Sky Installation no show

NocturnalDonkey

Was suppose to have Sky+ installed on monday. Had the day off work so i could be at home. Then i get a call last night asking if it would be ok to move the installation date forward to today (Saturday) i thought great. The guy was English but with an irish mobile. Given a time of between 12 and 3 for the install. So i wait at home all day. And at 3pm i decide to give Sky a ring. They call the engineer but couldn't get through to him. I guess they left a message cos i get a call from the engineer 5 mins later.

Sounded like he was only out of bed when he rang me, saying that he had a few problems and couldn't make it today and that he would do it on Monday... I'm now so pissed off, a whole day wasted. Why bother moving it forward if they aren't sure they could so it.

Our man in Havana

I am afraid this is typical if you use sky direct. They did that 3 times to me. In the end I cancelled and went to an independant. Job done within a week.

bigpaddy2004

Sounded like he was only out of bed when he rang me

Why say something like that? We're you there standing beside the guy when he called you? No...did'nt think so, you were'nt. You are only starting chineese whisper's. For all of you people out there whom are Sky subscriber's, I would love to have you for just for one day with us in the vans when we are installing Sky Digital. Then you would see what problem's installer's run into from home to home. Installation time is not an exact science. We can never be sure if we are going to be behind time or ahead of time. It's just an eta we give you, 'estimated time of arrival', it is what it is. The building's is something similar to it, problem's do occur. NocturnalDonkey...I really think you should be grateful the installer is going to go out of his way on Monday to complete your installation, normally, he would have you rebook and possibly wait another month or more.

NocturnalDonkey

Why didn't he ring me when he realised he couldn't make, instead of me having to ring looking for him.

About him sounding like only got out of bed, well thats what it sounded like, he could hardly put two words together.

I'm paying for a service, why should i be grateful for someone who doesn't even have the courtesy to ring and say he can't make it, or that he is running late.

Who would have rescheduled the installation for saturday? Sky didn't know that the installation was going ahead today. They still had monday on there system. I'll be surprised if he turns up at the correct time on Monday, if at all.

bigpaddy2004

Why didn't he ring me when he realised he couldn't make, instead of me having to ring looking for him.

The installer is trying to carry out installation's on the day and look after as many people as possible. He is carrying out up to a mixture of 6-10 jobs a day. It's company policy anyway to ring the customer when you're completly finished up for the day, that means in the evening time.

I'm paying for a service, why should i be grateful for someone who doesn't even have the courtesy to ring and say he can't make it, or that he is running late.

When you booked your installation through sky, you would of been told it was an "all day" call. That is in lay man's term's between 8am and 7pm an installer will be calling. He is doing his job by the book as he should.

Who would have rescheduled the installation for saturday? Sky didn't know that the installation was going ahead today. They still had monday on there system. I'll be surprised if he turns up at the correct time on Monday, if at all.

Sierra Communications in Dublin would of had 'pulled' your job forward for installation due to a cancellation. In reality now if the installer does rebook you himself, it's strictly between you and him. i believe he is being curtious. He is trying to save you the pain of going back through the system again.

Our man in Havana

It will be interesting to see if the job gets done on Monday.

bauderline

Hold on a minute ! You have got to be shi**in me !!

The engineer calls the customer to reschedule the install date, gives a specific time window, and then does not show up. Not only that but he does not bother his backside to phone the customer to let him know that he could not make it.

That would have been curtious and the very least the engineer could have done ! Furthermore it should not be considered a "favour" for the engineer to turn up on Monday, it is a service that has been booked, scheduled and payed for. The service should be delivered !

I work in the IT industry and if I treated my customers like this (generally state) my ass would be out of the door at Internet speed !

Less BS please !

NocturnalDonkey

bigpaddy2004 wrote:

When you booked your installation through sky, you would of been told it was an "all day" call. That is in lay man's term's between 8am and 7pm an installer will be calling. He is doing his job by the book as he should.

But he didn't show up at all on the day, how is that doing his job?

If you can't do all the jobs that are scheduled, then why don't you just hire some more people to do them. Even just for the busy periods.

