Impossible to get through to retentions!

[jcw00]

I believe you are moving to early. Give it at least 30 days and see what happens. But if you leave to join Sky now, you will be tied to a 12 month contract.

I've got no plans to leave Virgin Media.

[sav112]

Originally Posted by holographic

I have seen people posting that their Sky install is over a week away.

I signed up to Sky (via their website) this afternoon before calling VM and it offered me Monday as install date. PERFECT!

Tuesday 6th march AM.

So well happy i wont miss Battlestar etc......just dream team on sunday.

Thank you for ordering from Sky.com.
Your order is being processed and you will receive your sales confirmation and installation letters within the next few days.
In the meantime if you have any queries about your order or you wish to make any changes, please email skydigital@bskyb.com or call 08702 40 40 40.

plus whats the worst that happens I'm with sky now paying the same for what i had a Virgin. No brainer.
and i dont miss a thing on skyone.

[jcw00]

Originally Posted by alexcutts

... On 3.3 millions customers, a few hundred a day cancelling won't be too much for virgin to cope with, once it gets to a few thousand a day for a sustained period I would imagine they'll worry.

Any less than approx 77,000 people switching from cable to virgin and virgin win. Between 77,000 and 150,000, no-one wins (sky loses and virgin loses), above 150,000 and Sky win.

Based on the poll (http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...php?t=33607505) 17.5% said they would move to Sky. Which from 3.3m customers this is 577,500. Sky wins big time!

[holographic]

Originally Posted by jcw00

Based on the poll (http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...php?t=33607505) 17.5% said they would move to Sky. Which from 3.3m customers this is 577,500. Sky wins big time!

None of these polls use a good enough sample to be anywhere near accurate.

[NTLVictim]

Any idea how we can find out the actual churn figure once the dust settles?

[jcw00]

Originally Posted by holographic

None of these polls use a good enough sample to be anywhere near accurate.

Well it's better than nothing.

[holographic]

Originally Posted by jcw00

Well it's better than nothing.

To be honest I don't think the online polls will reflect anywhere near accurately.

The ones on this forum differ quite a bit to the ones on VM's own website.

But you never know....

[Andrex]

Originally Posted by NTLVictim

Any idea how we can find out the actual churn figure once the dust settles?

Yes - it'll be on the quarterly results for shareholders, which are public access.

The last quarter results actually just came out a few days ago - to quote;

" The company had a net loss of 64,300 telephone subscribers, because of competition and an installation shutdown. Virgin Media said it's changing the way it markets its phone service.


Competition with satellite distributors including BSkyB has intensified, leading to the loss of customers. Burch has said his focus is to have ``positive subscriber growth'' this year and to reduce the company's so-called churn, or customer cancellation rate."

Bit of a stupid thing to say IMHO, as obviously this Sky One thing is going to cause a bit of churn. In an average quarter Virgin Media loose around 2% of their customer base. This is growing year on year (ie it's getting worse). A large part of the reason is Sky's advertising machine.

[N00N00]

Originally Posted by holographic

None of these polls use a good enough sample to be anywhere near accurate.

Very true - also more importantly there are many other options.

For example some people will move to Freeview I expect, or some to a free sat service.

[tekboss]

Well, managed to get an e-mail from VM and they've confirmed that my services have been transfered to the Vip package, saving me about £20 a month.

They've also confirmed that i'm now entitled to a £10 sim card, which i don't want.

However, no mention of the sports channel or the additional set top box that's supposed to be included in the package, and also no mention of talk international or talk mobile.

Just checked the sports channel and nothings been activated and that's been a few hours now.

I've sent off another e-mail but SKY is now beginning to look good as this is dragging on far to long.

[handyman]

Retentions used to be alright at Teesside. They where a good bunch of folks that worked hard to take ownership of problems and take them through till they where sorted out and the customer was happy again. They sorted problems out rather than throw money at them which I'm sure the customer s respected. I used to get handed escallations from retentions (which was directly under faults) and just sort out the priblem with a few phone calls.

untill someone at Virgin understands that the way to good customer service is to have highly trained well paid 'english' staff on the phones things are not going to get better. Swapping about call centres and phone numbers is going to make things worse in the long run. I'll give sky and bt props for haveing 150,151 0800 800 800 (bt) and 08702 40 40 40 (sky) as at least you know the bloody number to call. Most times you know your getting the sky cal centre in fife and the lady I spoke to knew exactly what she was doing even when presented with a few things to trip her up. Sky however use the phillipenes (sp) for thier bb tech support and they know nowt.

---------- Post added at 22:41 ---------- Previous post was at 22:38 ----------

Originally Posted by Kevin.Beaumont

In an average quarter Virgin Media loose around 2% of their customer base. This is growing year on year (ie it's getting worse). A large part of the reason is Sky's advertising machine.

Compare that to the 13% it got to a few years back and it is clear that things are getting better.

[Andrex]

Originally Posted by handyman

Compare that to the 13% it got to a few years back and it is clear that things are getting better.

13%?! Didn't know that. You're right -- it's much improved.

[Chicken]

Originally Posted by holographic

I have seen people posting that their Sky install is over a week away.

I signed up to Sky (via their website) this afternoon before calling VM and it offered me Monday as install date. PERFECT!

I'll be impressed if it actually happens.

[sav112]

dont know all the figures but it takes a bit for me to move. I've been with Virgin/ntl over 15 years ( family thinks its 17) and ive got sky coming on Tuesday to install skydigital.

that says it all!

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by NTLVictim

Any idea how we can find out the actual churn figure once the dust settles?

Both companies are public / listed. This will get published in the interim statements.