Sky rant
A couple of years ago I upgraded my Sky to Sky Plus, which gave me a whizzo satellite reciever/hard-drive combo with the ability to pause and rewind live telly, record entire series at the touch of the button, and all kinds of other cool things.
First let me say I've always been very impressed by Sky Plus, the user interface is incredibly well-written, powerful and easy-to-use. After a while I got very reliant on the ability to pause stuff when the phone rang, or record things on the off-chance I wanted to watch it.
Late last year I realised I was hardly watching any of the Sky channels I was paying for, and started to begrudge paying more than 25 quid for telly I just wasn't watching. As my contract was a over a year old, I decided to cancel it. Now I just get the "free to air" satellite channels like BBC1 to 4, ITV 1 to 4, Channel 4, CBBC etc.
Because I'd also stopped paying the £10 a month for Sky Plus, Sky turned all of the Sky+ functionality too. This is bloody annoying, I could understand them charging a tenner a month extra during my contract, they needed to recoup the value of the hard-disk powered set-top box. But why I need to keep paying me £10 a month forever, just to keep the extra functionality? I still have all the hardware sitting useless in the box, and I still get the Electronic Programme Guide which the box uses to plan it's recording. All that is missing is a little flag on the box that says "yes you can record."
The simple answer of course, is that Sky can charge for it, so they do.
That was annoyance number one.
After a while I was so annoyed at the lack of Sky+ functionality I was seriously considering re-subscribing to a Sky package just to get it back. Then after a little research on the net I found out I didn't have to: If I asked Sky nicely they'd turn on just the Sky Plus functionality. For a £10 a month fee, of course.
The Sky website makes no mention of this, that I can find. I suppose it's in their interest to make people think they have to have an expensive Sky channels package to get Sky Plus.
That's annoyance number two.
So I rang Sky's customer service.
Cue the Longest and Most Annoying Phone Menu System In The History of Mankind.
"If you want to order a movie... press 1. If you wan't to complain about the volume of the adverts... press 2. If you've poured tea over the remote... press 3. If your brain has started leaking out your ears... press 4."
I've made so many calls to Sky that I've memorized the menu buttons to get through to a human voice: it's 4, 5, 1, 6. So, that's four different list of options, all bar one of which you have to wait until the last option until they say the one you want. Annoyance number 3.
Then they ask you to key in your telephone number "so that your equiry can be dealt with more effectively."
Then the pleasant female voice says "Thank you. Your call will be dealt with shortly," a ringing tone... then another voice says "Your call is in a queue and will be dealt with in... Fifty. Four. Minutes."
In what dictionary is "shortly" defined as fifty four minutes? Annoyance number four.
If you decide to wait for that amount of time, you finally get through to a human voice. This is where the fun really starts.
"Hello, you're through to Sky Customer Services. Can I have your telephone number please?"
This is the telephone number I keyed into the system to "more effectively deal with my equiry" 50 minutes ago. Any reasonable person would expect it to held in the call-centre system and appear on the screen, wouldn't they? Annoyance four and a half.
A lot of housekeeping to confirm I am who I say I am, and not wasting the customer services person's valuable time (God forbid), I'm allowed to ask my question:
"Hello. I'd like to turn on just the Sky+ function on my box and pay £10 a month please."
"Certainly Sir, I'll turn that on for you now."
"Thank you! Goodbye!"
Well, that was easy, wasn't it?
Oh look, there's a lot more writing below here isn't there? Ho-hum.
The next day it's still not working, so I ring up again, navigate the menu system again, wait in the queue again...
"Hello, I was told yesterday my Sky+ functionality would be turned on, and it isn't."
"Oh yes, because you left Sky we have to send you a new card. It's in the post."
"Oh, the lady I spoke to didn't tell me that. Never mind. Thanks!"
Annoyance number 5: not being given full information.
Over few days later. No card turns up. I ring again, navigate the menu system again, wait in the queue again...