I've been waiting 2 months for this installation.

meatball1

Most sky installer can't use mobile phones,
do u know why ?
to busy putting up, to may systems a day, and doing quick jobs, which result in bad quality work, I know from experience, going back fixing the shoddy work.

DMC

I'm gonna lock this thread for the moment, to stop the comments for now. Its been reschduled for Monday, lets see what happens then.

NocturnalDonkey, if you could PM me or any of the other moderators here on ICDG (namely me, Earthman, Mossy Monk and ICDG) on Monday, to let us know what happened, then we can reopen this thread. You can then post up what happened and everyone else can comment on its outcome.

Until then, hold fire on all sides.

Locked.

NocturnalDonkey

Thanks DMC for reopening.

Well, he didn't turn up before 1pm as he promised. So i just rang sky and they contacted him and he said he's running a bit late with his jobs.

No estimated time given for when he'll be here. So i just have to sit here and wait. The thing is, i have to go out at 4:30. so if he isn't here before then, i'll miss him (if he turns up at all).

clarkbelt

bigpaddy2004 wrote:

The installer is trying to carry out installation's on the day and look after as many people as possible. He is carrying out up to a mixture of 6-10 jobs a day. It's company policy anyway to ring the customer when you're completly finished up for the day, that means in the evening time.

When you booked your installation through sky, you would of been told it was an "all day" call. That is in lay man's term's between 8am and 7pm an installer will be calling. He is doing his job by the book as he should.



Paddy , the carry on of this installer is unacceptable !


It's company policy anyway to ring the customer when you're completly finished up for the day, that means in the evening time.
This is unacceptable !

you would of been told it was an "all day" call.
This is unacceptable !

This is typical of how Sierra Communications carry out Sky installs , why must you try hopelessly to defend these people who have no idea of what customer service means .

NocturnalDonkey

Just rang SKY again, as the guy still hasn't showed up.

They rang him and his phone keeps ringing out. They left him a message to ring me, so i just keep waiting.

JoyPad

Hey all,

Thought I might just tell you my latest experience with an installer and see what you think about it.
I recently moved house and took my LIDL system with me. The house I moved in is a mid-terrace facing south-east, and I had just a few options to consider for installing the dish: the chimney, a special bracket for mounting on the roof tiles, or the wall at the back of the garden. All options were questionable, since an 80cm solid dish could've taken down the chimney in strong winds (so I've been told), and the wall at the back of the garden was just 2m tall at 10m from the house, putting line-of-sight in jeopardy.
I figured the best way to go was to call an installer and have him do a professional assessment of the situation.
Anyway, he got there an hour late, by which time I already left for work. He called me and said the chimney is out of the question dues to winds, and the wall at the back of the garden would also be out of the question due to line-of-sight issues. The only solution, according to him, would have been for me to buy an 80cm mesh dish from him, which he could install on the chimney. Since I wanted to try the wall though, I asked him to install it there, and I would pay his fee regardless whether it worked or not. He eventually agrees to do it, after failing to convince me to purchase the mesh dish, which he tried for another couple of minutes.
I then get another call, about 5 minutes later, and he says my neighbour didn't agree with me putting the dish on that wall. My wife told me afterwards that the neighbour popped up as soon as he started drilling, and that they chatted for a while before he came back to the house and made that phone call. I told him to charge me for the hole he did and leave things as they are. By the way, he charged me 20 euro for a hole.
When I got home, I talked to the neighbour to see what his problem was. He said such a large dish would block all the sun. I barely kept myself from laughing. The shade that my dish produces is no larger than a 60cm dish would produce, and most of it is on my wall. I told him I will put the dish up myself, and let him veto it if he still thinks it's causing him any extra shade. And I haven't heard from him since, even though I put the dish up (about half of it extends above the wall).
Anyway, right now I get Astra and Hotbird with the LIDL dish set on the wall at about 2m from the ground, looking straight at the house from 10m away, even though the "professional assessment" said it would be impossible.

MOD EDIT: Lets take those assumptions out.. thanks...

