Sky Broadband faces consumer complaints from the web

Once again we see the speed with which consumer complaints about a product or service can be amplified by social media, according to a report in the Guardian.

The story focuses on complaints about Sky Broadband among users of the Digital Spy forum.  

A few issues for big brand owners to take away from this:

• Digital Spy is on the front page of Google UK for the search term "Sky Broadband" - these discussions are *high profile* from the point of view of a consumer researching the story.
• Consumer affairs journalists are monitoring these message boards and blogs for potential stories.
• Lastly, look like you take these issues seriously: the stock response from the Sky spokesperson in the article is flat. It is really saying nothing at all and gets relegated to the end of the article as a result.

A better response would be so say what the issues actually have been and what are being done about them. Better still say it on a blog or your own site too - this response is in danger of not respectful of customers, and is certainly not useful to the networks that are relevant to Sky. Show you are listening and willing to take action...

 Personally, I was considering a switch to Sky (yep - still with NTL) and had been flicking through some marketing materials about HD services wistfully just yesterday. This kind of dampens the purchasing desire, though - sounds like a hassle and Sky aren't responding well.

 

technorati tags: sky broadband PR media social media

Comments

[Tom Robinson]

I have had sy working for about 7days and last Friday I lost me broadband connection.
I have contacted sky techinal every days since waiting an avarage of 2 hours on the phone and I am now further away from getting it fixed. My advise is don,t sign up. These are going to be worse that BT everwas.I will be cancelling my sky tv package in protest that i have had since sky began broadcasting in the 80S

[John Devers]

I've been using sky broadband for the past 4 weeks and just recently haven't been able to log in to my account and everytime i call the customer support line they fob me off with the old chestnut "Sorry are main server is down" what a joke sky broadband are they told me to keep trying and that it should be ok in a few days. Still no sucess,please do not sign up to broadband with sky find another ISP!!!

[Kevin Hibberd]

Their customer service is an absolute disgrace, we had the internet for not even 3 weeks and had numerous problems. Most of the time, it wouldnt connect at all and when it did it was painfully slow. I have been without a broadband service for the best part of 6 weeks. Have called regularly and have only ever received 1 phonecall back WHEN I WAS OUT! It was a time when i wasn't available which made a joke of their promise to call back 'when you are available' a call back the same day was promised so all other commitments that day were cancelled and i made myself available for them to call. (my mobile was used to great expense to keep the home phoneline free)
Am posting from a friends house (which adds MORE inconvenience not to mention petrol costs to my ever growing list of problems) after waiting 25 minutes on hold for 1 of their level 3 priority managers. Basically no-one their gives a sh*t about their customers, am basically at a loss as of what to do next. THEY ARE A DISGRACEFUL PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR A BROADBAND PROVIDER AND THE TREATMENT OF THEIR CUSTOMERS IS BEYOND DISGUSTING. Word of advice, no matter how much another ISP costs, go to them.

[anon]

To anyone considering changing to sky broadband please consider the following. Sky has only really been open for business a few months at time of writing this posting and to be honest are over whelmed by the response. lets be honest anything that is being offered for free is bound to get a lot of takers. The service quite frankly is appalling. I am cut off every evening for between 1 to 4 hours exactly the time most people like to surf. I was with AOL and for all the conplaints about AOL I never had these kind of problems. why did I change ISP's I hear you ask. answer is simple AOL was £25 per month for their gold Package Sky wants £5 for their mid package and only £10 for their (supposidly) 16 meg "max" package. I did it because they were cheap Guv'nor. given the chance again would I still do it? answer is a resounding NO!. the advice i would give anyone considering switching to sky is..give it until after christmas to see if they get their act together. if you have a good connection speed through your current ISP. do you really want to lose it for the sake of saving a tenner a month...the choice is yours!!

[nadine morgan]

Sky is taking the piss with the customers i have only had sky for 3weeks and already tmy viewing has being interupted twice and when u call them they tell you that the sky is working when its not you can never get a manager or a supervisor and its a disgrace really

[Rick]

I can only add to the frustrations experienced here. I've had Sky for a few weeks and the service is horrible with an inability to access the Internet many times during the day. Today, I was unable to sign on at all. Their customer service staff is among the worst I've ever experienced. I've cancelled the service and would urge others to do the same or not sign up to begin with....

