Sky customer support - new levels of arrogance and incompetence.

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Networkn
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#3341777 12-Feb-2025 09:02

Brunzy:

You can hire as many contractors as you like, you don’t pay them anything unless you give them work to do.

Do you really think that companies hire or allocate staff, train them, just in case, and don't charge a fee to retain those people?

That's not how it works. Reverse the situation, if you are paying people, are you having them just sitting around? If you are a contractor, are you sitting around unpaid, just in case you are needed?

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#3341881 12-Feb-2025 11:46

networkn:

Brunzy:

You can hire as many contractors as you like, you don’t pay them anything unless you give them work to do.

Do you really think that companies hire or allocate staff, train them, just in case, and don't charge a fee to retain those people?

That's not how it works. Reverse the situation, if you are paying people, are you having them just sitting around? If you are a contractor, are you sitting around unpaid, just in case you are needed?

You’re not hiring them they are on contract, and if they are competent, they don’t need training.

minimal outlay.

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#3341956 12-Feb-2025 13:16

Brunzy:

You’re not hiring them they are on contract, and if they are competent, they don’t need training.

minimal outlay.

I can't quite work out if you are serious or trolling?

You are claiming, you are getting nationwide support coverage of a *proprietary* system, including processes and systems specific to this customer, AND you are expecting that the people who you contract are going to meet your SLA's without a retainer etc?

You would work under those conditions? You'd run a business under those conditions?

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#3342108 12-Feb-2025 18:34

networkn:

I can't quite work out if you are serious or trolling?

You are claiming, you are getting nationwide support coverage of a *proprietary* system, including processes and systems specific to this customer, AND you are expecting that the people who you contract are going to meet your SLA's without a retainer etc?

You would work under those conditions? You'd run a business under those conditions?

hes actually correct.

i can't comment about today, but years ago there was no retainer. you where your own business, you paid for all the setup and all running costs. training was minimal, in fact i'm one of the few who actually has sky's installation manual. if there was no work you where expected to sit by the phone in case there was some. they did not like me as i only worked part time for them and they wanted me full time despite me making no profit from their work. got told when to take a holiday (werid), no formal contracts where ever presented let alone signed (i know a few did have contracts because one guy sued the main contractor).

keep in mind all the workers are sub contractors to the main contracting company.

back in the day you did it because it was foot in the door work. you made your money from selling add on or other services. ie free to air tv, satellite internet etc. if organized well you do ok. problem was they took over doing all the organizing and was terrible, and took over a lot of the add on products as well, plus making you full time so you couldn't do your own work. ie you where basically an employee that only got paid per job but you had to pay all the cost. hence why i went on to better things.

back then the phone guys would get paid per job, basically labor only, but the contracting company supplies all the gear and covers ALL costs. those guys absolutely hated skys way of doing it.

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#3342173 12-Feb-2025 20:17

tweake:

networkn:

I can't quite work out if you are serious or trolling?

You are claiming, you are getting nationwide support coverage of a *proprietary* system, including processes and systems specific to this customer, AND you are expecting that the people who you contract are going to meet your SLA's without a retainer etc?

You would work under those conditions? You'd run a business under those conditions?

hes actually correct.

i can't comment about today, but years ago there was no retainer. you where your own business, you paid for all the setup and all running costs. training was minimal, in fact i'm one of the few who actually has sky's installation manual. if there was no work you where expected to sit by the phone in case there was some. they did not like me as i only worked part time for them and they wanted me full time despite me making no profit from their work. got told when to take a holiday (werid), no formal contracts where ever presented let alone signed (i know a few did have contracts because one guy sued the main contractor).

keep in mind all the workers are sub contractors to the main contracting company.

back in the day you did it because it was foot in the door work. you made your money from selling add on or other services. ie free to air tv, satellite internet etc. if organized well you do ok. problem was they took over doing all the organizing and was terrible, and took over a lot of the add on products as well, plus making you full time so you couldn't do your own work. ie you where basically an employee that only got paid per job but you had to pay all the cost. hence why i went on to better things.

back then the phone guys would get paid per job, basically labor only, but the contracting company supplies all the gear and covers ALL costs. those guys absolutely hated skys way of doing it.

The thing is if there was actually no work contractors move on to other things. They won't stick around if they make no money.

