database that would be smart enough to make up for CSR's lack of detailed technical knowledge would be either very costly to develop or impossible.

Just for the sake of discussion, who can provide examples of companies no larger than Tivo (in terms of employees and sales) -- and selling a consumer-priced product as technically complex as Tivo -- that has much better customer service?
I agree that poor customer support is not specific to Tivo. One only has to call their local cable company to confirm that. Saying all companies offer poor customer support is not an excuse to offer poor support.

I made one suggestion that I said would be a huge timesaver for everyone, would result in a huge cost savings for Tivo in terms of wasted phone support time, and would take very few resources to put in place– create an organized list of Known Issues (like the Gmail example I gave earlier) that was easily accessible on tivo.com for everyone to see. That way, someone wondering why they were getting two recordings every time they padded a season pass recording wouldn't have to call up phone support, post to a forum, read through a VP's Twitter feed, or search through hundreds of support articles on tivo.com to know that it was a known problem being worked on. They wouldn't have to fight with Level 1 phone support to make sure it got reported to Level 2 support to make sure that they knew about it.
 
#82 ·
I agree with both of these points, and I'm actively working to get them addressed.

--Margret
At the same time, could you please look into why..... for weeks..... the telephone support people were telling me adamantly that the C133 errors were DEFINITELY NOT on the Tivo side? This caused quite a bit of misunderstanding, frustration and anger directed at Tivo because it flew in the face of every indication I had at my disposal (speed tests, traceroutes and ping plots) that said there was NOTHING AT ALL wrong with my LAN, or the internet in general. And worse, it gave me the impression when I did call about it that Tivo was NOT looking into it.... just telling me to reboot everything and "see if that fixes it". Or worse, open a range of ports and permanently KEEP THEM OPEN. An open invitation to port scanners......

Paul
 
#83 ·
At the same time, could you please look into why..... for weeks..... the telephone support people were telling me adamantly that the C133 errors were DEFINITELY NOT on the Tivo side? This caused quite a bit of misunderstanding, frustration and anger directed at Tivo because it flew in the face of every indication I had at my disposal (speed tests, traceroutes and ping plots) that said there was NOTHING AT ALL wrong with my LAN, or the internet in general. And worse, it gave me the impression when I did call about it that Tivo was NOT looking into it.... just telling me to reboot everything and "see if that fixes it". Or worse, open a range of ports and permanently KEEP THEM OPEN. An open invitation to port scanners......

Paul
This is exactly the kind of issue that users like me are having that wastes our time, and countless hours of Tivo support employees' time, costing the company money. All of this could have been solved if some sort of central organized list of known issues was collected, organized, constantly updated and shared by a support supervisor.
 
#84 ·
....... Saying all companies offer poor customer support is not an excuse to offer poor support.
............
I didn't say that but I am awaiting examples of companies of the size of TiVo (or smaller) that sell a consumer-priced, highly technically complex product, that have much better CS.

The "excuses" may well be the factors I discussed in my previous post. A combination of technical complexities and limited CS resources (without overpricing the product).
 
#85 ·
I addressed this thread to the CEO. It is his responsibility to make this happen.

I have worked for enough large organizations in my lifetime to know that problems, lack of communication, politics and bureaucracy exist in every large organization, whether it's public or private, government or corporation. It's up to the person at the top to fix the problems and cut through the bureaucracy.
And when you worked for these large organizations can you give us some specifics of your communication with the CEO and his response to being told by you that's it's *his* responsibility to make it happen?

I ask because I work for a ~250,000+ organization and the coffee here it terrible. I wanted to make the CEO aware that it's his responsibility to fix this and make me happy. Also I have about twenty other things this company is doing wrong.

Should I just contact directly or should I take out an ad in the NY Times with an open letter addressed to him?
 
#87 ·
This conversation is reminding me of an article I read the other day.

"Upsetting the status quo — or upending it — is always a radical proposition and is often an unpopular one, sometimes even among those who suffer under the entrenched system."

"Those who can’t imagine change reveal the deficits of their imaginations, not the difficulty of change."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/07/opinion/a-lesson-before-dying.html

I've made my position known. I don't really wish to debate this anymore. I would rather spend time watching my Tivo then talking about it! Thank you to everyone who participated in this conversation.
 
#88 ·
I ask because I work for a ~250,000+ organization and the coffee here it terrible. I wanted to make the CEO aware that it's his responsibility to fix this and make me happy. Also I have about twenty other things this company is doing wrong.

