Sky customer service gone to pot?

[turnbacktime]

Is it me or is it almost impossible to go through a sensible renewal process with Sky now. Just renewed my TV contract and it has been a nightmare.

Rang up to get a price to renew. The app said my total bill out of contract was going to be £147pm inc BB. They came back with a price of £145 a month but could do better if I went with Sky Glass. I said I was insulted and would be cancelling if that was the best on offer. Eventually agreed an acceptable price. Checked it was for exactly the same as TV package as I was already on. Was assured it was and that price would be recorded on my account.

Rang back later to renew and was told they would have to work me out a new price as they operate dynamic pricing and that as soon as I had hung up the previous price had gone.

Anyway got a new price and renewed. Again assured exactly the same package as previously. Within seconds got an email from .netflix saying my account had been downgraded from Premium to Ad supported standard. So not the same package at all.

Made an email complaint and agreed a time fir them to ring me. Was transferred 3 times before someone could fix my problem.

Thought all was well until, next day, received a text saying Sky had sent me packaging to return equipment. Back on the phone again. Apparently to reinstate NF Premium and keep the price the same the agent, among other things, had cancelled Multiscreen and reinstated it at a discounted price. This had triggered a return process. Hopefully now cancelled.

Then, today, checked my next bill only to find a £10 admin charge for "fixing" my Netflix subscription.

Amother phone call to get that knocked off.

Is all that really necessary or even a sign of a well run organisation. Sky certainly seem to have lost sight of keeping customers happy.

Sureky a customer who has subscribed for a total of over 25 years should be entitled to a simple, understandable, best price renewal process. Not a protracted battle.

[MarkGoldsmith]

---

@turnbacktime wrote:

Rang back later to renew and was told they would have to work me out a new price as they operate dynamic pricing and that as soon as I had hung up the previous price had gone.

Thats correct, when you are offered a deal you typically have to accept it there and then, otherwise the next time you phone up that offer may not be available.

Anyway got a new price and renewed. Again assured exactly the same package as previously. Within seconds got an email from .netflix saying my account had been downgraded from Premium to Ad supported standard. So not the same package at all.

This also would be as expected. The old Netflix legacxy tiers can no longer be offered by Sky, so whenever a customer makes a change to their package or phones to agree a new contract, the system will automatically switch the included Netflix package to Standard With Ads, which is the package included "for free".

Then, today, checked my next bill only to find a £10 admin charge for "fixing" my Netflix subscription.

Amother phone call to get that knocked off.

£10 admin fees are standard on contract renewals now unfortunately. However they have to tell you about the fee whilst you are confirming and accepting the offer. If they didn't mention it, you need to make a complaint to Sky, with details on when you rang and they will be able to listen to the phone call. If you weren't told about the admin fee by the agent and Sky can tell this from the recording they will credit the admin fee back to your account.  To make a complaint check out the information here: https://www.sky.com/help/articles/how-to-make-a-complaint

[turnbacktime]

If running a dynamic pricing model then why tell a customer that their price was noted against their account and would be available if they rang back? That is what happened?

Sorry the Netflix downgrade was not to be expected. Doing some research after the event it appears Sky slipped that in very quietly. And specifically if I ask multiple agents if I am on exactly the same package then I should have been told that I was no longer getting Netflix Premium that is a downgrade. They knew that I had had up to that point.

On the admin charge. Yes I knew there was one of the actual contract renewal. That one got credited. The one is question was generated when the agent restored Netflix Premium. As far as I was concerned, and the agent didnt disagree, that was their mistake. So why charge me an admin fee to correct a mistake? And if charging one why not mention it to me at the time.

and why couldn't he just give me NF Premium at zero cost. Why have to fiddle with discounts on 4 different elements to keep me at the same overall price. Something that resulted in them triggering a false returns process.

Sorry the  system is too complex both for staff and customers. My next bill has 30 line items just for the TV package and most of them have two or three discounts levels applied beneath the line level entry. It would be unintelligible to the average customer.

i have the ability, time and bloody mindedness to have followed all these points through. What about those who don't, those who might be considered vulnerable. The current Sky customer service operation would appear to leave them there ripe for the picking.

I have run customer service organisations. This is no way to look after customers, no way to reward loyalty. They opened every call with thank you for being a Platinum VIP, we appreciate your loyalty. Then go totally against that by exposing you to a pricing lottery, deception, poor execution and confusion.

i very much doubt anyone in Sky Customers Services has ever put themselves in the position of a genuine customer dealing with their organisation.

[TimmyBGood]

---

@turnbacktime wrote:

Sureky a customer who has subscribed for a total of over 25 years should be entitled to a simple, understandable, best price renewal process.

---

As I've observed elsewhere, Sky Group (a division of the Comcast Corporation) is quite literally not the same company as BSkyB at the turn of the millennium.

[TimmyBGood]

---

@turnbacktime wrote:

Sorry the  system is too complex both for staff and customers. My next bill has 30 line items just for the TV package and most of them have two or three discounts levels applied beneath the line level entry. It would be unintelligible to the average customer.

---

Certainly: that's something the pricing of Glass/Stream (the first product to emerge under Comcast ownership) was intended to tackle. Decades of 'discounts' on the legacy satellite products have undoubtedly left a terrible mess behind them.

