Sky High? (Updated)
I am starting to think that the costs of Sky are most likely spiralling heavenward due to poor customer retention. Let me enlighten you, this is the email I have just had to send to Sky’s CEO Jeremy Darroch.
I write on behalf of my father who is 68, profoundly deaf and a customer of Sky for nearly 20 years – his current bill with Sky averages £108 a month. A couple of years ago, my family purchased a sky HD box for his bedroom and upgraded the package to multiroom and added broadband and Sky Talk, this meant we now got all of our services through Sky. Just to break down what we have been getting:
Sky+ Box
Sky+HD Box
Sky World with Family Pack
Sky+HD Pack
Extra Subscription
Sky Broadband Unlimited
Sky Talk
Sky Talk Unlimited
following a series of issues with the HD box towards the end of 2010 the box stopped working completely at the end of December- we believe that this was due to the widely reported capacitor/PSU fault which affects the Thompson models, when at my fathers request I called Sky I was told it would be a £65 call out charge to replace the faulty box, it being Christmas time, it was not financially viable – so it was put off until the new year – we still continued to pay the subscription that my father was unable to use.
My father has continued to put off cancelling the HD package, hoping to be able to put aside the extra £65 on top of his existing £100+ package and has thusfar been unable to justify the further expense, especially when it is likely that he would get yet another reconditioned, faulty Thompson model which may only last another 6 months before he gets lumbered with another £65 charge.
On Jan 29th My father emailed customer services, explaining that although he did not want to, he felt he had little option but to cancel his Sky HD subscription and Multiroom – he was quite willing to to work with an advisor to find a compromise so that his viewing could resume and custom for Sky could be retained. He asked that he was contacted back via email due to being unable to communicate via telephone and I was away so unable to take a call (I usually deal with all phonecalls relating to the Sky account as my mother has zero understanding of any technology). Today, 10 days on we finally recieved a template response saying that it needed to be dealt with with a telephone call, no support or interest in the actual situation, not even an acknowledgement of my father telling them he is unable to communicate by phone.
When I arrived home today I found that my father, angry and upset at being totally ignored by Sky asked a neighbour to call and cancel the Sky+HD and Multiroom subscription on his behalf – he noted that this was done within a few moments by the customer service staff with no question or interest as to why it was being cancelled and with no attempt made to retain the custom. My father has now asked me to source prices from other suppliers for ALL of the services which are currently provided by Sky which includes telephone and broadband as he feel like he has no value to Sky as a customer and he wishes to cancel his full subscription as soon as possible.
My questions are, for a loyal customer whom has been with the company for such a long term, is this really the total disregard to expect from Sky? – do you really value your customers that little to not be willing to discuss where savings can be made or to waive the call out fee to replace a faulty box? (which is questionably not fit for purpose intended due to the poor quality capacitors) and are you willing to lose a high paying customer completely for the sake of lack of communication?
I leave it in your hands
I find it shocking in this day and age where customers have so much more in the way of choice and where every last penny counts in big business that some companies feel that actually addressing a customers issues is no longer required. Sky are well known for their “rope you in and then forget about you” tactics, it has been the same since their analogue service however to ignore the polite request of a disabled customer is really rather atrocious for any business.
To those thinking this is a bit of a drama for £65 please bear in mind that less than 2 years ago we paid £300 to have this box installed (they now give it away free) and it is now well known that the capcitors were of a poor quality leading to overload and burnout and eventual PSU failure. A simple google search gives you an idea of the extent of the problem – we were informed on the phone when we first called that they would simply replace the box with one that was available, in most cases another Thompson – all for the reasonable call out fee of £65 each time. Meanwhile, we still have the privilege of paying an extra £21 a month for the one that does not work.
I really am having an issue understanding where Sky’s priorities lay.. because it certainly does not seem to be with it’s customers.
I have just got off the phone from a lovely lady at the office to Jeremy Darroch who was very apologetic and couldn’t understand how customer services could have got it so wrong. There is going to be a full investigation into why this took so long to be resolved.
Sky have offered a free engineer visit this friday to replace the box, and I will recieve a call again from Mr Darroch’s office to confirm that the engineer visit lead to satisfactory resolution and to discuss the refunding of excess subs paid and compensation.
Will hopefully have a final update friday to say all went well..
Update 2 : Friday 11th Feb
Installers arrived on time and on the right day (a feat which I had been led to believe was fairly rare) and had the box replaced within 5 mins. Recieved a call again from Jeremy Darroch’s office who checked that everything with the box replacement was to my satisfaction – I was then offered a refund on the services I was unable to use and a further 6 months with a 50% discount on my Sky package – in total savings of over £400..
I believe that to be a satisfactory resolution, but c’mon Sky.. did it really need to get to this point over the sake of a 5 minute box replacement?
Sky are interested in their customers, unfortunately for the likes of us, its only New Customers they are interested in, much like all the other Companies that have some sort of Subscription Contract