"If it's not turned up within a week we'll cancel that card and send you another card."
"Okay.. thanks."
Over a week later. No card turns up. I ring again, navigate the menu system again, wait in the queue again...
"We say wait five working days for delivery."
"Let me count on my calender... it's been eight working days since you said you'd sent it."
"It might be in tomorrows post."
"I don't care... send me another card."
"If I send you another card, and your first one turns up, you won't be able to use it."
"Look... in my experience if things haven't turned up after 8 days in the post they're never going to turn up. I'll take my chances and say that that card's gone AWOL, so send me another card!"
"Okay sir. That's done."
"What happens if this one doesn't turn up?"
"We'll send you one out special delivery. But it's unlikely."
Over a week later. No card turns up. I ring again, navigate the menu system again, wait in the queue again...
"No card. Lost count of annoyances. Send one special delivery. Then I won't kill you."
"Okay sir. That's been sent out today and will be with you on Monday."
"Wibble."
Today. No card with this morning's post. I ring again, navigate the menu system again, wait in the queue again...
It seems to be a foreign call centre. Now, don't get me wrong. Market forces and all that, if the Indians can do it cheaper then fair enough.
But I do expect the person I speak to on a Sky TV customer services to understand the meaning of phrases such as "what is the number of the special delivery item so I can track it?", "I want to speak to your manager" and "manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsiblity".
Finally I got put through to a manager. He's read through my file, he's so sorry that my card hasn't come yet. He'll send another card. It will be in my hands tomorrow.
He doesn't understand that I don't want the card any more!
Well I do, but that's not important. I need closure. I want to know what happened to all the other cards I was supposed to have been sent. I want to feel that I'm not just being fobbed off each time I ring up by people who don't care if I have a card or not, and just want to get me off the phone. I want to know why Sky have the most fucked-up customer services experience in the history of the World.
So my card's coming tomorrow. Please. Please. If not this might be the next thing I hear on a phone:
"Welcome to the Samaritans. Press 1 if you've bought a bottle of pills and you can't get the lid off. Press 2 if you're looking for a good random sniper vantage points in your area..."




We had to replace our Sky box due to a slight mishap. Rang them up and asked for an insurance quote, no problem. Operator promised Sky+ at no extra cost as they had a special offer on. Wa-hey!
Insurance cheque comes through, I phone up to organize the visit, and they they tell me that they can only do like-for-like replacement.
Cue 90 minute argument with eleven people.
We eventually got what we were promised after I told them I could walk down town, get a Freeview box for £40, and be back and set up in 30 minutes. Tonight Sky+ has just eaten everything we've recorded for the second time in six months.
Apart from that, Sky+ is wicked :-)
Then there's this new "feature" that Sky have installed where you need to put your pin code if you want to watch a movie channel between 8 and 10. Yes, I know my pin code...but the remote doesnt work from the pub!!
Theres a grassy knoll outside the Sky TV customer services building.
I could lend you the high powered sniper rifle I reserve for the county council if you like.
I love Sky+ but it seems to be getting flackier and flackier. We had an update late last year that caused the Live Pause and rewind to fail and as of the new EPG update I have been getting sporadic failed recordings and the same message as Jo. It looks like there is an issue with Channel 101 (BBC1) that screws the EPG.
Sky have a huge monopoly and are interested only in new customers and not existing ones. I am waiting for Sky HD which is supposed to be on its way, but all we have at the moment is speculation. If they want even more money a month and £400 for the box (I would rather swap my current one) then they can stick it.
With the XBox 360 almost setup as a Media Extender I can stream video content from my main pc and the new Telewest HD box is looking tempting....
You need that, love. Runs on a *nix core, so very very hackable :-)
Can I borrow the sniper rifle after you?
Guess what, the card didn't come yesterday!
james.murdoch@bskyb.com
allcustomercareescalation@bskyb.com
http://www.paulenglish.com/ivr/uk/
1) new customers get all the better deals? excuse me but you had your deal when you first joined us...why should you get another one?
