Sky customer support - new levels of arrogance and incompetence.

Forums › Sky, Neon, Lightbox › Sky customer support - new levels of arrogance and incompetence.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
80658 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 41072

Administrator

ID Verified

Trusted

Geekzone

Lifetime subscriber

#3342921 14-Feb-2025 17:21

@K8Toledo:

I'm asking YOU to define it, not an AI bot. Do u work for Downer?

Calm down. Also asking if someone works for one company or another as part of an argument is a logical fallacy and a FUG breach.

Referral links: Quic Broadband (free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE) | Samsung | AliExpress | Wise | Sharesies

Support Geekzone by subscribing (browse ads-free), or making a one-off or recurring donation through PressPatron.

Oblivian

7345 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 2117

ID Verified

#3342952 14-Feb-2025 17:58

Public domain stats for 2024 subs

K8Toledo

1018 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 311

#3342969 14-Feb-2025 19:27

freitasm:

@K8Toledo:

I'm asking YOU to define it, not an AI bot. Do u work for Downer?

Calm down. Also asking if someone works for one company or another as part of an argument is a logical fallacy and a FUG breach.

Yes fair enough.

KiwiSurfer

1725 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 996

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3343055 14-Feb-2025 21:42

OldGeek:

While there are customers who cannot stream because internet to their home is not up to it, the advent of Starlink should cover this although the cost is higher than 'terrestrial' internet.

I've been travelling quite a bit this year to some very isolated places where accommodative providers have elected to use Starlink. In every location that has used Starlink, the experience has been pretty awful. It does not provide anywhere near a consistent speed. All major streaming providers struggles to buffer enough for 240p -- never mind 1080p. I also observed that there are frequent outages (possibly due to no satellites overhead?) which often uses up the 1-2mins buffer most streaming service do.

It's so bad that I almost always end up switching back to 4G and finding even 1-2 bars of 4G is a significant improvement over Starlink -- for one you can very easily stream 1080p with no buffering whatsoever on 4G in most places. Starlink is a lot of hot air IMHO and no where near delivering on the hype.

Anyway, back on topic.

For older people Smart TV also presents a learning curve.

Smart TV are also in my experience not very reliable nor user friendly. Older people will struggle with basic stuff like logging into apps etc. Every time the Netflix app on my mums TV gets logged out mum calls me in to do the login process -- which is an awful hassle on a TV remote.

I can understand why some might prefer to just stick with what they know -- even if this means just leaving their supposedly "Smart" TV permanently on HDMI mode and using their SKY box which is actually probably more reliable and has a less complicated UX than any streaming service.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no Luddite, I stream YouTube/Netflix/Prime/etc all day long for my own entertainment. I just understand why older people just don't get streaming -- it's a learning curve they don't see the point in going through and that's fair enough. There is still a market for linear TV programming at the current time.

SepticSceptic

2263 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 779

Trusted

#3343078 15-Feb-2025 00:31

One of the reasons we have kept Sky is the ability to skip adverts, or at least fast forward .

Smart TV apps don't allow advert skipping.

Sure I can use a uhf tuner on a PC host, setup an application to automatically strip adverts, and then present the finished video file via whatever media player .

But, just occasionally, the advert stripper strips too much, and can lose important intros.

Yes; I can go back and tweak the settings , or just put up with the adverts for that one video. I have better things to do than put up with repetitive and annoying adverts. why advertise more than once during a program? Is more than 2 adverts really going to induce a prospective customer to purchase? Customer has more than likely already made up their mind by the 2nd showing of the same advert

I'll put up with Sky; because of that skip ability .

quickymart

14942 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 13956

ID Verified

#3343262 15-Feb-2025 22:19

There was quite a lengthy piece on all this in the Herald recently: https://archive.ph/h0Zvb

He [Laurie Mains] said technicians had been arranged seven times.

“I sat at home for seven days waiting, and no one ever showed up. No one ever let me know they weren’t coming, except once.

I'm no sports fan and I don't have Sky - but I would be extremely unhappy if I had a technician fail to turn up that many times. How hard is it (in this day and age) to call and say "sorry we can't make it today, we're stuck on another job"? I guess it must be quite difficult...somehow?

An Auckland man, David Weller, told the Herald last week that he had been promised a technician on seven different dates to fix his reception. He threatened to go to the Sky board if help failed to show up an eighth time. The technician showed up.

^ this shouldn't be happening, ever. Customers shouldn't have to threaten to escalate things just to get something done (although I know it does happen - far too often).

The amount techs were getting paid was mentioned previously in this thread and the story touches on it:

Downer and Sky have refused to answer a list of specific questions about the number of technicians available around the country and the cost and other details of the new contract.
A Sky spokeswoman previously did not wish to comment on whether the new deal had seen a reduction in payment for technicians – one Sky customer has claimed that in Canterbury, for instance, the number of installers has dropped from about 150 to about eight because technicians were being paid $25 per installation rather than the $100 offered previously.

