The Weekly Gripe

Gripes the News
The Soapbox
Gripes in the pipes
*

An hour wasted on the phone to Sky

50 comments  Add a comment

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to request the cancellation of my sky subscription.  This follows a particularly unnecessary and farcical episode on your notoriously inaccessible telephone system.  Let me expand.

I initially rang through to the sky talk telephone number advertised (a) on the Internet and (b) in written correspondence from yourselves (sky).  The letter I received informed me of an opportunity to save money by paying you (sky) for my landline rental instead of British Telecom.  "Splendid!" I thought.  "Ill give them a quick ring and have them (you) switch me over straight away."  How stupid was I?  (rhetorical question no need to answer).

Well, in my naivety and blissfully self-deluded ignorance, I was completely unaware that this letter you (sky) had sent me was in fact a deceptively cunning trap to try and make me lose my normally impenetrable cool.  You crafty bleeders you.

So yeah, I unwittingly rang the number and morphed into a figurative "Skinner rat," pressing lever after lever (buttons on my phone to you and me), scuttling along your telephonic system pathways, searching aimlessly for my food pellet.

Call centre person one, an autistic chimpanzee whose universe operates at half the speed of ours, nice enough, who kindly informed me I had come through to the wrong person.  He put me through to sky talk "something," difficult to work out what he said to be brutally honest, as he appeared to be choking on his tongue.  So, next call centre person two.  I repeated my intentions only to be informed after whittling off my name, first line of address, post code, telephone number and password that I really needed to speak to sky talk "telesales."  "God Im stupid I thought, why didnt I think of that?"

Call center Call centre person three, a cerebrally challenged "alien" who feels mumbling down the telephone is in some way helpful to the person on the other end.  Its unclear, after shpeeling my name, first line of address, post code, telephone number and password whether he was talking to someone in his office, me or himself.  Long story short (arf arf), through the "art of mumble" it was conveyed to me, that my seemingly simple request was not possible as my broadband had not been activated, and he needed to consult a wise and trusted advisor known as a manager.  One consultancy later, I was then transferred to a customer advisor.  Call centre person four, a nice happy chap with the warmest of Scottish accents greets me, "Hello how can I help you?"

I drew the line at saying "how the f**k should I know?"  So off we went again, name, first line of address, post code, telephone number and password.  In fairness, this call centre person was very helpful.  He told me that my account had only been accessed by one person even though I was now talking to the fourth call centre person, and no notes had been left by cerebrally challenged alien guy, which wasnt exceedingly helpful to him.  So, he put me back on hold (I wont try and keep count of the number of times I was on hold as I only have 8 fingers and 2 thumbs) and went off to speak with someone from "sky telesales."  Ill give you an opportunity to guess what happened next?

OK you can see a pattern here, and you guessed it, I was transferred back to "telesales," who would attend to my request and drop me my "food pellet."  If only!

Call centre person five, now explains rather slowly for me "the dumb customer" after we did the whole name, first line of address, post code, telephone number and password thing, that I cannot have my food pellet as my broadband was switched in January 2008, and until this is activated, my request cannot be granted.  So, here goes my cool, you win guys.  I asked him some questions... "Who switched my broadband from broadband connect to another kind not even on your website?"  "Why wasnt I informed?"  "How can my broadband not be activated seeing as Ive been using it for over 10 months?"  "How long does it take to switch it from January seeing its now April?"

Reasoning this out logically, I must commend you (sky) on your Machiavellian trickery and subterfuge with regards to this time wasting exercise, I will remember the hour of my precious life you stole from me under the guise of "an opportunity to save money" with a wry smile and a warm cognac in my hand whilst my grand children play carelessly scattered round my slipperd feet.  I am so life-changingly impressed by your (skys) clinical precision and painstakingly meticulously executed plan to steal this hour of my life, I thought I would give you one too.

Anyway, back to the story.  I decided Id rather be publicly pulled naked over broken glass by 10 wild stallions through the streets of London, then thrown in a bath of sea water whilst listening to west lifes greatest hits album than continue to subscribe to sky.  I mean, I pay for the pleasure of this mental torture, how dumb am I?  Call centre person five said "Ill put you through to customer service."  He didnt.  He put me back round the telephonic maze I had been on for an hour to really yank my chain.  However in his defence, I would have done the same considering some of the complimentary statements about sky I included in my departing speech.