2) Why do some people think they can get a free sky+ just because they have the sport or movie packages? - you don't shop at asdas for a year and say "i've been shopping here for a year now, do I get something for nothing because I'm so cheap?"
3) PRESS ONE FOR SKY+..its not that hard..so why do people come through saying they need an engineer to come out or some crap like that
2) True but Asda's prices are reasonable. I've already paid £300 for a box that can record my tv, why do I then have to pay an extra £10 a month to be allowed to use it?
3) Don't know, i'm lucky enough to have not had to call.
4) As if 2) isn't a big enough rip off. Sky HD, damn they're squeezing for everything. Another £300 for another box, fair enough if that was it but noo, £10/month on top for 4 HD channels (Sky 1, Artsworld, Nat Geographic, Discovery) not really mainstream, 1 sports and a couple of Movies (assuming you already subscribe to their packs) and Sky Box Office which is pay-per-view anyway!! Absolutely ridiculous.
5) Further to 4) I notice BBC HD is now on the sky list but marked "BBC HD is a non subscription channel"...Can I buy the HD box, not subscribe to HD and still watch the world cup? I hope so but i'm sure it'll be a fight.
......
Well... here we see exactly what everyone is griping about, the level of rudeness displayed by people who work under the monica "care" or "support" etc.
I have spent 3 days trying to get through to sky.... yaaaaaay! and I want an upgrade too! I actually want to give them MORE money.. This post really puts me off, seriously....
And as to Asda not giving freebies.... wot on EARTH is a customer reward card for that all supermarkets have these days???? Its a thankyou to their loyal long surviving customers, that hasnt been asked for, its offered.
I am really not surprised that this post was from "anon" because I would be copy and pasting it into an email of complaint to sky right now... I am so angry at this blatant display of all thats bringing sky and similar companies down.
I totally understand that these people are just doing their job... but they are as stated in their title "representatives" of that company... and I have never been rude or abusive to any of them, so I dont expect to be spoken to in this manner. I'm NOT cheap because I shop in supermarkets which offer discounts to customers with a loyalty card.
PS And Im Not anonymous either =) I can put my name to my arguement.
Dear Sir/Madam
I am writing with regards to the letter which I have received telling me that I will have to pay an extra fee for not having my satellite boxes connected to a phone line.
Yesterday afternoon was the third time that I have attempted to call the customer care telephone line to try and solve the problems that I am having with my system.
Once again it took me over twenty minutes to eventually get through to one of your representatives and I spoke to him for around fifteen minutes. He then passed me over to another department which took a further ten minutes and I then spoke to this person for around five minutes. She told me that she was going to check on some of my details and left me on the phone for over fifteen minutes at which point I hung up!
Not only was I angry at the fact I had been on the phone for almost an hour, I could barely understand the people that I was talking to as their English was very difficult to understand. A question that I have asked many times before to other companies who depend on telephone staff to answer phones and deal with customers is, what is the point in employing people who can not use clear and proper English grammar? Furthermore as with everyone in Great Britain including yourself, I have more important things to do with my time than spend an hour waiting on a telephone line. I, as a customer, should not have to suffer because SKY hasn’t bothered to employ the correct amount of staff to deal with all the calls/problems that they receive.
I have previously tried to contact SKY customer services with my problems and was left waiting for over twenty minutes and eventually hung up. I then tried writing to you to explain my problems to which my letter was ignored and I have never received a reply.
As stated this is now the third time and the second letter I have written attempting to remedy my problems. When you have decided to respond to my request for assistance with my SKY box I hope we can remedy the problems I am having. I hope I can look forward to speaking with someone who is both helpful and I can understand what they are saying. For your further information I will repeat the following details for the THIRD time.
1. My SKY + box IS connected to my phone line
2. I HAVE followed the instructions you sent on one of your letters
3. My second box is not connected to the telephone line because the engineer never installed my second box
as my kitchen is being extended and this is where my second box was to go and he told me he would come back and install my receiver when I was ready.
