Is there a way to speak to a Sky agent in the UK?

[Kadoogan]

Hi,

Is there a trick to make sure you get to speak to a Sky agent in the UK? I am coming to the end of my contract and need to discuss an offer received, and after two attempts at speaking to someone in what sounds like an Indian call centre I cannot make them understand what I am asking.

I currently pay £64.50 and have received a new offer for £68.50 for 24 months. I have also received an email telling me that my subscription is increasing by £5 from August. I want to know if that increase would apply to the new offer, so I'd be paying £73.50 in August onwards. Both times the agent assured me I'd pay £69.50 which suggests they are just seeing what I am currently predicted to pay, and not the offer I have been sent. I'd like to speak to someone in the UK who perhaps can see more detail, and maybe have a better chance of understanding me and being able to discuss this.

Thank you.

[Daniel0210 · Accepted solution]

@Kadoogan 

All calls go to the next available agent, wherever they are based. There is no way to guarantee a UK agent and all agents should have access to the same information. 

[Kadoogan]

They may have access but they don't seem to be seeing it unfortunately. The last contract renewal was painless compared to this, but I think I may have got lucky there.

Really not going to be happy if I accept the new offer then find that almost immediately I get a £5 increase, but trying to find out if this will happen seems so ridiculously difficult. Guess I am going to have to keep trying and sitting through the same messages every single time....

Thanks for the reply anyway!

[Julie+ONeill]

Speak to agent 

[Daniel0210]

@Julie+ONeill 
The Sky Community is a customer led discussion forum where Sky customers are available to help other customers. You are NOT contacting Sky Customer Services by posting here.

Unless you think it's something we can help with give Sky a call. 

[Kadoogan]

They definitely do not follow the same procedure as the UK staff. I have had really good service from the Overseas call centre. My last TV deal was handled well, and was a decent deal.

Sadly my current experience is dire. I am trying to transfer my mobile service from EE as they are putting up my contract by more than I would prefer. Because of my VIP tier Sky are offering unlimited data for £10 a month, but the MySky app doesn't let me apply (tapping the option just gives a blank page), and the overseas call centre staff refuse to believe the deal, and will only offer me £19 a month, which is unacceptable. I have tried emailing via the complaints page, but have had no response so far. Guess it is easy to offer a great deal when it is impossible to take it up.

I'd love to try the UK staff, but there is no way to do it.

[Tommo12]

Yes, I'm not saying it's always a terrible experience, I too have had decent experiences with their overseas call centre - in fact a couple of weeks ago I was having trouble with my Sky Stream Puck and got technical support from such a call centre - The lady I spoke to tried everything she could to sort my issue and wasn't giving up - she even called me back after my phone battery had given up the ghost to see if I still needed assistance.

I think it's shocking that Sky have a completely useless Virtual Assistant that can never help with anything and that their website advertises web-chat from morning until late yet it's hardly ever available.

If you do ring them, the phone system is woefully poor and there is never an option to speak to a supervisor or manager - everywhere I've worked that has a call centre (in the UK) has the option for callers to speak to a supervisor (or more superior agent) if they felt they weren't getting the best service from the person they were currenty speaking to.

The other thing that I find annoying is that they tell you they will investigate the advice you've been given by these overseas call centres but will not be able to give you and update or outcome - due to data protection of the agent involved.

It actually feels like they're not actually going to do anything about it - I don't want to know if the person has been sent for additional training or fired (which in some cases is probably quite apt) - but I would like to know Sky have done something about it - so a simple call or email to say it's been looked into and dealt with according to their procedures (whether it actually has or not) would at least make me feel like it's been addressed.

They need to do much better from a customer service point of view.

[Tommo12]

And talking of EE - I've recently moved from EE to Sky on mobile because EE couldn't give me a good enough deal but I have to say that EE's customer service is absolutely excellent IMHO - whether it be phone, chat or socials - they really seem to employ dedicated, professional, trouble-shooting staff in their call centres (which I think are mostly, if not all, UK based).

[Kadoogan]

My feelings on EE are mixed. Their staff were polite enough, but I had an issue with my account where signing in would show very little information, no bill information, no way to check upgrade deals etc. It took them months to fix that. Otherwise I never had to deal with them. It seems you have to take your chances wherever you go. As things stand EE are discontinuing my current contract (in other words I am not paying enough for their liking) and will be putting me on a rolling deal at an extra £5 a month. I was quite happy with the contract I had so did not want to 'reward' them by staying there. Guess I will be as Sky it seems are happily advertising a deal that they make impossible to actually accept. Doesn't make me feel like giving them more of my money, even if EE have also annoyed me.

[Tommo12]

Interesting that you say Sky are offering a deal that's impossible to bet - though my issue was with TV not mobile, it was an email I got, offering me a deal on Sky Stream TV and a link to get that deal, which didn't work at all - when I clicked on it there was nothing remotely like what they'd offered, even though it was a genuine email from Sky, not some dodgy link from somewhere random.

That's when I rang them to see why I couldn't get the offer they had emailed me with and I was told they could set it up for me (overseas call centre) so I agreed.

Couple of days later, I checked my sky account to see that the discount I was supposed to get hadn't been applied.

Phoned up, got through to UK call centre who said it was online only deal and they couldn't match it - even the manager couldn't do it.

Said I should have done it online (I told them I'd tried and wasn't able to, hence phoning up).

They said I shouldn't have been told they could set it up for me - I told them it was their problem, not mine, I had a recording of the call where I was told they could sort it and asked them to investigate and find out why, a) they are offering online deals that are impossible to redeem and b) their call centres say they can do deals they clearly know they are unable to - both of which are, at worst, illegal under UK law and at best questionable tactics for a big firm such as Sky to be doing.

As for the mobile, for my son I signed up with Sky for a new iPhone over 24 months, interest free and chose the free option of unlimited calls and texts and 100MB (yes, that's an M) of data. 

As all UK phones have to be supplied unlocked now, I got him an eSIM (from Voxi [Vodafone], whose customer service is equally rubbish as Sky's) for data and simply turned off the Sky data and set it to use Voxi for data.

We ported his number over to Sky so are free to swap and change data whenever there's a good pay monthly deal available. Still waiting for Lebara to offer eSIMs to get one of their data deals but I suppose we could convert his Sky SIM to eSIM and that would free up the physical SIM slot to use.

Sounds like a lot of faff but to be honest, once the number's ported over we can swap and change data SIMS without any fuss - also useful when going abroad, not that we do that much, but you can choose one of the PAYG ones that offers free roaming, which in Europe can work out significantly cheaper than the likes of Saily etc, the only downside being that you need to activate in the UK before you go, so if you're getting a couple in case you run out of data on one on a HotUKDeals offer for £1 a month for the first six months or whatever, you have to activate both before you go. Still saves loads though.

[Kadoogan]

Hmm, seems this[removed] is a regular thing. Might give them another try tomorrow, and point out it [removed]

Moderator Notes: Removed allegations