Cheers,
JP

cgarvey

Relax with the libel there.. sure he was probably out to make a quick buck on the dish sale, but plotting with neighbours to help with the sale is a bit of a stretch... you do raise a good point in the professional isn't always right .. and if you're anyway DIY minded, try it yourself.

.cg

NocturnalDonkey

Its 5:30 now, it will be getting dark soon. Can they install them when it gets dark? Will give SKY a call in a while, to see what happens now. I'm not waiting another few weeks or months.... Its a bloody disgrace... Not even a call from the engineer.

Our man in Havana

I'm afraid its a case of having to have an independant do the job. First you will have to battle with sky to get back what you already paid and then find someone else who will actually do the job.

I am sorry you had to learn the hard way.

NocturnalDonkey

Is it possible to get an independant do the install with the card i already recieved from sky?

cgarvey

NocturnalDonkey wrote:

Its 5:30 now, it will be getting dark soon. Can they install them when it gets dark? Will give SKY a call in a while, to see what happens now. I'm not waiting another few weeks or months.... Its a bloody disgrace... Not even a call from the engineer.

That's disgraceful alright .. if you're still going ahead with it.. seek compesnation, which will probably be in the form of rental credit.. but do ask for it!

.cg

bigpaddy2004

Clarkebelt, im defending Sierra because I work with them. you see Sierra has adopted this policy to tie in with Sky's policy. If an engineer rings a customer at say 2pm in the day to say he/she cannot make it, well then straight away the customer is going to ring Sky and advise them of the situation. Sky will then ring Sierra to tell the engineer its not too late yet to not do the job, even though the engineer may be in the middle of a job or have another one lined up. sky are strange, they just do not understand the way then engineer works out his route. The carry on of the engineer is acceptible, he is doing as he is told to do by the book. But i did say NocturnalDonkey that the engineer was only calling today on his own terms, in reality on saturday you should of had it rebooked again because believe me i know you are going to suffer. Btw what county are you in?

NocturnalDonkey

Sky had it on their computer that Monday was the install date. So i don't know who made the call for the intall to be done on Saturday.

I still had no call from the engineer about not calling today.

Our man in Havana

In big paddys theory, they could noshow a number of times with 1 months wait in between and they would still be "by the book".

Not on at all. Go independant.

Tony

NocturnalDonkey wrote:

Is it possible to get an independant do the install with the card i already recieved from sky?

afraid not as sky will not pay the independent for the cost of the equipment unless the card is ordered using the independents agency number

NocturnalDonkey

SKY told me to ring back in the morning and ask to speak to a supervisor. Hopefully they can do something about the shower of muppets in Sierra Communications. Two days of waiting and not even a phone call at the end of today.... How do you explain that Paddy?

bigpaddy2004

NocturnalDonkey wrote:

SKY told me to ring back in the morning and ask to speak to a supervisor. Hopefully they can do something about the shower of muppets in Sierra Communications. Two days of waiting and not even a phone call at the end of today.... How do you explain that Paddy?

NocturnalDonkey...it is my belief you are not reading my posts correctly, im only going to say it once more to you...so PLEASE...PLEASE...PLEASE read carefully. You ordered Sky over a month ago and were informed the installation would take place on monday 28th of Feb. In the meantime there was a cancellation and your job was pulled forward to Saturday. Now...this does not mean that you have Monday too if all goes wrong because automatically someone gets your place, end of that part.
Next part...installer rang you the day before to confirm, great your booked in. In the mean time his day does not go to plan, and your on the phone to sky all day wondering where he is. Doing this does not mean he is going to drop all tools and run to you. So he ring's you in the afternoon to inform you he cannot make it, it happens...everyday, we are not weather men, nor can we forecast how a day's installations are going. Now at this point he could of told you to reschedule, but instead was going to try and make it too you today, but obviously he didnt. I did tell you this on Saturday, did i not that i doubt it would happen. This is how the system works. Sierra are capeable of carrying out thousand's of installs per month with one or two hick up's along the way. its very hard be perfect, and unfortunatly this time you were on the hard end of the stick.
All the complaining in the world will not do anything for you until you bite your tongue, ring sky and have it rebooked.

Our man in Havana

All the complaining in the world will not do anything for you until you bite your tongue, ring sky and have it rebooked.