[john]

Well sky !!!!!.they broke every connectiong date they set me. i then asked to terminate having never been on line with them easier said than done i have been trying to get away from them since 11th october. no luck excuse after excuse. My Call on the 13th November i have been told it will take another 30days as they have to put a new order in to cease it i had `already been onto offcom..just got to wait for letter from sky

[James]

Sky tricked me in to joining them, by telling me that I was eligible for FREE broadband. As I'm currently with Virgin (they're great) I had to wait for my contract to end, so I'm not stung with a £50 charge.

So I joined Sky Digital, and 2 months down the line, I opt for their 'Free' broadband, but was told that I had to pay £17 a month, cos I was not eligible, and never was, despite being told on a least 5 previous occasions I was.

What a bunch of scam artists, so now, I'm stuck with Sky Digital, that I rarely watch, and can't cancel my contract.

They are a truly awful and deceptive company. I wish I stayed with Virgin.Net.

[Jim G]

Sky broadband what a joke.They cancelled my order without my knowledge at the end of Oct 06, after i signed up with them for their MAX package at £10 per month plus free connection etc, and cancelled my account with Supanet. Having waited the 30 days i was told it would take they tell me no free connection no max package oh and it is going to be £17.50 a month. No explanation other than all the free services in your area are taken - Breach of contract - are they bothered - No. I have spent hours on the phone to their customer "services" but still no explanation or offer to fulfill their end of the contract and give me what they agreed to.

[Jim G]

Sky broadband what a joke.They cancelled my order without my knowledge at the end of Oct 06, after i signed up with them for their MAX package at £10 per month plus free connection etc, and cancelled my account with Supanet. Having waited the 30 days i was told it would take they tell me no free connection no max package oh and it is going to be £17.50 a month. No explanation other than all the free services in your area are taken - Breach of contract - are they bothered - No. I have spent hours on the phone to their customer "services" but still no explanation or offer to fulfill their end of the contract and give me what they agreed to.

[Ricky]

DO NOT SIGN UP WITH SKY BROADBAND. THEY ARE APPAULING. I HAVE BEEN WAITING 4 MONTHS AND HAVE MADE COUNTLESS CALLS AND STILL NO SUCCESS.

I WILL BE CANCELLING MY SKY TV PACKAGE THAT I HAVE HAD FOR THE PAST 10 yrs

[Mike]

Hey,

You can also post your opinion about Broadband wireless issues that you are having on the following URL attached to my name

[Conrad Noble]

It has been four month since I received my activation date and still have no broadband, I have spent many hours on the phone holding to get through to Sky, and when I finally got through I get passed on to at least five different people who keeps on given a different reason and then finally getting cut off while transferring me to someone else, and not been called back when promised,.

DO NOT GET SKY BROADBAND, ITS A RIP Off

[sabaratnam]

Hi all. Most funniest and dummest people work at the customer care department at the sky. I have waiting for my Router/Modem for 3 months. Everytime I call them they say, it has bee despatched and I have to wait for 5 working days. I called them 10 times. Same answer is repeated all over again.

Funniest thing is this. They do not know wheather the records are correct. They do not have a tracking number.

What sort of delivery service they have. In the mean time they want to charge for the broad band connection without me getting the router.

DO NOT EVEN DREAM OF GETTING INTO THIS SHIT.

[Michael PRESSLAND]

I am ashamed to say that I too have been conned by the promise by Sky of free Broadband - despite having signed up for the Mid (£5 month) Broadband package last Autumn, I have had nearly four months frustration with cancelled activation dates, multiple requests for credit card activation payments and multiple similar letters with bland "I'ts not our fault" comments when I have 'phoned. A letter giving full summary and details sent to the Sky Customer Service Director at Livingston has not even been acknowledged!

Their Customer service is worse than appalling and I just wish that I had never opted to take up their TV package in order to get cheap Broadband - I am minded to ditch Sky altogether and remain with my current ISP.

Maybe some of us complainants should take them to court - or the office of fair trading!

