OK, it’s a little curious. DISH today rolled out a smartphone repair service open to everyone, not just DISH customers. It’s curious because, well, there’s certainly no shortage of smartphone repair services out there, and from what it sounds, it’s possible DISH will actually be using some of the same people from those independent companies as contractors.
The new ideas DISH brings to the table: They’ll come to you, for a fee of course, and they’ll work with you to have sort of a “repair party” where all your friends with broken phones can come, schmooze, and get their phones fixed.
I will say that with the demise of “free phone plans” I think the expectation for everyone is that people will think twice before giving up the phone they have. I think it’s going to either slow down smartphone purchases or it’s going to drive manufacturers to really give us a reason to upgrade. But that’s a story for another day (note to self: write that story another day.) The end result of this is I see a lot more people with band-aids on their fingers from dragging across broken glass. So, perhaps DISH may have something going here.
While DIRECTV has had their Protection Plan Premier for some time covering not only smartphones but other electronics, it is a monthly charge and not open to non-DIRECTV customers. DISH’s plan is on a “per incident” basis and open to everyone.
It seems like DISH sees an industry largely controlled by local players and seeks to standardize and manage it into a national conglomerate. This worked for fast food, supermarkets and electronics stores and when you think about it that way, it could very much work here too. If nothing else it’s a way for DISH to get its name to a whole different group of consumers. That’s never a bad thing.
If you’re interested in getting your phone repaired, check out DISH’s new site, dish.com/smart-phone-repair for yourself. The one thing that’s pretty safe to say here is that you’ll deal with a professional, national, service organization which is going to give you a standardized price and a consistent level of care.
Personally I wish DISH all the best in this venture. The last time I had a smartphone repair it went very poorly because the local vendor broke a cable and didn’t realize it. While they stood behind the work and we found a way to work through it, the end result was that I replaced that device sooner than I had wanted to because it was simply never right after that. Perhaps if I had been working with a national organization this wouldn’t have happened.
