Disgraceful Sky

[91scully91]

Imagine this, rang to upgrade to Sky+ and multiroom, they sent an engineer who said i needed the special heights team (which i didnt it was just windy that day), they were booked for the 22nd december but didnt show and didnt ring, rang customer services who neither could get thru to installations nor the installing company was told to call back the next morning, called back the next morning and it took 1 hr 20 to get thru to someone who said they had called installations and the installing company but couldnt get them so i told him of this shoddy service and asked to speak to a manager which he refused, he said the manager wont talk to me as he will have nothing else to add. Now i am on hold with another guy and he has had me waiting for around 20 minutes but i have had enough and put the phone down.
PRETTY POOR SHOW OR WHAT !!

 

[cat777]

Hi. your not alone with this problem, just read my thread on sky installers from yesterday. i have been through the same same sort of trouble. only just today after a 2 month problem, and six service calls booked, they finally got it sorted. a three man installation team came out, they even phoned me the night before to give a estimated time of arrival. now why could this not be done from the start!! i think sky need to sort this problem out.

 

[italianninja]

i think sky as a company has its operational management in the correct places its just the lazy (Edited by Moderator...please observe the swearing rules. JayCee.) that come and try and do installs and answer phones etc etc. no wonder we are employing so many other people that english because the majority cant do there job properly. Thats all it is, when these things mess up, its workers who are not bothered about you and your issues and not that sky hasnt got its proceedures in place.

I think therefore sky needs to look at inforcing discipline more harshly.

On a good note when I first got my sky+ installed nearly 4 years ago, one guy came then his colleague and spent a good 3 hours sorting my install out. Really good. (might be because I was watching them like a hawk!).

In the future I will just install my own. So easy! bit of cable some ladders sorted! lol

 

[andytabor]

i work for sky and the amount of customers i have to deal with due to -ups from other employees makes me want to bang my head off my computer screen sometimes. i feel really sorry for people like yourself, must be so frustrating.

 

[mad_angler1]

i think sky as a company has its operational management in the correct places its just the lazy (Edited by JayCee. Moderator) that come and try and do installs and answer phones etc etc. no wonder we are employing so many other people that english because the majority cant do there job properly. Thats all it is, when these things mess up, its workers who are not bothered about you and your issues and not that sky hasnt got its proceedures in place.

I think therefore sky needs to look at inforcing discipline more harshly.

On a good note when I first got my sky+ installed nearly 4 years ago, one guy came then his colleague and spent a good 3 hours sorting my install out. Really good. (might be because I was watching them like a hawk!).

In the future I will just install my own. So easy! bit of cable some ladders sorted! lol

Sorry mate but me and many most of the other installers have been working at least 12 hours a day installing, I have not had a day of for over 3 weeks, this has been the busiest Christmas ever for sky, its nothing to do with the installers its down to sky allocating over 12 hours of work a day when we only get may be 9 hours of light, yesterday I was allocated 16 hours of work by skys timings.

 

[91scully91]

What superb and helpful replies, thanks. I have sympathy err no i dont, lets start again, why should i have sympathy with you as an installer? Luckily i am fortunate enough to own my own business but when i didnt and i used to earn £200 a week delivering parcels i was crying out for extra work especially at xmas, now i have kids its even more important so all them 12 hour days are making you loads of money which you should not be complaining about, as regards your bosses why did they take on the work? Why did they not so much as telephone me OR sky to say they could not attend and why did my Mrs have to wait in from 8am to 6 pm for nothing? If you are trying to explain a good reason why i, and others, have not been looked after by your company its a pretty feeble few lines of text.
Sky were unable to get through to the installation company on 5 different occasions from 5pm Friday to 10am Saturday, constantly engaged, some company!! Plus as a kick in the goolies from Sky they could only try and ring the installers whilst i was on the phone, they were not able to call me back so catch 22, installers wont answer, sky wont call me back, customer can do nothing and dont get his installation, sky rebook, crumby installers that mad-angler works for dont phone or turn up, i ring sky, they cant get thru and rebook, BUT they can do as they please as i and others have no other option!! And whilst mad-angler continues to stick up for his company the worst the situation gets.......i bet you have got ya sky this xmas aint ya pal

 

[andytabor]

go easy on the guy he was just trying to give you an idea of how busy and chaotic it is just now and how much pressure installers are under and of course when its busy mistakes will be made, does it excuse it? no, of course not. I don't think he is sticking up for anyone, just stating a simple unfortunate fact. i know you must be seriously off and having no sky over christmas will suck big-time but try to remember its not his fault. you say his post is unhelpful? in what way? what did you expect? your talking to the monkeys not the organ grinder.