Michael

[M S Amee]

I joined sky in November 2006, had a connection for 1 month and that was it. Lost my connection few weeks before xmas and have been chasing them ever since. I have called them almost everyday, but no joy. They have got the worst customer services in the planet. You can never get hold of a manager to talk to and worst of all no one is trained to dela with this sort of queries. Almost 3 months down the line i am still without broadband. I would advice all you people thinking of joining sky to think twice and think hard. Known devil is better.

[Paul Armstrong]

Had Sky Broadband since November and had consistently low connection speeds, sometimes only equivalent to dial-up.
Tried using the splitter device but the top port isn't active and when i phoned them they tell me that the connection to my home is fine.
I have since discovered i can connect my broadband connection straight into the phone socket or have my phone(which is also Sky and has the sky+ box connected as well) connected but NOT BOTH AT THE SAME TIME!!!!!
Joke situation and customer services pathetic. Not in a cable enabled area so am pretty much stuck with this garbage.

[Marty]

Sky Broadband is absolute KAK. 99.9% of the time you can't connect and when you do it's slower than dial up. their email system is pityful as it doesn't translate HTML so you get an email full of >"!. I actually have to go to a HTML test bed site and copy and paste just to read most of my mails. Their customer service centre is worse than useless. In short, they are offering a severly flawed and very primitive service. Sky should be allowing people to terminate their 12 month contracts without penalty. When it comes to technology such as this, Sky have shown us they're just kid's playing with fire. They should put their hands in the air, admit it doesn't work and leave Broadband to the professionals. I really wish I'd stayed with AOL now. I urge all who read this to avoid Sky Broadband like bird flu.

[Cee]

There is a 0800 number for Sky. Find it at
http://www.saynoto0870.com/ Though it is a waste of time ringing them as you can either not understand them or they promise you the earth and do sweet FA.
I've signed up for Sky in November to get cheap Broadband. Big mistake! Ended up with no BB for 7 weeks that cost me 160 odd quid for dial up and to get reconnected with another ISP cos they're LLU.
Also now have an issue with viewing charges as I have been debited full price when it should have been half price for 3 months. Spoke to an arrogant asshole in India and got nowhere. Ended up telling him Sky CS are shite!
Might be worth trying AllCustomerCareEscalation@BSkyB.com
have had some limited luck here when trying to get the sky marker removed from my phoneline.
Sky is a good example of the kind of service to expect when there is no other serious competition.

[Gill]

We had an activation date of 1st November and we are STILL waiting for the service to work. Now we have been told that because the service has never been activated we can not get a MAC code to change. Its catch 22, we want to change as its not been activated but we can't change as its not been activated.

Sky is a dreadful service.

[Dave Law]

I'm glad I found this site. Thought it was just me. Been trying to get Sky Broadband for 6 weeks. Multiple issues with canceling previous Sky orders and tags on lines. Their service is appalling. I have had 3 orders rejected because they cannot perform the simplest of tasks. I have probably spoken to 20 different operators and several supervisors. Have also written to the Kingston customer service department but no response. Thanks for the advice I will be going to another service provider.

[Dean A]

SKY BROADBAND - A PILE OF CRAP.

CONNECTION BREAKS EVERY FEW MINUTES. WHY? CAN THEIR CUSTOMER 'SERVICE' HELP?

Wanna go to Sky? Go on then....SUCKA!

Keep your existing ISP or go to someone with a decent service - Sky are s**t.

[Bharat Bageja]

I applied for Sky TV and Broadband on 28th Jan 2007. I have received two letters from Sky that my broadband would be active on 8th Feb,07 and another 7th March, 07. But my broadband hasnt been active yet. I have spoken to Customer Services and High Technical Team in Sky but every time they tell different stories. I have already spent more than 10 hours on telephone in talking to Customer Service representatives or waiting for their calls on various occasions but so far no result has come out.

[p howes]

Don't do it. Three months later i still do not have broadband. I have had endless futile contact with technical support services. The only thing they are good at is sending bills when you stop your direct debit.

[leah wild]

I have only been connected for three days and I have already spent 2 hours on the phone to them because of the intermittent service. it is a total nightmare!!! Avoid like the plague!