Well, finally, I am online, 3 months after ordering the service. When I look at the company that owns Sky ….. B Sky B ….. well, B*** SKy is all I have to say!
I firstly ordered Sky TV, Phone and broadband on August 10th. I got a nice letter back telling me everything was in hand and that my Sky box was due to be fitted the day after I moved on August 28th, a Saturday even. The nice Sky man came and informed me that Sky+ HD boxes were now fitted as standard …. nice … free HD box. Then I got my £25 M&S voucher.
Essentially that’s where the good news ends.
I was promised a phone line on September 14th…. that appointment wasn’t kept. The next availanble date, when I finally managed to speak to someone who knew what both they and I were talking about, turned out to be October 16th! They couldn’t put the correct address on my account … it was just too confusing that I still had an active account in Newbiggin. I can’t be the only person in the country to have two active Sky accounts.
Meanwhile, my Sky+ box didn’t work and all I could watch were freeview channels. As I had no landline, it was very expensive to ring Sky from my mobile. I did start insisting that they ring me straight back, sometimes they did, sometimes they didn’t. After about 3 weeks of phoning, they fixed it. It too a well informed phone answerer about 3 minutes … so the other 5 I spoke to must have been roobash!
The BT man who came to put the phone line in was lovely. He even climbed up a tall telegraph pole to do it. I then rang Sky from my landline and asked when the broadband would arrive. I was told I hadn’t ordered it by the first person. The second person suggested I check on their website …. der. I tried using someone else’s internet and couldn’t log on. I rang again … the next person said I’d get a password when I got my internet connection set up. Double der.
Another phonecall … this time I HAD ordered it, but the order had “not been processed” so had to be cancelled and a new order put in. I would receive a letter informing me …. yeah right ….. Another phone call, this time a laconic, but essentially intelligent and correctly informed operative told me I would be online on November 10th. Shortly after that call my router arrived and I was indeed online on November 10th.
Yes, Sky offers good value ….. did I wish at various points along the way that I’d just had the Virgin service already in the house connected up ….. Heck yes. But hey, I’m on line now. :-)
Lesson I learnt from this: it all depends on who you speak to at Sky … many of their Customer Service people can’t be bothered, very polite, but then just don’t do anything they’ve promised. The odd few that actually treat you as a customer and care whether you’re satisfied are actually quite good. The problem is knowing wheich variety you are talking to.
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