And he will have to wait another month and the same thing could happen again.

NocturnalDonkey

I did read your post correctly.

If you are all as busy as you say you are, then why would he try and fit an extra install in that he knew there wasn't much chance of getting it done.

I thought SKY did the scheduling, why did they know nothing about the date being moved forward to Saturday.

This guy messed up two days for me. And you want me to be grateful to him.

He didn't even ring me on saturday until SKY rang him. And he didn't even ring me today. I'm humoured to see that you find this normal for Sierra employees.

bigpaddy2004

When the installer rang you on Saturday to inform you that he could not make it, you obviously must of told him how long you were waiting. In knowing this i believe he felt sorry for you and tried to do his best. This is not normal procedure for an installer to book the job again himself, it was just the installer giving you another chance.
Sky knew nothing of the new appointment because when you ordered it, everything after that is placed into Sierra's hands. If they rebook you, Sky will not know.
And yes bond, it could happen all over again, but i mean thats just the industry that it is.

Our man in Havana

/me bites my tongue:(

NocturnalDonkey

No i never told him that i was waiting 7 weeks. As i said before, he sounded like he just woke up, and as it turned out, just plucked Monday at 1 (Definitely) out of the air.

WHY WOULD HE SAY DEFINITELY IF IT WAS UNLIKELY HE COUND DO IT.

Paddy, do you know this installer?

Tony

bigpaddy2004 wrote:

And yes bond, it could happen all over again, but i mean thats just the industry that it is.

Paddy I've avoided commenting so far because obviously I'm in the trade myself and quite rightly guys here would question my motivation for commenting but I really cant let your comment above go without reply. I do not believe that our industry works this way, the way this guy was treated would be unacceptable by most standards and I think better communication from the installer was warranted. Most people are understanding if you kep them up to date and although they may be disappointed that an install will not take place on a given day at least they should be told this at the earliest opportunity so they can at least make the best use of their own time .

In your defence I know what its like dealing with Sky and it seems to me that situations like this occur because of their less than responsive attitude to customer needs and the difficult situation they place installers and retailers in.

Rule no 1. Customer is always right. Rule no 2. if customer is wrong refer to rule no. 1

bigpaddy2004

probably not there is hundreds out there, what county are you in

bigpaddy2004

Hi Tony, was wondering where you were all right :rolleyes:
Maybe I worded that wrong, what im trying to say is that even though the guy has waited so so long, and lets say he did get it rebooked, chances are it could happen again, no matter if he were a vip customer or not. Anything could go wrong...weather, accident, installer injured...any small problem at all upsets the whole day and in essence cause a chain reaction with everyone. My point to this man is that the installer said he would be there at 1, now how many other people did he give a time too aswell. I mean he cannot look at a job and say em...em..this will take 70 mins to do and 30 mins drive to the next job...you know what i mean. Now i understand where everybody is coming from when they say " why didnt the installer ring to say he was running late"?, if he started doing that he would be on the phone all day to people, thats just not on. If that guy had a waited until near 5 or 6 the installer would of rang him to notify him he cannot make it. It's different for you tony, you are your own boss, people are not waiting as long when they go through you. You are able to book your own jobs to whatever suits you for that day without putting too much pressure on yourself. But these guys are landed with a huge amount of work everyday which is unbelieveable all they can do is "do it by the book" at the end of the day, they are only employees they must do what there boss tells them to do.

Guy:Incognito

SO paddy what your saying is that even though it was the installer who rang and changed the date( without telling sky), then failed to turn up, the customer then loses his original booking, even though sky still have him down for monday?

What sort of shoddy operation are they attempting to run, I say attemping because by your excuses and explanations they arent actually running the thing.

Guy:Incognito

bigpaddy2004 wrote:

no matter if he were a vip customer or not.

Is there an officail list of weho is a "vip" customer and who is to be treated like crap? I ask this because if there is all that will be left is the list of vip customers as people will only take a certain amount of crap before going elswhere. I've seen people calling for boycotts of companies that opperate a lot beeter than the way sierra are coming off.