I sincerely hope that you do not take any added payments from my bank account.
Yours sincerely
Mr C. Anderson
As the box was still under their 12 month warranty, an engineer came out to repair or replace it..He replaced it with a 5 year old box that resembled an old vhs recorder, This didnt go down well with me and i contacted sky to complain only to be informed that the engineer replaces the box with whatever he happens to have on the van..strange that all his boxes were 5 year old large ugly reconditioed boxes.
Do sky really think that customers with modern slimline digiboxes are going to lie down and accept an old reconditioned 5 year old box in place of the ultra slim one they first had that complements their other expensive equipment..well not this one, I have written to sky demanding a new box or a reconditioned box that is less than 12 months old or i will take my custom elsewhere.
All the other sky members i know do not know of this policy..its a disgrace.
I will keep you posted on my result, otherwise its bye bye to sky...
SKY are fecking fools and I'm a fool for signing to them!
If I bought a PVR from Sony and hooked it up to my digibox, would I have to pay Sony for the right to use its recording functions?
When I bought my Sky+ box there was no mention of this fee, only that I had to pay for it for one year only.
If I do not pay the £10 fee Sky will make the PVR a useless brick.
Why is this allowed and is this legal?
we have been a customer for 15 years and we get no reward for our loyalty while new customers get everything.
i wanted to say all thsi to them but their feedback page is limited to 128 characters. anyone know an emailaddress for their customer services?
james.murdoch@bskyb.com;
allcustomercareescalation@bskyb.com;
Brian.Sullivan@bskyb.com;
Stephen.Nuttall@bskyb.com;
james.baker@bskyb.com;
jon.florsheim@bskyb.com;
robert.fraser@bskyb.com;
ian.lewis@bskyb.com;
corporate.communications@bskyb.com;investor-relations@bskyb.com;
Jeremy.Darroch@bskyb.com;
rupert.murdoch@bskyb.com;
beryl.cook@bskyb.com;
customer.care@bskyb.com;
all.staff@bskyb.com;
I sent an email to all of these and had no delivery notices to say they didnt work
Sending an email can be an unforgettable experience. The message field turns pink and you are told there are invalid characters in the field. You check it and find it consists of letters, numbers, spaces, commas, full stops and is well within the character limit for the field. Puzzled by this, you send the briefest, simplest message possible. If it gets through, you receive an email complaining about the brevity of your message.
You reply and absolutely nothing happens but perhaps this is not surprising when the chief executive cannot take the time to reply to emails. Is the job too much for him also?
I have spent 90 days (that is nine zero days) trying to order skY.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Sky for all you have done for me over the last 12 weeks and at the same time explain in detail some of the events that has led to me writing this email.
Day 1 I rang Sky Ireland to order Sky TV but was told that since I live in a building with a communal dish, I was through to the wrong department and that I need to get in touch with Sky UK.
Since I had no phone number I logged on to http://www.sky.com/ hoping to find a contact number there but all I could find was an email address. I sent my enquiry to the general enquiry inbox.
Day 7 I received an email with the contact number for Sky UK and rang to place my order. But I was told that I was through to the wrong department.
Let me cut out some of the more tedious details here.
Day 35 I received the contract via Post and filled it out
Day 37 The contract was returned by post to the return address stated on the contract.
Day 41 (According to an employee with Sky UK the contract was received)
Day 60 I rang the contact centre to enquire into the status of my order. The employee that answered my call could not find any order in the system and gave me the phone number to Electro Plus in Dublin saying this was Sky's partner in Ireland that should handle my order. Electro Plus had not received any order for me, but they gave me a contact number for another contact centre belonging to Sky UK.
I rang this centre and was given the information of the events of day 41. I was promised a quick resolution to this issue and that everything was now under control.
