T.W. and the satellite dish

This is about one of my clients. I don’t normally "dish" on my clients on my blog, so I’ll just call her T.W.

T.W. and I have spent some quality time together looking at condos in downtown St. Paul.  I think we  found some units that really wow her.  I honestly think buyers should wait until they have that wow experience before they plunk down all that money.

Last night we were looking at a condo conversion in a large building with the Realtor® from the sales office.  Between the two of us we managed to answer all of T.W’s questions.  She asks a lot of questions, which is a good thing.  She really keeps me on my toes, with her "why?" and more importantly her "why not?" type questions.

When she asked where she could put her satellite dish the other Realtors® jaw dropped.  When T.W. saw his reaction her voice got louder and she headed for the nearest exit.  She is a major sports and satellite radio fan and can not imagine a life worth living without both.  I don’t know much about sports, or T.V. for that matter, but I believe T.W. when she says that satellite T.V. offerings go way beyond those of cable and are a must for sports fans.

The condo building was wired for cable when it was renovated and they decided to let Qwest come in and wire it for phone company services too, just in case anyone wants phone service that is not through Comcast.  It looks to me like Comcast has a kind of monopoly in downtown St. Paul, they are in all of the buildings.  The sales agent explained that cable is essential because many of the residents in the building also require internet access.  Internet access is available via satellite but is so expensive that even the providers suggest checking the availability of DSL and cable before considering satellite service.

Back to T.W., "Why can’t I have my dish?"!  Maybe she can have her dish.  I don’t see any satellite dishes in downtown St. Paul on top of buildings, but I do see a lot of other stuff that looks like it has something to do with communication.  They seem to be able to put things on roofs. 

I did a little research on satellite T.V. and discovered that it does have to go on the roof in this case.  It seems that the association owns the common areas, and the residents own their units but the building including the roof, is owned by a third entity who may be able to charge people to lease space on it.

The sales agent said he had never heard this one before.  He probably never met anyone like T.W. either.  I’ll be working on this today and the sales agent will be working on it too. Home buyers should ask for what they want, because they have a better chance of getting what they want by at least asking for it.

According so FCC regulations, and article I saw written by some condo lawyers it is possible that T.W. can have her dish, assuming that it can be installed.  I think putting something on the roof is easy enough but am not sure if they can get the cable to go from the dish to T.W’s unit.  If I were a local dish provider I would figure it out so that I could offer satellite T.V. to condo builders and buyers.  Could they put one huge dish on each building so that consumers could have a choice?

We are living in an age of having it our way were customer service rules.  I am not talking about the kind of customer service where the customer presses 1 to listen to bad music or 9 to hear a duck quack, I am talking about the kind of service where the customer actually gets something that she asks for.  Both the builder and the satellite dish company have an opportunity here, I wounder if either will step up to the plate?   I have already heard "we have never done it before" and "no one has ever asked" so this should be interesting.