 

[mad_angler1]

Loads of money, ye right, it barely pays the bills, we get paid sod all an install, out of that we have to pay our fuel and any cable and fixings we use so lots of money I don't think so, as for your issue your job may never have been passed to an installer, sky may have just have not allocated it because of the demand.

 

[91scully91]

Lol, funny how the "Sky" people close ranks aint it, no wonder sod all gets done.

 

[andytabor]

Close ranks? what are you on about? I agree with you! you've been treated rubbish, you won't be the only one believe me!!! You can air your views here but don't expect your install probs to be solved on this forum!! That's my point. I'm not sad enough and unfortunately I don't get paid enough to even consider defending sky when i'm not at work. They're big enough and ugly enough to do that themselves.

I just think your rightfully hopping mad at the moment and wanting to take it out on anyone representative of sky, but directing your frustration and having a go at someone on here who is trying to give some advice and give you a clearer understanding of why the mistake was made (not justify it) isn't going to get you anywhere.

Having a rant at someone on here is very, very pointless i'm sorry to say. You should be on the phone to Sky customer care (rather than customer services) giving them grief, not us. Hope you have a nice xmas and you get everything sorted.

 

[JayCee]

Lol, funny how the "Sky" people close ranks aint it, no wonder sod all gets done.

You can't tar everyone with the same brush...there are good and bad in every walk of life.

 

[jay61076]

I’m sure most people will “close ranks” no mater if they work for sky or not especially if your getting on at them.

The point of the forum is for like minded people to air their opinions and help each other out.

No one wants to be in your situation but other than sit and complain about it there is little we can do.
From what you wrote at the start it seems there was little else the operator at sky could do If he/she couldn’t get the engineer then I don’t see the manager doing any better and as posted by another member with work loads the way they are at this time of year it seems sky have just made a huge mess of it.

Complaining to a CA on the phone unfortunately won’t help neither will having a go at people on here the only thing that might help is to write or e-mail the customer care department stating all of the details including when and whom you’ve spoken too and they will probably get back to you with an apology and some sort of offer.

Please try to be penitent with folk here and at sky or any other company after all its not normally the person you speak who let you down.

PS Happy Christmas to All

 

[Mighty Gaz]

Sorry mate but me and many most of the other installers have been working at least 12 hours a day installing, I have not had a day of for over 3 weeks, this has been the busiest Christmas ever for sky, its nothing to do with the installers its down to sky allocating over 12 hours of work a day when we only get may be 9 hours of light, yesterday I was allocated 16 hours of work by skys timings.

are you an SHS installer or are you a sub contractor?

 

[Bluevanman]

He has to be a subbie, as an SHS installer we are contracted to a 40 hour week. We never get more than around 9 hours worth of work per day, and that includes some allowance for cancellations.

 

[FRANTIC FRANC]

He has to be a subbie, as an SHS installer we are contracted to a 40 hour week. We never get more than around 9 hours worth of work per day, and that includes some allowance for cancellations.

We dream of just 9 hours work a day! But being subbies we get all the time both in money and the amount of work that gets dumped on us. Over the last week my total time allocation has been close to 20 hours a day and that doesn't include the high mileage (on average 120 miles per day) we do compared to Sky's in-home installers who rarely clock up more than 5 miles per day! That is why there are so many no shows at the moment.

Sky must start giving the work direct to installers again and stop using large contract companies.

Cheers, Franc

 

[mad_angler1]

yes i am a subbie

 

[davidjohnson]

I have had poor service from Sky.

The fact is they have a monopoly and Murdoch spent a lot of money in the early days establishing this monopoly.

As viewers increase, subscription charges should reduce (they will be receiving bigger advertising revenues, for commercial breaks that last 7 or 8 minutes!), but they continue to increase rates and pull in the money to ensure they can buy the rights to all the best stuff.