Day 67 I rang the contact centre to enquire into the status of my order. The employee that answered my call could not find any order in the system and told me that she would escalate my case to another department, and that someone would ring me up in the next few days with an update on my order status.
Day 69 I rang contact centre to enquire into the status of my order. The employee that answered my call could not find any order in the system and gave me the phone number to another contact centre belonging to the Sky organization. I asked for a transfer but was then disconnected. I rang back and spoke with another employee of yours that informed me that he wouold speak to someone in another department and that I would receive a call form someone in this department shortly.
Day 71 I rang the contact centre to enquire into the status of my order. The employee that answered my call could not find any order in the system and told me that he would have to escalate this issue to another department. At this stage I had had enough of escalations and un-kept promises and asked to speak to a manager. The manager promised to talk to the manager of the other department and to call me back as soon as she had.
The manager rang me back an hour later and told me that Electro Plus in Dublin would get in touch with me to sort out my order. Elector Plus rang me an hour later and told me they could send me a contract and that they would look after me. I suggested that they used the one I had sent 39 days ago, but after some investigation it turned out that the contract could not be found so I had to fill out a new one.
Day 84 / Today I rang Electro Plus in Dublin to enquire about the contract that I still have not received. I was told that the contract was sent 9 days ago and that they had no knowledge as of why I had not receive it yet. Electro Plus will send me a new contract today.
As you now may understand, I will NOT be a good ambassador for Sky as a company, Sky's employees, Sky's customer service or the same for Sky's partner.
I have never in my life tried so hard to purchase a product without being able to, and at this stage I think I will settle with a book rather than continuing this insane and tiring task it has become trying to get Sky installed.
So my sincere thanks to you all at Sky for making your outmost to ensure the worst customer experience one could possibly imagine and for preventing me from staying at home watching TV.
I hope that some day I can return the favor.
All I got in return was "I have now contacted Electroplus", and "They will get in touch with you."
I will NOT be ordering anything from this company.
Called on wednesday waited 65 minutes before i could speak to anyone- instalation re scheduled for today- got a text last night ur skiy engineer will contact u before 9 am- at 1pm im still waiting, phone SKY theres nothing on your account- get transfered to another department- wait half an hour while they try to get through to the engineer and prob have lunch- enginer will be with u betwen 1- and 3 ok 3:40 still no enginerr phone SKY new guy on the block transfered me to 3 different people to get the same answer not our problem, get a it angry now get told engineer will come between 3-6 whether they do we will wait and seee- NOw u SKY workers see y we get annoyed- i have wasted 2 days- phoned in sick wont get my whole wage packet let me guess ur send me rude notices when i cant pay it at the end of the month- UR FAULT NOT MINE-
Also with Films, Continues after the news and all that, Sky+ wont record the part after the news, good old BT remembered to add that into their software!!
Sky also have a habbit of telling you that if you move house, you need to pay them to reinstall at your new address even if there is a satellite dish there already! Thats a Lie also they tell you that you cant do self upgrades to sky + or HD and they need to come round and change the LNB and cables ALSO ANOTHER LIE because you can do it yourself by buying a Sky HD Box and LNB then ringing up sky and telling them you just bought a SkyHD Box and to add it to your account.
ALSO if you are on the Free to air channels, note they will tell you HD services are £10 a month. BBC HD is free and so is Channel 4 HD
I understand that sky customer servs peeps, get annoyed at people constantly complaining to them.
BUT BUT BUT if you/sky all did ur fucking jobs properly (you know what you get paid for) and people didnt have to queue for as long as they do, and call so many times then you might actually find that customers who pay your fucking wages, would be polite, wouldnt moan and would actually have some sympathy for you when you do have the odd arsehole giving you grief.
But reading what i have so far from you all then I hope at the next battle for the prem rights, satanta win, and you have fuck all sports rights left, then watch everyone jump ship to virgin.
So the moral is, do your fucking jobs properly, and you might get an easier ride, if not then hope you all end up on the dole.
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