Should I just contact directly or should I take out an ad in the NY Times with an open letter addressed to him?
Sure, and you'll probably end up much more happy with your coffee, cause it'll be coffee you brew at home before heading for the unemployment office to collect your check. :D
 
#89 ·
Still don't see how you think addressing a letter to the CEO on a non officially affiliated forum will be seen by him. Yes, Margret is here, but in no official capacity. If you expect Tom to respond, try holding your breath/

But hey, keep tilting at windmills and thinking you're being some unsung hero that is being misunderstood.

Let us know when you file the class action suit, those are fun too.
 
#90 ·
I tend to agree with you but propose that perhaps it is like this because they are understaffed and Margret has taken this on by herself (on her own) to try and improve things for customers. It could be her hands are tied and can't hire anyone else and/or can't get other departments to cooperate or follow-through and is doing what she can, even though it means doing it herself. She might even be going around prevailing policy.
Or maybe Margret just enjoys interacting with us, a delightfully enthusiastic subset of TiVo's customer base. (Don't laugh. It could happen.)
 
#91 ·
At the same time, could you please look into why..... for weeks..... the telephone support people were telling me adamantly that the C133 errors were DEFINITELY NOT on the Tivo side? This caused quite a bit of misunderstanding, frustration and anger directed at Tivo because it flew in the face of every indication I had at my disposal (speed tests, traceroutes and ping plots) that said there was NOTHING AT ALL wrong with my LAN, or the internet in general. And worse, it gave me the impression when I did call about it that Tivo was NOT looking into it.... just telling me to reboot everything and "see if that fixes it". Or worse, open a range of ports and permanently KEEP THEM OPEN. An open invitation to port scanners......

Paul
My father gets C133 issues ALL THE TIME. Like almost every day. I do not. Clearly they're not ALWAYS a TiVo-side issue like the outage a few weeks ago.

But I have no idea what could cause my father's problem. His network seems fine.
 
#92 ·
Or maybe Margret just enjoys interacting with us, a delightfully enthusiastic subset of TiVo's customer base. (Don't laugh. It could happen.)
I won't laugh. It is entirely plausible. Many people, myself included, enjoy helping other people and interacting in productive ways. As a whole, the people on these forums are far more technological, sophisticated, and articulate than the "general public at large owning TiVo's".

We are actually a useful resource that can be tapped for solving problems, testing, getting suggestions for improvements, and fairly accurate feedback for how things are working. I (and many others from this forum) have volunteered to beta test more than once and it is a lot of work. Most of us can be HIGHLY critical, but most of us also want a better product, better service, and a better and stronger TiVo.
 
#93 ·
This conversation is reminding me of an article I read the other day.

"Upsetting the status quo — or upending it — is always a radical proposition and is often an unpopular one, sometimes even among those who suffer under the entrenched system."

"Those who can’t imagine change reveal the deficits of their imaginations, not the difficulty of change."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/07/opinion/a-lesson-before-dying.html

I've made my position known. I don't really wish to debate this anymore. I would rather spend time watching my Tivo then talking about it! Thank you to everyone who participated in this conversation.
At last!! :rolleyes:
 
#94 ·
I'm adding myself to the disgruntled list. I'm packing up all my newly purchased Tivo gear (roamio and 4 minis) and returning them today. I've had enough of this two week torture of errors, stuttering and skipping.

I'll tell you this I DESPISE comcast and their equipment, but I'm going back to it, as at least I was able to watch reliable television with their boxes.

TIVO, if you're reading, your history and your reputation made me a Tivo customer two weeks ago, but your newest gear has made me leave.
 
#95 ·
Wow. Sorry to hear that. I'm loving my 3 Roamio's and 4 Mini's on FiOS. I've had no issues. And even that one day with C133's everything worked fine other then that exclamation point in the upper left. I was as big a DirecTV fan as there was but Roamio on FiOS is awesome. Just awesome.
 
#97 ·
jntc- you may be gone already, but did you ask for help on this issue here? You could have a bad box (drive is my guess). It happens.
Yes, I have posted on this, called tivo, and even replaced the boxes, twice now. I've tried moca, ethernet, wireless. I've put in a new splitter, new cable, new HDMI cables.

My signals are fantastic 97-100, with 30SNR on each tuner/channel

My moca signals are fantastic ~270PHY for both Rx and Tx and -6 to -14 on Power Tx and ~.5 on Rx

No errors in packets

The first mini and roamio I had presented a very dark and red picture. Replaced, roamio was good. The second Mini would drift out of audio sync and skip frames/stutter. The third Mini (as well as two additional ones) will skip frames, drop audio, and stutter.