Guy:Incognito

bigpaddy2004 wrote:

" why didnt the installer ring to say he was running late"?, if he started doing that he would be on the phone all day to people, thats just not on.

Can he not make phone calls while hes doing the less physical parts of the job (settings on the digibox etc). It takes 30 secs - 1min to ring someone.

bigpaddy2004

Stekelly wrote:

Can he not make phone calls while hes doing the less physical parts of the job (settings on the digibox etc). It takes 30 secs - 1min to ring someone.

I never heard such a stupid statement, its grand sitting down there infront of your computer and to say that, try and do it, let me put it like this.
Ok an installer is given 9j obs to do tomorrow. First thing he has to do is ring them before 9 am. 9 calls in the morning averaging 2 mins per call =18 mins. Right he gets through 5 people in that day, and will have to ring them again to get directions, averaging 5 mins per call that ends up being 25 mins. Now he has the daunting task of ringing the remainder 4 to tell them he cannot come, that is another 20 mins on the phone. All in all he has spent an average of an hour on the phone and you expect him to start ringing people during the day to tell them he is running late that will be at least another half hour doing that especially when people get on there high horse and keep him on the phone even longer to explain himself.

bigpaddy2004

Stekelly wrote:

SO paddy what your saying is that even though it was the installer who rang and changed the date( without telling sky), then failed to turn up, the customer then loses his original booking, even though sky still have him down for monday?

What sort of shoddy operation are they attempting to run, I say attemping because by your excuses and explanations they arent actually running the thing.

My good man we carry out nearly 4,000 jobs per month with a 94% success rate. There is a lot of organisation behind that for each one of those jobs to be completed. I think you are trying to dictate to me about something you know absolutely nothing about or have ever experienced. Ok you tell me how it should be done. Fyi I am one of the people behind it who keeps things running everyday

Guy:Incognito

bigpaddy2004 wrote:

My good man we carry out nearly 4,000 jobs per month with a 94% success rate. There is a lot of organisation behind that for each one of those jobs to be completed. I think you are trying to dictate to me about something you know absolutely nothing about or have ever experienced. Ok you tell me how it should be done. Fyi I am one of the people behind it who keeps things running everyday

Well you say they can turn up anytime between 8am and 7pm? so surely they could have fitted him in somewhere in the 22 hours (saturday and monday) TBH customers couldnt give a **** what excuses the people they pay to do a job have for not doing it, its not their problem. What is there problem is the loss of earnigns and/or holiday days that they have to take off to accomodate this. This really smacks of "we have your money and you have no option to get the service elswhere (as tony, i think, said another company wont get the install fee from sky cos it was arranged through them) so we'll do it when were good and ready and we couldnt care less what disruption it causes you.


And btw, you say they service 6-10 calls a day so if they had to call all these people(obvioulsy they wouldnt) to say they are being delayed, then it would add a max of 10-15 mins to the day, not much of an ask imo. They could also do a few of the call while en route to one of the calls.

bigpaddy2004

The customer does not have to wait in all day. The idea of the installer ringing them in the morning is to give them an eta whether it be an AM call or PM call. And about the phone calls, im saying no more about it, try it first then come back to me. i think I have said enough now on this topic because it just does not seem to be sinking in with people.

Guy:Incognito

Its bit bit late ringing someone at 9 in the morning to say whether it'll be an am or pm call. Most people will give a few days notice to their jobs that they need a day off, so its pretty irrelenvant at that stage, the least he could do is turn up at some stage over the course of the 2 days. And he hardly needs to be on the phoone to everyone for 2 r 3 minutes. I dont spend that much time on the phone talking to people I know never moind some guy who is coming to install my satellite dish. I mean a quick call to say "hi, just letting you know im not going to make it/going to be with you at a certain time".

And I do have a little bit of experience in that I do some installation work on home entertainment equipment as well as dealing with the public all day so I know all about peopleneeding things done/delivered on time.

