It has been 6 weeks since I excitedly requested my Sky Q upgrade. It’s taken 3 engineer visits and 9 calls to reach impasse. Is this customer management par excellence? Not on your Nelly.
I was lured into the 2 Terabyte high definition multi screen promise after the distraction of the constant whirring of my 8-year-old skybox during a crucial scene in Game of Thrones. I thought I had subconsciously started to grind my teeth when John Snow was slaughtering the masses, but no, it was my trusty grey box grinding its gizzards.
The Sky sales rep assured me my apartment block in London was set up for Q and on that promise a date for installation was set. So excited was I at the prospect of the new viewing delights that I replaced my old TV to enhance the Q experience further. My shiny new curved 42inch HD TV sat unveiled and I waited in anticipation.
When the Sky Engineer turned up on installation day he broke the bad news that he could not proceed. Peering into the spaghetti of wires in a cupboard outside my apartment he embarked on an installation tutorial to explain what needed to be done via my facilities management team. Why did Sky say the Q service was available when clearly it was not, I pondered?
My facilities management company eventually fixed the problem and 3 weeks later I excitedly called Sky to set up another visit. Only Sky had cancelled the order and was not able to reinstate my original offer. After a 55-minute call Sky finally reinstated the original offer and set a new installation date for the following week. Hurrah near the finishing line.
The day of the second installation attempt arrived. I was invited by the Sky Engineer to my cupboard of wires yet again to learn that a DCSR switch to enable Q to work was now missing. Don’t ask me what that is. Apparently all Sky Engineers (most of which are outsourced 3rd party providers) have been trained to install this switch for Q services, but due to cost cutting don’t carry stock on their vans. Why didn’t the Sky engineer tell me about the switch requirement first time around I groaned.
So here I am – with old grey faithful whirring away, a new shiny redundant TV in the corner gathering dust and no resolution date between my facilities management company, Sky and their outsourced installation provider. My excitement has been replaced with frustration and the customer experience quashed.
I can’t help wondering if Sky launched Q in 2016 and it is their biggest new product in years, how can such poor communication and coordination exist when launching a new product I ask. Why should the customer be the conduit for installation snags in apartment blocks and wait over 6 weeks for a product? Come on Sky – just deliver what you promise, on time, in full.