Call centre person six, "how can I help you?"  Guess what we did next?  Bingo!  Name, first line of address, post code, telephone number and password.  This lady (call centre person six) wasnt able to cancel my subscription.  No s**t!  But she could transfer me through to someone else.  "Fantastic" I thought.  Another thought also crossed my mind, could I maybe get the world record for speaking to the whole of skys telephone workers in one day?  Ah if only I had the time eh.

Call centre person seven, he told me his name, as I recall it was Steve but dont quote me I had all but switched off now.  Then, after doing the whole name, first line of address, post code, telephone number and password thing again, he had some of the best news yet.  He explained I couldnt cancel my subscription as it was 46, I repeat, 46 days until I had been subscribed to sky for a year, 12 months, the minimum period of mental torture and food pellet chasing I had signed up for.  See how naive and blissfully self-deludedly ignorant I am?

So, call centre person seven was quite happy to announce he could only process my cancellation of this subscription from a maximum period of 40 days.  Guys, I hand it to you; you had the trump card all along.  Dont try getting me round for a poker night.  I know when Im out-smarted.

In summary, you can maybe see the journey I travelled with you (sky) today, along your torturous telephonic maze of cruelty.  Going from slightly upbeat, carefree, light n breezy loyal paying customer to bloodthirsty homicidal psychopath that would quite happily of removed the still beating heart of call centre person seven and impaled it on my front gate as a warning to unbeknown canvassers of digital media products that foolishly darkened my doorway.

I only wanted to pay you (sky) for my landline rental.  Something which wouldnt have occurred to me to do, had you not suckered me in with your aggressive unrelenting deceptive marketing campaign.  Now, I just want to end this contract and switch to a TV, phone and broadband supplier who will hopefully finance the removal of my pre-frontal cortex, and if Im really lucky, employ me as part of their telephone customer service team.

Yours Faithfully

Gary Smith

Ps: If you receive this letter before the maximum 40 day period of subscription cancellation, may I be so bold as to suggest you hang on to it until the said period has elapsed and then process it.

By: Gary Smith


Leave a comment

First Prev 1/4 Next Last

Grace (ex sky worker also)

Grace (ex sky worker also)

Hi, so I also worked for Sky in the sales department - I'm not sure if you've ever had the pleasure of working in a call centre environment speaking to horrifically patronising customers such as yourself, but I can tell you it's not easy. It's understandable that you feel you've received a lousy service and you're unhappy with it - Don't forget, people like me are also customers to other companies so we too understand your frustration but something that has always baffled me is where people like you get off talking to and treating call centre staff like rubbish? We are, after all people just like you and we just go to work to do our jobs and go home. But unfortunately, sometimes we end up taking our work home with us. By work, I mean horrible thoughts and opinions of ourselves put into our heads by people like you. Just be that cool, nice customer who has a problem but is happy for someone to try and help them and trust me, I'm a very giving person and love nothing more than helping people so I'd be more than happy to try everything in my might to do so. Coming onto a call and having to be spoken to like I'm a 5 year old child whilst also being blamed for something I know nothing about (because when I asked you got angry at me, why? ) isn't fair is it? And also one more thing - There is a whole wide selection of vocabulary for name calling, bringing disability in to the scenario like you have is very, very small minded and also offensive. It's honestly people like you that I dislike and hope get no help in the end because you honestly don't deserve any sane persons time until you can begin to act like an adult and show respect to the hard working people dealing with bodies like you on a daily basis.
19/09/14 Grace (ex sky worker also)
0
Nicky (former sky employee)

Nicky (former sky employee)

Hello there. Just to let you all know, I used to work for sky as a call assistant. Here are a few points.

1.Don't ask for a manager, not because we don't want to put you on to one, but because they literally turn round and tell us they won't take the call. So it's not us being difficult, we are just being told not to give them the call.

2. YOU PAY A MONTH IN ADVANCE! THIS IS EXPLAINED TO YOU! WE ARE NOT ALLOWED TO REFUND YOU FOR IT BECAUSE YOU DON'T LIKE IT! IF WE TRY TO THE COMPUTER SAYS NO! WE WANT TO, WE JUST CAN'T PHYSICALLY PUT IT ON FOR YOU! IT'S NOT OUR FAULT!

3. We want to try and help you as much as we can, really we do, we don't like hearing people on the phone stressing out because they can't afford their bills or can't get it to work ect... but that's no reason to call us every name under the sun.