[turnbacktime]

Not just discounts but legacy line items as well. Why on earth, in these days of 4K, is there still a line item for Sky Sports HD?

[Colin0000]

---

@turnbacktime wrote:

Not just discounts but legacy line items as well. Why on earth, in these days of 4K, is there still a line item for Sky Sports HD?

---

There's one for Signature and an additional one for UltraHD as well, that does annoy me.

[turnbacktime]

Ultra UD I can understand even if I don't like it. It is an additional premium service. Only on a limited number of channels and will take up additional satellite capacity to provide it in parallel to the HD services.

But a charge for HD is a joke, it is the standard service now so charging an additional fee for it is ridiculous.

[MarkGoldsmith]

---

@turnbacktime wrote:

Ultra UD I can understand even if I don't like it. It is an additional premium service. Only on a limited number of channels and will take up additional satellite capacity to provide it in parallel to the HD services.

But a charge for HD is a joke, it is the standard service now so charging an additional fee for it is ridiculous.

---

Thats because Sky Q is essentially seen as the legacy product model, when it launched SD was still around so the pricing model for Q is outdated.

HD is the standard on the streaming platform with UHD the extra tier for a money fee.

[turnbacktime]

SD was still around when Sky Q launched but HD was still very much the standard offering. After all Sky had had Sky HD+ as the standard platform before Sky Q. And given 4K was one of the benefits of  having Sky Q it is impossible to justify the HD supplement for Sky Q customers. It should never have appeared on the list for Sky Q customers. It should have disappeared long before Sky Q started being considered as a a legacy product.

There  really is no justification for it still being there other than either Sky have been too lazy to rationalise it or they leave it there as a way to fleece extra money out of their customers.

And we should be careful of regarding SkyQ as a legacy product. For a huge number of customers it is still the best option. They don't have the internet bandwidth to use multiscreen Sky Stream/Glass along with other internet use in the house.

[Colin0000]

---

@turnbacktime wrote:

SD was still around when Sky Q launched but HD was still very much the standard offering. After all Sky had had Sky HD+ as the standard platform before Sky Q. And given 4K was one of the benefits of  having Sky Q it is impossible to justify the HD supplement for Sky Q customers. It should never have appeared on the list for Sky Q customers. It should have disappeared long before Sky Q started being considered as a a legacy product.

There  really is no justification for it still being there other than either Sky have been too lazy to rationalise it or they leave it there as a way to fleece extra money out of their customers.

And we should be careful of regarding SkyQ as a legacy product. For a huge number of customers it is still the best option. They don't have the internet bandwidth to use multiscreen Sky Stream/Glass along with other internet use in the house.

---

There's no doubt why Sky have left HD as an add-on I'm afraid, like the 'admin fee' it's price gouging and I've always hated it. Unfortunately the wife won't consider getting rid of Q and Stream seems to terrify her.

[TimmyBGood]

---

@turnbacktime wrote:

There  really is no justification for it still being there other than either Sky have been too lazy to rationalise it or they leave it there as a way to fleece extra money out of their customers.

---

Which is the point of being in business.  A quick calculation would suggest that if half of UK Sky satellite customers pay the HD supplement that's worth £750,000,000 a year: presumably Comcast stockholders would rather prefer this to be recouped from the baseline subscription than just given away.

[turnbacktime]

Or you could take the view that customers deserve open, understandable pricing. If your basic platform is HD, as it has been since the introduction of Sky HD+ then your standard subscriptions should include the basics. Not have the basic expectations as charged for extras. The basic price might be higher but at least it would be honest.

Sky's pricing is a mess and only leads to suspicions of "price gouging". My first bill for my new contract contains over 30 line items, and some of those have 2 or 3 discounts applied to them.

It is unintelligible, it appears designed to confuse the subscriber.

i have a formal written complaint in with Sky over the way they have dealt with my renewal. Will be interested to see what they come back with.

[TimmyBGood]

---

@turnbacktime wrote:

If your basic platform is HD, as it has been since the introduction of Sky HD+ then your standard subscriptions should include the basics. Not have the basic expectations as charged for extras. The basic price might be higher but at least it would be honest.

---

And it would also be a significant hit to those Sky subscribers who are happy to just have the free to air HD channels with SD for subscription services.

[MarkGoldsmith]

---

@turnbacktime wrote:

Or you could take the view that customers deserve open, understandable pricing. If your basic platform is HD, as it has been since the introduction of Sky HD+ then your standard subscriptions should include the basics. Not have the basic expectations as charged for extras. The basic price might be higher but at least it would be honest.

Sky's pricing is a mess and only leads to suspicions of "price gouging". My first bill for my new contract contains over 30 line items, and some of those have 2 or 3 discounts applied to them.

It is unintelligible, it appears designed to confuse the subscriber.

i have a formal written complaint in with Sky over the way they have dealt with my renewal. Will be interested to see what they come back with.

---

That's the result of Skys legacy billing process.

In all fairness the pricing on the new streaming platform is a lot simpler. New platforms and products are usually the only way to be able to simplify billing processes and tiers. Changes to the model for + and Q would just be far too complicated to roll out for both Sky and customers.