Yes, Sky. Your customer service seems to get worse the further I go to try to give you feedback.
No surprise really is it?
Sky’s system for creating addtional email addresses for account holders’ family members isn’t working. No-one seems to care. I found that out in a 2 1/2 hour phone call the other day.
So I blogged about it. That post appeared on P1 of Google for the phrase ‘Sky Customer Service’. Oh, the power of blogs.
And today I tried to use their online feedback form to let them know that they needed to fix the problem and demonstrate some good customer service.
So I ploughed my way through their clumsy feedback form which appears to be designed to dissuade and demotivate the average person every step of the way. You know the kind of form – designed by some idiot in IT who has no idea that you’re a real, unhappy customer trying to say what you need to say.
The result is that you spend ages trying to give your feedback only to find you’ve done something else wrong that needs correcting. I wasted 15 minutes writing my feedback before discovering that there was a ’1000 character limit’.
Morons. Like I or anyone else knows what 1000 characters is.
This is a pinnacle of customer service stupidity, designed to disempower the average mortal. Well, when it comes to feedback I’m not your average mortal so I rewrote my feedback.
10 minutes later (and still not knowing whether it was under 1000 characters!) I clicked ‘submit’ again – only this time to be told I couldn’t give that feedback without entering my parents’ viewing card number.
I tried to give you my feedback, Sky, but it’s too much like hard work. You could have had it to yourselves to learn from but you obviously don’t want it. So here’s what I tried to tell you (now for everyone else to read, too):
This is on behalf of my parents – account holder name Mrs. Linda Deeks (see address below)
Your system will not create additional email addresses (it says “There appears to have been a problem. We are unable to activate your Sky Email and Tools account”.
Your customer service is poor – and even more infuriating is your lack of willingness to take feedback. Including this 1000 character limit (which has just wasted another 15 minutes of my time).
I’ve blogged about this (now on P1 of Google for an important key phrase). Happy to also blog positively if/when you fix the issue and demonstrate some good customer service.
I’d like a response please.
The moral of this story is that feedback is difficult to give and hard to take but if you’re not willing to listen, your customers will talk to anyone who is.
If you’re really fed up with Sky customer service, you might like this.
I have to agree with you here. Haha. Nice Work!
My parents have been without Sky Broadband for 13 MONTHS. Nobody want to listen properly, just fob us off. We’re currently on out FOURTH router and the first engineer visit was about 4 months ago. Having tested the routers in other locations Sky were not convinced it was a problem at the exchange, even though every avenue including my patience had been exhausted on numerous occasions, short of me walking into the exchange and trying a different port.
One guy I spoke to even pretended he couldn’t hear me and repeated ‘Hello, Sky Customer Service, how may I help you’ over and over every time I started to say something until I put the phone down. I was FUMING, it was like I was being taken the mickey out of.
Eventually I got through to a really sickly creepy guy called Mike who tried his best to pacify/wriggle out of the situation in any way he could, of course I was having none of it. Of course his answer to everything was a new router, great green credentials Sky, we tried that 3 times already. Finally he said it would be 1-2 days to get fixed and that the problem has been ‘escalated’ to the top level. Obviously they have fobbed me off again. Tomorrow is deadline day, then when they no doubt miss it and put me back to square one, I will be ringing them and requesting a refund for not only the lack of service, but also the phone bill and my loss of earnings, which as a freelance graphic designer is 35 pounds per hour, via small claims court. This currently stands at around 8 hours of phone calls thus far. Finally I will be forwarding all details to Watchdog who I’m sure will be much more interested in the complete lack of care we have endured than Sky ever will be.
To be continued.
Hi John, thanks for that comment. I had someone the other day say the reason why a big online co (Amazon) ‘hides’ its customer service phone number was because it was such a busy business, with 200million hits a month or some such.
Hello? Have we gone mad? Since when has the fact that you’re big, busy and successful meant you don’t have a responsibility to be accountable – and contactable?
Everywhere you look, these big operators are getting panned online for various kinds of bad customer service – but the main one that stands out time after time is their lack of contactability and their unwillingness (or inability) to respond. Call me old-fashioned but if I can’t contact your and/or get you to respond, then you – whatever you like to say in your marketing propaganda – are not accountable.
Maybe, just maybe, the issue of accountability should be the natural limit to how big a business can grow online? There are those who say that social media will be an agent for bringing this about – whether or not any single business gets its head around the issue.
Our experience in online reputation management shows us that when a business refuses to listen and respond to its customers, it will – more and more – incur serious reputation damage. Many people think that that is what social media will do to business. We’re probably just at the start of that transition stage forcing businesses to evolve. That’s the positive view, at least.
The negative view is that these companies don’t give a damn what you or I think, since there are more than enough unsuspecting new customers being sucked into the funnel in front of the machine to compensate for a few disgruntled ones falling off the back…
What do you think?
Sky now have a dedicated multi-caller unit with the best,knowledgeable staff in the company.customers who have had to call more than twice in the one week are automatically diverted to it.
If they cant fix it, no-one can, not even that mythical super human customer service guy you are all looking for.
However,some issues do take time to fix, and sometimes customers,myself included,set their expectations too high or don’t listen to the advice they get.
E.G., your dodgy broadband. Are you sure it’s properly set up? Or are you complaining that you are afraid it might cost you £165.00 if an engineer comes out and discovers you have the router connected to 100 yards of telephone extension and you are using both filters on the same circuit? Is it Sky’s fault you are the idiot? Do you live more than 5 miles away from the exchange?(BTW, that is not as the crow flies,but the line length…(type your postcode into samknowsbest.com).
Good customer service requires two way communication, not some (probably with some justification) customer ranting off but not listening to the processes required or the time scales required to resolve the issue.
If you are really pissed off though, write to Jeremy Darroch at Sky,Sky subscriber services,Osterly. He will immediately assign your case to an expert for resolution,he might even make a personal visit, he has done so before and will do so again no doubt….
Thanks for your comment Andy.
I’m glad Sky have a great caller unit now. They didn’t seem to when I tried to speak to them.
You call my post ranting, I call it using social media to make a point. Whether you like it or not, that’s how it works these days. I’m not looking for a super human, I’m just looking for a company that will listen to what its customers have to say at the point they have a problem – and to demonstrate some interest in getting the problem solved.
Glad to hear that Jeremy Darroch cares. You’re right, I gave up long before writing him a letter.