Sky are advertising heavily about how amazingly wonderful they are for you when it comes to moving your Sky services to your new home. There do seem to be a lot of negative reports of the moving over on Sky’s own forums and across the interwebz, so I thought I would document my own experience here.
Today we had some good news, we’re moving house and getting the keys on the 1st of June. Although we’re not moving our stuff in on that day, I thought I should get the ball rolling!
I quickly found the ‘Sky Moving’ section of their website. It’s all pretty simple. You login with your Sky ID, tell them the date you are moving, and then tell them where you’re moving to. After entering all your details, it asks you about the services to your new house. So for example if there is a phone socket, who the phone provider is, and if you know the number. Then if there is already a Sky dish, and how many feeds it has, and then the type of house and any parking restrictions.
On the next page you get to choose an installation date (this is when the engineer will come out to sort out your Sky TV installation), then you bung in your contact details and preferred method of contact, and that’s it. They promise to be in touch within 48 hours.
So.. so far so good, the web interface is very nice and simple! Maybe it will all be fine, or maybe it will turn into an epic cluster fuck.. we shall see.
UPDATE – Well it didn’t take long to fuck up! Should’ve guessed it.. So Sky did get back in touch here’s the email :
‘The process of your moving home would involve your line rental and broadband cancelling with 48 working hours once the TV installation had been booked on your Sky account.
Sky would then arrange a call-back with yourself to have the services re-ordered onto your account at your new address which can then take a further minimum 2 weeks or possibly up to 4 weeks to become active.
Unfortunately it is not possible to transfer your telephone number over to your new address therefore we will issue you with a new number.
For Sky to progress with your moving home can you confirm that you are happy with this process by responding to my email or contacting our Home Move team on 08442 410 623′
I was a little confused so asked them if this meant I booked an installation for the future, would my line rental and phone be cancelled within 48 hours of the day I booked installation for or 48 hours of me booking it. I also asked if I could keep my number as I’ll still be in an area served by current exchange. I also asked if they could check what phone services were at my new property. Here’s their response :
‘The answers to your questions are:
1. If you booked for example today it would be 48 hours as of now, Not the date of installation for your TV.
2. Unfortunately no we cant take your telephone number over to your new house as we have to cancel the order then re order it at your new property.
3. We can tell you if there is a working line at the property once we replace the order at your new address.”
Right.. so despite using their wooly and whizzy web service, I’ve already hit a big problem – If I BOOK a TV installation at my new home, within 48 hours they’ll cut off my existing service, and then when the Sky TV is installed at the house they’ll then have to re-order the phone and broadband and that will take 2-4 weeks. Whilst I accept I may need to use my MiFi for a short period of time – but 2-4 weeks?! Both me and the Wife work from home, we NEED a good service.
Come on Sky, why on earth do you boast such a wonderful moving service, and have a great little website for it, when the backend of your operation cannot offer what you are trying to deliver?! I really might have to consider sticking with them. What do you think?
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