No mention of compensation/credits for customers in this story though.

HP

Shop now for HP laptops and other devices (affiliate link).

networkn

Networkn
32872 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 15471

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3344025 17-Feb-2025 22:41

Brunzy:

Having a pool of contractors in a similar situation , I can’t see why it wouldn’t work, but if their only source of income was through sky then obviously it wouldn’t.

The whole point of having these contractors is to use them when stuff goes sideways, but in this instance they would have very little work potentially and therefore get other work and then suddenly out of the blue they would be inundated, and customers would want their stuff fixed immediately, and those contractors who were suplementing their Sky income with other income wouldn't be able to just drop the other work. Because they otherwise have very little Sky work, their skills would fade and then people would complain about poor service delivery.

That's not how businesses work, which is just as well, or they would almost all fail and then there would be no service.

Sometimes stuff goes sideways, and the provider needs to scale support to meet the need, and that takes time and issues come up. Otherwise, you'd be paying $200 a month for your Sky subscription on the off chance a satelitte's orbit decays faster than predicted.

networkn

Networkn
32872 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 15471

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3344027 17-Feb-2025 22:44

quickymart:

No mention of compensation/credits for customers in this story though.

Which should tell you exactly what the motivation of that article was and the exact reason you shouldn't be giving it more airtime than it already got. It's typical outrage farming and you despite saying you dislike it, are promoting it even further.

Are you even a subscriber or impacted by this issue, or you just joined to pile on to Sky?

quickymart

14942 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 13956

ID Verified

#3344035 17-Feb-2025 23:16

networkn:

Are you even a subscriber or impacted by this issue, or you just joined to pile on to Sky?

No (as I said) but why does that matter to you personally? I was merely sharing a related article around Sky's current woes and offering my own opinion on it as an outsider.

Personally I don't care if they pay a single cent in compensation or not as it doesn't impact my life, but I had seen it mentioned somewhere else - just not in that article.

K8Toledo

1018 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 311

#3344225 18-Feb-2025 15:33

Downer are (or at least, were) installing antennas for Spark customers on 4G Rural Wireless plans (antenna required).

In one case the rural customer (my client) moved from unstable copper to Rural 4G. Downer turned up to mount the antenna 4mths later.

Meanwhile the customer fortunately had good reception with router alone (good enough for 45Mbps).

tdgeek

30048 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 9455

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3344388 18-Feb-2025 20:42

quickymart:

networkn:

Are you even a subscriber or impacted by this issue, or you just joined to pile on to Sky?

No (as I said) but why does that matter to you personally? I was merely sharing a related article around Sky's current woes and offering my own opinion on it as an outsider.

Personally I don't care if they pay a single cent in compensation or not as it doesn't impact my life, but I had seen it mentioned somewhere else - just not in that article.

How often do things not go as expected? Do the average peeps expect compensation? If they had a corporate plan/agreement, and pay handsomely, then yes. For the SME's and citizens, we pay a fair price, not a premium price, and like power cuts, water cuts due to natural or other issues, the car isnt fixed today as promised, we accept that. Thats normal life. Strikes me as a Sky beat up TBH. If thats not acceptable, dump Sky and your regional power grid provider, and the regional council providing for your home. And the mechanics garage.

AliExpress

Shop now on AliExpress (affiliate link).

quickymart

14942 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 13956

ID Verified

#3358365 28-Mar-2025 21:19

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/sky-cuts-2000-jobs-in-uk-shifts-to-ai-chatbots-amid-streaming-losses/QG6JSXNQDJEQHONNX3XCS7W3HQ/

Sky is cutting 2000 call centre staff in the UK and replacing them with chatbots, saying people are tired of phoning customer service agents.

Okay, this relates to Sky in the UK - but could it happen here? I know they have outsourced their call centre to somewhere overseas already (how is that going, by the way); could this be a logical "next step"?

OldGeek

989 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 409

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3358397 29-Mar-2025 08:32

Sky NZ is small in comparison to Sky UK, so unlikely to have the scale to warrant similar actions.

--

OldGeek.

Quic referal code: https://account.quic.nz/refer/581402 and use this code for free setup: R581402E48MJA

eracode

Smpl Mnmlst
9334 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 6203

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3358518 29-Mar-2025 11:16

quickymart:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/sky-cuts-2000-jobs-in-uk-shifts-to-ai-chatbots-amid-streaming-losses/QG6JSXNQDJEQHONNX3XCS7W3HQ/

Sky is cutting 2000 call centre staff in the UK and replacing them with chatbots, saying people are tired of phoning customer service agents.

Okay, this relates to Sky in the UK - but could it happen here? I know they have outsourced their call centre to somewhere overseas already (how is that going, by the way); could this be a logical "next step"?

The two Sky organisations are unrelated. If it happened here it would be only because they’re both TV streaming organisations facing similar issues - not because of any family connection.

Sometimes I just sit and think. Other times I just sit.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5