This combined with the c133, v53 and v58 and blue circles spinning and spinning have driven me absolute mad.

I'm sorry if this is not the norm, but this has been my experience, and my family is mad.

Seriously, I've done everything I can to make this work, I have not seen any other options that will do what I wanted to achieve with Tivo. There is no competition and like I said, Tivo's history says this shouldn't be the case.
 
#98 ·
Yes, they call that a recall and people get their stuff fixed or refunded. I don't see Tivo doing that.
No, only the ones that get enough attention and generally involve safety become recalls and get fixed. Many are posted as TSB's and it's the customer gets to pay for them if beyond your warranty period. Some don't even rate a TSB but are common failures on particular models. A couple on my current care include the radio/heating/cooling LCD display failure and the headliner falling down.

Scott
 
#99 ·
Wow. Sorry to hear that. I'm loving my 3 Roamio's and 4 Mini's on FiOS. I've had no issues. And even that one day with C133's everything worked fine other then that exclamation point in the upper left. I was as big a DirecTV fan as there was but Roamio on FiOS is awesome. Just awesome.
You have no issues with your mini's skipping out/stuttering/audio dropout type problems? I have had four, and every one has experienced this. (mainly during live TV watching)

Can you take a look at your network status from one of your minis and see what your values are for PHY TX and RX and Power for TX and RX?

Luckily the weather is crappy, and I don't feel like dragging all these back to BestBuy tonight.

:(
 
#100 ·
Yes, I have posted on this, called tivo, and even replaced the boxes, twice now. I've tried moca, ethernet, wireless. I've put in a new splitter, new cable, new HDMI cables.

My signals are fantastic 97-100, with 30SNR on each tuner/channel

My moca signals are fantastic ~270PHY for both Rx and Tx and -6 to -14 on Power Tx and ~.5 on Rx

No errors in packets

The first mini and roamio I had presented a very dark and red picture. Replaced, roamio was good. The second Mini would drift out of audio sync and skip frames/stutter. The third Mini (as well as two additional ones) will skip frames, drop audio, and stutter.

This combined with the c133, v53 and v58 and blue circles spinning and spinning have driven me absolute mad.

I'm sorry if this is not the norm, but this has been my experience, and my family is mad.

Seriously, I've done everything I can to make this work, I have not seen any other options that will do what I wanted to achieve with Tivo. There is no competition and like I said, Tivo's history says this shouldn't be the case.
If the SNR 30dB is accurate that number is not good as you are on the verge of losing audio and video on the channel you took that number from.
If you are experiencing audio drop outs and tiling video or stuttering video then you need Comcast to come out and look for the problem that is causing this.

It could be bad F connectors, bad coax wiring, splitters, or improper amps in the home. Junky amps will add noise to the signal.
If the problem is outside then it is bad F connectors, bad drop, bad tap, bad couplers, bad line splitters, bad amps, etc.
If the problem is moisture or water getting in the hardware outside the winter will reveal this problem when the water freezes, especially at night.

Before you give up and send the TiVo hardware back you should have this looked at first. You should have a SNR of at least 35dB or above for every channel. You can have lower power levels but not lower SNR levels. If you have little noise in your cable signal the SNR will stay stable even if you reduce the power level by adding in a large number of splits. Right now you are sitting on the edge of the digital cliff where the audio and video will quit working altogether.
 
#101 ·
If the SNR 30dB is accurate that number is not good as you are on the verge of losing audio and video on the channel you took that number from.
If you are experiencing audio drop outs and tiling video or stuttering video then you need Comcast to come out and look for the problem that is causing this.

It could be bad F connectors, bad coax wiring, splitters, or improper amps in the home. Junky amps will add noise to the signal.
If the problem is outside then it is bad F connectors, bad drop, bad tap, bad couplers, bad line splitters, bad amps, etc.
If the problem is moisture or water getting in the hardware outside the winter will reveal this problem when the water freezes, especially at night.

Before you give up and send the TiVo hardware back you should have this looked at first. You should have a SNR of at least 35dB or above for every channel. You can have lower power levels but not lower SNR levels. If you have little noise in your cable signal the SNR will stay stable even if you reduce the power level by adding in a large number of splits. Right now you are sitting on the edge of the digital cliff where the audio and video will quit working altogether.
My mistake on that the SNR's are hovering around 39 not 30
 
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