Sky telly/broadband/phone

buzzhoney

I've got Sky TV and am quite happy with it - my phone is with TalkTalk (hardly use the landline, got evening and weekend free calls but they keep phoning me and bothering me to change the package), and my internet is with Be. The internet is brilliant so I'm loath to change it, especially as I work from home and it's always dicey switching from one provider to another. But it's ridiculously bad value having all these three, so I'm thinking of biting the bullet and getting everything from Sky. Anyone else done this/had any probs?

Niv

I did this not too long ago. I am on LLU so get the 'good' sky BB. The only problem I had when switching from Talktalk to sky was that I was without BB for about two weeks. Partially my fault I tihnk but frustrating none the less.

I have had no other problems, connection is good, its not throttled and works out cheaper than before.

I recently saw a satisfaction poll result for BB, phone and tv services and sky was top on all...Virgin was bottom rofl. This was in the mirror though so I cant say how real it is :-) (I dont buy the mirror it was a free read while I had my festive hot choccy in costa at the weekend!)

Niv

buzzhoney

Haha, yes, I wouldn't buy the Mirror!

I'm getting a lot of cajoling junk mail from Virgin trying to get me to switch to them, but not interested. That's good that Sky is OK, I'll check it out. I don't really need supermegafast BB anyway, I don't do a lot of downloading so as long as it's reliable I'm probably fine. Thanks!

penrhyn

As long as its Sky LLU you should be OK, don't touch Sky Connect its bad.
I've had BB, Talk and line rental with Sky for a couple of months, all is working well.
The 1571 service is a bit basic, but its free as is caller display.
Paid 12 months line rental in advance £119.40.

Have had Sky BB for a few years as a stand alone, Customer service in the early days was awful, much improved now, usually get an response in a couple of rings, doesn't matter as much 'cos as calls to their service centres are free.

philc_2

Hi buzzhoney,

I started the same process back in October and everything is just about working now. I upgraded my Sky package and also moved phone and broadband. Although I placed the order online and was given the impression it would go smoothly, there were problems with various aspects of my order, chiefly moving my phone line/number from TalkTalk, which resulted in Sky having to cancel and re-place the phone part of the order a number of times. I also had problems with faulty viewing cards being sent, being over-charged, promised callbacks not materialising, no communication of changeover dates etc.

My impression is that if you are taking a new number from Sky your experience may be a lot smoother.

I found that whilst the vast majority of call centre staff were polite (as was I) and tried to be helpful, I have frequently been given misinformation, and the next person you spoke to had no idea why the last person (rarely in the same location) had done what they had done. It's taken over six weeks to get anywhere near it all working properly.

Overall I've got the impression that the computer systems are either too complex for the staff or many of them are insufficiently trained to use them, with a hint of some kind of competition/rivalry/disdain between different offices.

My experience was topped off by being told a couple of weeks ago that to make a complaint I could not write in, even though I explicitly said I had a draft of what I wanted to communicate - instead I had to spend an hour on the phone to an adviser while she wrote it all down.

Having not been contacted after two weeks (I was told it would be three days) I called again last night to be told that even though they eventually found my complaint on the system, it hadn't gone anywhere at all, because the adviser had done it in the wrong way. Furthermore I was told I still had to write in, even though I had been told repeatedly this was not possible.

I may indeed have been very unlucky, but I find that treatment received subsequent to things going wrong normally gives you the true measure of a company.

Hope this helps,

Phil

smackaine

The computer system is poor and really showing its age. There's virtually no way to tell what a previous advisor has done other than what they've written down, and considering half of them seem to be borderline illiterate it can be frustrating for both the customer and I.

The reason you were told not to write in, I'm assuming, is that when the customer relations team finally decided they couldn't deal with the amount of work they were getting, they 'closed it down'. Of course, the cynical among us couldn't fathom how there couldn't possibly be an effective complaints department in a company with c. 10 mil customers, so this is of course untrue.

If you send your letter recorded to the old customer relations address recorded, somebody will read it. Furthermore, 'contact us' on sky.com does seem to do the trick quite often in my experience.