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#3342180 12-Feb-2025 20:51

Handle9:

The thing is if there was actually no work contractors move on to other things. They won't stick around if they make no money.

work yes. profit ?? sort of. it depends on the area, how much work you got in your local area and how badly it was organized. it also depends on how badly the work was done and the many scams going. there was a lot of rushed jobs and then basically get paid to go back and fix their own work. but if your a local guy doing your own work as well, you could not afford to do that. so often they would give your work to one of the rip off guys, who would race around do double the jobs and then you get the repair jobs which is basically redo the whole job and make nothing. so good money if you where the rip off guys and sky loved them because once its installed cust starts paying, even if it doesn't work.

no profit wasn't bad if you could make up for it else where. when they clamped down on some of the scams, 30% of the subbies left.

it was a revolving door of subbies. all the promises of making $$ but when they found they make nothing they left.

as i said, a lot of the time it was no or little profit work to get a foot in the door to do other work. if you did your own work as well it was quite good.

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#3342186 12-Feb-2025 21:50

The claim was that Sky could have heaps of excess contractors sitting around to effectively have unlimited resources. If those contractors had nothing to do they wouldn’t stick around. They’d go off and find something else to do.

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#3342235 13-Feb-2025 09:02

It totally amazes me, the things that people expect businesses to do to make life better for them as a consumer, that they would be outraged by if they were asked to do by their employer, or read employers were doing to employees or contractors, in a news article.

Sometimes stuff just happens, not every situation requires outrage, pitchforks and torches.

Sky have made many mistakes in the past, will probably continue to annoy consumers with decisions in the future, but their handling of this has been fairly good all things considered.

If this wasn't Sky but some other company, it probably wouldn't even have a topic here.

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#3342317 13-Feb-2025 09:26

networkn:

It totally amazes me, the things that people expect businesses to do to make life better for them as a consumer, that they would be outraged by if they were asked to do by their employer, or read employers were doing to employees or contractors, in a news article.

Sometimes stuff just happens, not every situation requires outrage, pitchforks and torches.

Sky have made many mistakes in the past, will probably continue to annoy consumers with decisions in the future, but their handling of this has been fairly good all things considered.

If this wasn't Sky but some other company, it probably wouldn't even have a topic here.

Sky has a monopoly on satellite transmission and exclusive rights on all of their most popular content (notably sports). Consumer choice is either watch it on Sky or dont watch it.

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#3342324 13-Feb-2025 09:42

OldGeek:

Sky has a monopoly on satellite transmission and exclusive rights on all of their most popular content (notably sports). Consumer choice is either watch it on Sky or dont watch it.

So what? That has nothing to do with this issue.

In order for there to be choice, someone else would need to bid for the rights, in a non-exclusive agreement, in a population of 5 million, and a potential subscriber base of around 600K.

As I have pointed out, if there was money to be made, then others would have taken up the mantel. Spark Sport tried and failed miserably. Perhaps it's not as easy as you are making it out to be.

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#3342358 13-Feb-2025 10:48

networkn:

In order for their to be choice, someone else would need to bid for the rights, in a non-exclusive agreement, in a population of 5 million, and a potential subscriber base of around 600K.

As I have pointed out, if there was money to be made, then others would have taken up the mantel. Spark Sport tried and failed miserably. Perhaps it's not as easy as you are making it out to be.

I made no comment on why Sky has no competitors, but existing Sky customers vent their frustration with Sky services because they have no alternative option. This is the sole point of my previous post. Whether venting customers are justified in doing so was not part of the point I made.

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Handle9

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#3342521 13-Feb-2025 16:05

OldGeek:

Sky has a monopoly on satellite transmission

Not at all. Freeview broadcasts on satellite as well.

They are planning a move in April apparently.

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#3342524 13-Feb-2025 16:31

OldGeek:

...existing Sky customers vent their frustration with Sky services because they have no alternative option.

It appears they are, quite justifiably, venting because their service isn't working and it's not being fixed in a timely manner. That's totally reasonable, however it doesn't necessarily make Sky arrogant or even incompetent. Sometimes shit happens.

OldGeek

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#3342525 13-Feb-2025 16:33

Handle9:

OldGeek:

Sky has a monopoly on satellite transmission

Not at all. Freeview broadcasts on satellite as well.

Technically correct, but there are very few channels that Sky carries that are also available on Freeview. In addition, Sky has exclusive rights to most of their content.

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#3342529 13-Feb-2025 16:36

OldGeek:

Handle9:

Not at all. Freeview broadcasts on satellite as well.

Technically correct, but there are very few channels that Sky carries that are also available on Freeview. In addition, Sky has exclusive rights to most of their content.

That doesn't give them a monopoly on satellite transmission. If you had the money you could broadcast on satellite. As you say they have exclusive rights to their content, which is a different thing.

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