SKY vs Cable

[gazzae]

Originally Posted by m419

Oh and did I mention, BT Yahoo customer service and the £1 per minute techinical support is in india.

LOL.

From the BT Yahoo site - not sure the link will work...
http://btybb.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/bt..._created=&p_sp

Customer Support:
0845 600 7030

Open 24 hours a day, calls are charged at local rate.


Any chance of you doing some research before you rant?

[andygrif]

Originally Posted by m419

I enquired about getting a new line into a property on someone elses behalf and the sales rep told me it's £99.99! !!

Well it's 75 quid now

Originally Posted by m419

BT's customer service and sales are a disgrace. When you are transfered, you are placed in a queue for about 25 minutes and then when you do become connected to an advisor, they pass you onto different departments which includes more queueing!!!

Which was exactly the situation that I described above, only it was ntl and it was TWO HOURS to finally get through to the correct person. One call, five people, two hours.

Originally Posted by m419

BT's caller display is only free when you register with BT privacy,

That's free too, and IMHO a good service (it's the same as registering with the TPS, which I am anyway).

Originally Posted by m419

Anonymous caller rejection is £4 per month on BT! £4 per month just to have a recorded message saying 'please call again without witholding your number'.

Why do you keep grinding this axe? It's one of the things where BT is more expensive. As I said before, there will always be some things where BT is cheaper and some things where cable are cheaper. That's the way it is.

Originally Posted by m419

Oh and BT don't charge for their itemised bills because they never send them out on time and make loads of mistakes on them!

I don't really see the point in trying to have sensible discussion with you when you come out with thing like that.

Originally Posted by m419

I also noticed that it's mostly customers in particular areas that are affected by NTL customer service. Ever tried contacting them by email?

Yes I have, or rather via their website. I waited for one month for a reply. I followed up, stamped my feet a bit and another three weeks after that I got a reply that had nothing to do with the original enquiry.

Originally Posted by m419

Oh and did I mention, BT Yahoo customer service and the £1 per minute techinical support is in india.

No you didn't. No it isn't. And just becuase a call centre is in India doesn't make it bad. NTL still have theirs and are poor. Powergen's take the biscuit as being the most blood-pressure raising and Dell's is rather good - all in my personal experience of course.

Originally Posted by gazzae

Any chance of you doing some research before you rant?

Amen to that. I don't wish to sound rude about the O/P but this entire thread is based on outdated, misinformed or just plain made-up information.

I know dealings with customer service people from all companies is going to vary from person to person and each individual has different levels of standards that they expect. Personally mine are very high - I don't suffer fools glady, and when I enounter them on the end of a phone line I tend to lose the will to live. I'm not saying that Sky is better than NTL, I'm not saying BT is better than Wight Cable or whoever.

I am saying that the standards offered by ntl are consistently below par, and have been for the nine years that I've been with them. They have improved in some areas, they have got worse in others - but they consistently disapoint.

Now it's all very well having the debate on good and bad levels of service, but using a tiny element of the pricing policies of each is fairly pointless. Comparing any company with Wight Cable is fairly pointless for all but the 57,000 houses there (24.9 million less than the rest of the UK) and predicting the end of the largest digital TV platform with no insight or basis whatsoever is also rather silly IMHO.

In fact just doing the quick sums here now...Sky's churn is about 10% right now. They're very unhappy about that and are about to do some drastic things to stop it. But assume they didn't. Assume also that their 10% churn carries on for the next 10 years, and also assume that in that 10 years not one single new subscriber comes online. At the end of 10 years with 10% churn and no new subs....Sky would still have more customers than ntl do now. Makes you think doesn't it?

Nighty night.

[m419]

I called them the other day and it was india!

Originally Posted by gazzae

LOL.

From the BT Yahoo site - not sure the link will work...
http://btybb.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/bt..._created=&p_sp

Customer Support:
0845 600 7030

Open 24 hours a day, calls are charged at local rate.


Any chance of you doing some research before you rant?

[gazzae]

Originally Posted by m419

I called them the other day and it was india!

If NTL/Telewest are so much better why are you using BT Yahoo?

[m419]

I don't, I was ringing on behalf of my friend who has a hearing problem and has difficulty using the phone.

Originally Posted by gazzae

If NTL/Telewest are so much better why are you using BT Yahoo?

[gazzae]

Originally Posted by m419

I don't, I was ringing on behalf of my friend who has a hearing problem and has difficulty using the phone.

Fair enough.

Hope you took note of the number above so the next time you call for a friend you won't run them up a large bill.