They can treat their customers like crap because they have no competition and it is hard not to admire Rupert for his business acumen.

 

[lynx]

The concern i have reading responses from contractors is why do you try and meet unsustainable workloads? There are potentially horrendous H&S implications, factor in possible working time directive breaches and (from memory) lack of adequate risk assesements...this should not be difficult for you guys to find a solution to bring an end to this.

 

[mad_angler1]

We don’t chose how much work we get, we get allocated a days work it and we have to do it, no matter how much it is, it could be 16 or more hours worth, if we fail to complete any of the work are allocated we get a black mark for each one failed, this then goes against us on a league table. The more black marks the less work you get and when it goes quiet in Jan and feb, its possible for the worst to have no work at all in the quiet months. So it’s a no win situation.

 

[andytabor]

I have had poor service from Sky.

The fact is they have a monopoly and Murdoch spent a lot of money in the early days establishing this monopoly.

As viewers increase, subscription charges should reduce (they will be receiving bigger advertising revenues, for commercial breaks that last 7 or 8 minutes!), but they continue to increase rates and pull in the money to ensure they can buy the rights to all the best stuff.

They can treat their customers like crap because they have no competition and it is hard not to admire Rupert for his business acumen.

exactly, sky have reached a point were they more or less have a monopoly, ntl/telewest don't represent a real threat to them and this unfortunately means that sky can get away with stuff to a certain extent:

price increases etc.

 

[FRANTIC FRANC]

exactly, sky have reached a point were they more or less have a monopoly, ntl/telewest don't represent a real threat to them and this unfortunately means that sky can get away with stuff to a certain extent:

price increases etc.

Well they have for now but the future of TV is going to be phone/internet based so the tide will turn in the next ten years or sooner. Dishes & aerials are going to be obsolete when video on demand is the norm. That's why the bids were flowing for NTL.

Madangler_1 is correct in what he says - Large contractors (and Sky) do not care about quality of work, just volume. Anyone who kicks up a fuzz is likely to get no work when the quiet season is here. It's not right and is not good for the customer or the installer but things will not change until the real force behind Sky (the customer) protests on our behalf (which is clearly not going to happen as we get blamed for everything!!). If Sky outlawed sub-contracting then installers would get better money and less work per day.

Cheers, Franc

 

[andytabor]

Well they have for now but the future of TV is going to be phone/internet based so the tide will turn in the next ten years or sooner. Dishes & aerials are going to be obsolete when video on demand is the norm. That's why the bids were flowing for NTL.

yeah, good point.

 

[91scully91]

Oh My Life......it Gets Worse......its So Funny How The Installers Blame Sky !!!!

 

[andytabor]

did you get it sorted out??

 

[91scully91]

The installers finally arrived today after waiting 22 days for my sky+ and multiroom to be done AND THEY HAVE ONLY GONE AND COCKED IT UP.
Only the clever ones amonhst you will understand this but when i had only 1 box in the beginning which was downstairs the installers (about 2 years ago) ran a cable from the sky dish down to the sky box and into the back of the tv via scart, simple enough. Then we wanted it upstairs so i got him to run a cable from the tv or sky box but either way an output back into what would normally be the little socket in the wall that you plug your old terrestrial tv into which would lead directly to the terrestrial ariel on the roof BUT we used it as a means of getting the signal upstairs (ie signal went up it rather than down it) and into the loft where we ran 2 cables into our 2 bedrooms from the roof and into our tv and bingo we had Sky in the bedroom(albeit on the same channel as downstairs), hope you followed that. (Somehow we also have terrestrial upstairs too on channels 1,2,3,4,5, and 6 is the sky signal)
Sky`s subcontracted installers came and despite me explaining to them they have bodged it up totally and now we have no tv whatsoever terrestrial or Sky in one room upstairs and in the other (the one where multiroom has gone) the original box and card are here and dont work either (even though i can get bbc1 etc for free so to speak).
So all in all what a bodge, God only knows what they have done but they didnt even check both the tvs upstairs and downstairs to check they were working correctly before they left. No wonder they are so stressed...and here was me feeling sorry for them when a couple of you guys told me how many hours you were working.....but now i can see why if you have to keep coming back to repair your work......so on to 6th January for the next installment of the Horror movie ""Useless Sky and its dodgy-bodgy-subby installers""