4. Don't ask us to hurry up, we have to do A LOT of security measures, because if we don't we lose our jobs (yes it really is simple as that). "Can you hurry up please i've been on hold for 2 hours". We go as fast as we can, really.

5. "I've been on hold for 2 hours". No you haven't, we can tell if you've been on that long or you have been through to 13 different departments before us or just 1. Don't try and fool us with that.
11/05/14 Nicky (former sky employee)
0
john dev

john dev

All people have a different experience of using SKY.I have been a user of the SKY customer service from a decade i have good experience of using the SKY telephone numbers.I have experienced a good customer service from a long time.For info you can just log on to skytelephonenumbers
14/03/14 john dev
0
Believe in Better

Believe in Better

Funny to see EVEN more people "Believing in Better". Sadly they were mistaken....

"I do believe in better, thats why I don't have sky".
11/05/11 Believe in Better
-26
SkySlave

SkySlave

Sounds like a really poor 'Customer Journey' as the jobsworths at Sky would say. To be fair 99% the people at the other end of the line will go out of they're way to get the problem sorted for you it's just that the tools we have to work with are nothing more than a flashy till.

We cannot change the amount when your order something, so if you've been a customer for 10 years are are phoning to get a free hd box with free install and all your programs free just please dont bother. We'd love to do it, but we cant. You've prob. been shopping at the same supermarket for 20 years but have they ever given you a free pack of crisps? Would you even ask the person at the till?

Today a nice customer called about his home move, the Broadband and Talk encountered an error and so this guy came through to me at Sales to get it fixed. I didn't say 'I'm sales' and cold transfered him instead I went through about 10 departments and actually stayed on the line waiting for the right department to answer for over 50mins. After 5mins of waiting I told the customer to go have a cup of tea and i'd call him when the department picked up.

Golden rule for call-centers, and i've worked in a few...... The problem you have isn't the guy/gal at the call-centers fault and if you go on with attitude and spite then they arn't going to go out of they're way to help you. I know it's frustrating but we know what it's like too, be curtious tell them how annoyed at Sky you are but you know it's not they're fault and they will do anything they can for you.
10/05/11 SkySlave
-25
Mr Sky

Mr Sky

Work in a sky call centre and you see how easy it is Sally, since you know everrrrrrrrything ;)
07/04/11 Mr Sky
-22
Sally

Sally

To all the SKY employees saying the author should have chosen the right option in the first place. If you read what he said that is what he did. The reason he couldnt pay his line rental directly to SKY was not HIS fault and he DID select the correct option.

He then got messed about by inept staff who couldnt work out why this was so.

It is no wonder the author of this letter had such a frustrating time when SKY employees cannot even read a simple letter and understand what is being said. All you have done is taken offense to some of the rather funny analogies used to describe how utterly useless some of SKY staff are. You failed to pick up on what actually happened. You have merely demonstrated this letter is an accurate reflection of SKY employees. No wonder you cant get a job in your "chosen field." You cant even successfully run a call center.
03/02/11 Sally
-34
sh

sh

I used to work for sky tv and enjoyed my time there! I was very helpful to all customers as that is the kind of person I am! I am intelligent as I have a law degree alas a job was not available in my profession so I took the sky job and I am so glad I did, instead of being nasty and ever so self deluded get a life and choose the right options in the first place it is not hard! who is the chimp? Think it could be the one who does not listen to the options properly and choose the correct one not sky!!!!!
31/12/10 sh
-31
Sean

Sean

I also work in a call centre in which sky has a contract.

To be fair my shifts aren't all that long, I deal with customer box problems and most of the time I fix them.

Most customers are fine..but of course there's always that one customer who feels that I am personally going out of my way to annoy them in as many ways as possible and blame me for their box being broken.. and conveniently out of it's one year warranty in which then they would have to pay to get fixed, but of course that is unacceptable cause technology never fails.

To those who call up and help us to help you I thank you and will more than likely give a free service call if I thought you were decent enough (at risk of my job) service calls are expensive!

To people like the author of this post... your an idiot and like others here said before me, select the correct option next time, a little bit of patience might have gotten you through to the right department the first time around, instead you couldn't been bothered and what did it result in?