[andygrif]

Originally Posted by m419

I don't, I was ringing on behalf of my friend who has a hearing problem and has difficulty using the phone.

So you're saying that you've based your entire thread on a single conversation with BT Yahoo?

[orangebird]

Originally Posted by gazzae

Are you sure about that?

I thought the family pack from NTL was £19.50, with the £10.50 phone rental on top - even if you don't want it.

EDIT: If fact if you look here http://www.home.ntl.com/icat/television it says the family pack is £19.50, but hidden down at the bottom is... *Price excludes £10.50 phone line rental which you must take with your TV Pack

If it's 'hidden', how did you manage to find it?

[gazzae]

Originally Posted by orangebird

If it's 'hidden', how did you manage to find it?

hidden
A adjective
2 hidden, obscure
difficult to find; "hidden valleys"; "a hidden cave"; "an obscure retreat"

[andygrif]

Originally Posted by andygrif

So you're saying that you've based your entire thread on a single conversation with BT Yahoo?

Well now I can base something I've said on a single call to BT too:

Today I ordered up my BT line for new-house. I was actually routed to Customer Servicesas all their Sales department lines were too busy (I wonder why?).

I spoke to an extremely friendly lady called Anne, she went through everything, didn't try to oversell anything, didn't push me into silly calling plans that I don't need, and did offer me all the free stuff available such as 1571, free caller display, friends and familiy (apparently now you can choose between giving BT your ten numbers for a 10% discount, plus 'best friend' 20% off, or leave it to them to figure out the 5 most dialled numbers that month and apply your 10% to them instead, plus you still nominate a best friend for 20% discount...clever stuff) and we went though all the things like being ex-directory and witholding caller ID.

The FREE call took about 20 minutes including all the line and credit checking and at the end of it she summarised abolsutely everything that was going to happen, all the features and the monthly charge and gave me my new number.

I'm not saying it's going to be like this in future, just how it has been so far - and so far I am extremely impressed. BT 1 - NTL 0.

[m419]

I sure will!

As I use Telewest's Blueyonder for internet, the technical support line can now be called for free if you have a telewest line. You dial 151 and select the broadband internet fault option which directs you to the technical support line.

BT still makes money out of the 0845 and 0870 numbers.

One problem with BT and NTL is that their customer services close at 8pm and don't open on Sunday except for some NTL areas. Telewest customer service available between 8am and 12 midnight 7 days a week with 24 hour fault management and technical support. This why customer service queueing has always been low with these opening times at Telewest.

BT and NTL provide a very brief fault management after 8pm which is stupid!

And SKY probably has about 2 customer service staff all night long and all day sunday making money from it's 0870 number by holding 50 people in queue and paying it's employees sheckles!

Originally Posted by gazzae

Fair enough.

Hope you took note of the number above so the next time you call for a friend you won't run them up a large bill.

[gazzae]

Originally Posted by m419

And SKY probably has about 2 customer service staff all night long and all day sunday making money from it's 0870 number by holding 50 people in queue and paying it's employees sheckles!

I called Sky on saturday night as my Sky+ Box is broken. The call was answered within 5 minutes, and after a 10 minute call I have an engineer coming out on Saturday (first day that suited me) to replace it. The girl on the phone also told me that If I called back after the engineer had been they would give me a refund for the weeks loss of service.

[m419]

Yeah after spending 15 minutes on the phone totalling £1. Just wait until next year when the contract has ended and see what will happen when the box brakes down then, you will be charged for any maintainance.

Originally Posted by gazzae

I called Sky on saturday night as my Sky+ Box is broken. The call was answered within 5 minutes, and after a 10 minute call I have an engineer coming out on Saturday (first day that suited me) to replace it. The girl on the phone also told me that If I called back after the engineer had been they would give me a refund for the weeks loss of service.

[orangebird]

Originally Posted by gazzae

hidden
A adjective
2 hidden, obscure
difficult to find; "hidden valleys"; "a hidden cave"; "an obscure retreat"

What's 'hidden' or 'obscure' about size 12 font? Someone needs new glasses... http://www.home.ntl.com/?

[gazzae]

Originally Posted by m419

Yeah after spending 15 minutes on the phone totalling £1. Just wait until next year when the contract has ended and see what will happen when the box brakes down then, you will be charged for any maintainance.

I've had Sky+ for 18 months. Oh look a free repair and a refund.

Sky aren't stupid. Most times they will waive the £65 fee. They are hardly going to let you cancel to save themselves the £65 and lose £40 odd every month.