Tony

bigpaddy2004 wrote:

It's different for you tony, you are your own boss, people are not waiting as long when they go through you. You are able to book your own jobs to whatever suits you for that day without putting too much pressure on yourself. But these guys are landed with a huge amount of work everyday which is unbelieveable all they can do is "do it by the book" at the end of the day, they are only employees they must do what there boss tells them to do.

this is a fair point Paddy but would you agree that maybe the number of jobs booked per day is overly ambitious given that as you point out its very difficult to know how long individual jobs take?

meatball1

simple answer,
sign up with independant installation company,
ie : vsatc.com, satellite .ie
proper job done, by the experts.
no messing about.

bigpaddy2004

Could'nt agree more Tony, but it all boil's down to one thing, Sky...they are the ones whom do the bookings not us. Since the new year the only thing putting the strain on the system is the upgrading of Sky plus. If Sky would only allow agent's like yourself to do a Sky plus upgrade, Sky plus with multiroom or extrabox for the same price as themselves would take alot of pressure off of everyone, Sierra, installer, customer. Most would go to independant's.

Stekelly you are 100% wrong about the phone calls. I do it everyday...does'nt work like that, people wont let you off the phone that easy it just goes on and on. For instance my mobile phone is only used for Sky work. I have the highest package on it with 400 free minutes and it still costs me €400+ per month, so just turn that into minutes. We dont get the work orders until that night, so how can we ring the customers before hand to let them know 2 or 3 days before hand when we will be calling?

NocturnalDonkey

bigpaddy2004 wrote:

My good man we carry out nearly 4,000 jobs per month with a 94% success rate

So thats 240 unsatified customers every month???

How does the engineer decide who doesn't get done? Is it the people at the end of his queue? Well if i was given a time of 12-3 on saturday and 12:30 to 1pm on Monday, surely i wouldn't have been at the end of the queue for that day.

Tony

meatball1 wrote:

simple answer,
sign up with independant installation company,
ie : vsatc.com, satellite .ie
proper job done, by the experts.
no messing about.

Thanks for the plug but I'm currently not doing sky installs because they are so far behind with payments

bigpaddy2004

NocturnalDonkey wrote:

So thats 240 unsatified customers every month???

How does the engineer decide who doesn't get done? Is it the people at the end of his queue? Well if i was given a time of 12-3 on saturday and 12:30 to 1pm on Monday, surely i wouldn't have been at the end of the queue for that day.

Every engineer is different in the way he/she does it. Some set out a route in the morning work the furthest away first and work your way back home. I myself with every chance I get I would do the people who have not got Sky at all first, people who are just upgrading are not the worst off at least at the end of the day they can sit down and watch tv.

Tony...it looks like Sky are biteing everyone at this stage

NocturnalDonkey

bigpaddy2004 wrote:

Every engineer is different in the way he/she does it. Some set out a route in the morning work the furthest away first and work your way back home. I myself with every chance I get I would do the people who have not got Sky at all first, people who are just upgrading are not the worst off at least at the end of the day they can sit down and watch tv.

Yeah, i've been stuck with 3 channels for the last 2 months in this house and 6 months in my last house.... I'm beginning to crack up.. Thats why i'm so frustrated that it could be another few weeks or months.....

bigpaddy2004

Just a minute, are you in Co. Kildare by any chance

PoolDude

I ordered SKY + about three weeks ago, I was offered a date last week for the install (i.e. within 2 weeks) but asked for yesterday as I was out of the country last week. I read this thread while it was locked and wondered what would happen.

This was my 3rd install (Sky, Sky Multiroom and now Sky + with Multiroom). I got a call yesterday shortly after 8am saying the guy from Sierra would be here between 10am and 12pm. He arrived at 9.50am. He completed a very tidy job including the set up of SKY + and the relocation of the existing Digi box). He was very courteous throughout even letting me know when he was going to be drilling so that he would not frighten my two small kids. Tidied up after himslef and away he went.

All of my installs have been performed by Sierra. All have been awaited with a level of anxiety (purely from reading this forum). All have been performed to my complete satisfaction. I would not normally post something like this as I tend to vent when needed and not be so hot on the praise but damn it, it isn't all bad with those guy's.

NocturnalDonkey

bigpaddy2004 wrote:

Just a minute, are you in Co. Kildare by any chance

Yes i am.

Pooldude, glad to hear everything went grand for you.