You being passed about and you get frustrated and of course, blaming us the employee, who has nothing to do with the offer you got in the door or the telephony system sky has set up to get through to one of the people who is trying to HELP YOU.
06/11/10 Sean
-23
Mahesh

Mahesh

Broadband connection when switching between house move is an absolute joke with Sky!
Organization's like Sky are big and global brands and should not under any circumstance treat customers with sheer contempt. Staff at Sky cannot use the old adage 'cannot do this' or 'the system does not allow us to x,y,z!' This is not rocket science....only a change in service provision between properties!
So, it looks like we will not be taking Sky services to our new property, this includes Broadband, extensive TV package etc....
History: when we moved to our current address, we were advised that our broadband package will be £5/mth, through no fault of ours we were subsequently told that the Sky Sales Team had got this wrong, i.e. no 'infrastructure' available in the area and the revised monthly cost was going to be £17/mth. It has cost us some £876 over the last 4yrs, an additional £576! I have phoned, e-mailed & written several times over the last four years. I was only advised last week that Sky had no record of any of the complaints...convenient??
Sky operatives are poorly trained and this was evident when last week's advice given was completely different to the advice given on the 5th of this month. The frustration is the 40 / 50 minute wait and then the 'unhelpful' advice.....frustrating! It is one of the few organization's (the other one is British Gas) that we dread contacting. Incidentally, the operative stated that there was no record of my call on their system for the 5th. What more can I say. I am a Director of a Management Consultancy and I really feel the service and value for money has been exceptionally poor.
Experience with BT has been quite the opposite, they have gone the 'extra mile.'
16/10/10 Mahesh
-32
Guess not guest

Guess not guest

I am a sky agent we work 12 hour shifts calls come through on a rapid basis
i am always curtuis to any customer that come through wether I can help them or not

i will say on our behalf though if the customer calling to talk to a certailn dept pick the correctone there id no point going through to a wrong dept just to get transferred as this goes againt the agent
and please mind that agents on the phone have lifes too
i work for sky at the moment as I cant get a job in my preferred occupation so instead of sitting on my bum scounching off the goverment I took a lower paid job.

___________

The above comment is from a SKY EMPLOYEE!!! Yeah ... need any more evidence of the brain-dead, incompetent, semi-literate, mean-well, fail-badly work force they employ down there? Didn't think so.

The prosecution rests. In a coma lmfbo
28/07/10 Guess not guest
-24
andrew

andrew

twiki thats sounds fantastic.... rude and sarcstic comments back to another customer on a public forum!! wow sky must be so proud, no wonder their service is so good if thats what they teach you in training!
01/05/10 andrew
-28
Chris.

Chris.

LOL!!!

Dude, you're freaking amazing at writing this stuff. I might hire you to cancel my sky package and suscribtion.

Currently in the process of trying to cancel.

Asked for SKY+ and recieved Sky+HD... told that I had to pay sky and extra £109 for the box, that SKY retardedly gave us in the first place.

Then in the same package, we had free 2mb broadband.....

Him: Okay sir, I'll send the engineers to install and activate your line for £30 for your FREE internet and then we'll send you the FREE broadband hub for a price of £65.

Me: No..... If your advert and deal states the broadband is free and there are no T's and C's stating line activations and hub expenses, then I pay nothing but my package monthly debit.

Him: Erm.... Hold the line please...... Hello sir, yea, we will take the money from your account but repay it back in.

Me: Yea, sure.

Him: Everything sent.

Later that month.

Him: You've exceeded your 2mb broadband download limit and we need £10 to increase it to the next limit.

Mrs: Okay.

Get home from work.

Me: WHAT??!!!

Phone/me: Hi, any particular reason I'm paying an extra £10 per month for less than 500kb. I live next to a telephone exchange and it takes 10 minutes to download youtube video. My parents in the middle of nowhere with BT get 10x faster download speeds.

Him: You exceeded your download limit... *disconnected*

Basically, my impression was 2MB being the speed limit at which it downloads, not a download onto computer limit.

Sky are crap.
21/04/10 Chris.
-32
Gary

Gary

Twikki I think maybe you just didnt "read" the letter. I do not believe ALL staff at sky are useless. I am sure at least 2 of you over there know what you're doing.

p.s. I wrote this during one of the busiest times of my life, so I am afraid your perception and theories of me are some what misguided! Have a nice day x
16/03/10 Gary
-22
i hate sky

i hate sky

to twiki you are all autistic chimps at sky and I could not agree more with the author of this letter. you should all be ashamed you are all lazy and work shy. I would not hesitate to sack all the call centre staff at sky starting with you .
28/01/10 i hate sky
-30

First Prev 1/4 Next Last

FEATURES

Gripes the News
Gripes in the pipes
The Soapbox
spinner