Sky TV (Offers and Advice)

[KHAN]

I work for Sky TV, currently working on the 'Retentions' Team. This is the team you speak to when your looking to cancel your services or are speaking to hoping to get a better offer to keep your services going.

I'm going to start posting any Family & Friends offers I've got, and advice I can give to get yourself a better deal with the company.

 

[KHAN]

New Customers: £25 per month for 12months is currently the best offer I have, that gives you the complete TV Package consisting of;

Family Bundle, All basic channels in HD Quality including the TV Boxsets and On-Demand.

Free HDw Sky Box. The latest HD/3D Box which is wireless built in to download all the On-Demand content.

Free Install.

Message me for the code and phone number you need to get this deal.

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Existing Customers: I have various offers from everything from Movies/Sports, Broadband, Multiscreen, Sky Go Extra, Premiuim HD etc. These offers change all the time and are exclusively for our 'Outbound' team which call customers offering these offers which you cannot get if you called into Sky or went onto the website.

 

[KHAN]

I'm going to give some advice regarding Retentions, because a lot of the people who call me go completely the wrong way about it and end up getting stone walled from me and leaving dissapointed....

First off remember the person your speaking to takes about about a hundred calls a day, with each person basically saying exactly the same thing, it's a game and for you to go away happy both of you need to 'Win' from this call.

1) Be polite, the agent doesn't HAVE to give you an offer, they dont really care whether you cancel your services or not but their bonus is based on getting a certain percentage of people to not cancel their services. And most people are only calling to get some money off so if an agent doesn't like you they can easily let you cancel and make up the numbers on the next calls.

2) Be Patient, dont call when your in the car or in a hurry as this call is going to take an average of 20 minutes mainly because the agent has a call structure which they have to follow in order to meet their bonus requirements. If they dont ask certain questions or read certain information out to you then it's potentially going to cost them a months bonus, if your not going to allow them to get these things done they are not going to do their best for you , they will either not give you any offers or they will not give you their best offers.

3) Dont threaten/Demand. If the first words out of your mouth are either 'Give me this/that or im going to goto *insert competitor here'* or 'I've had letters from my door from competitors offering much cheaper prices' then it's going to make the agent argumentative, rather than trying to help you out it's going to turn into an argument about price comparisons or the difference in services.

But first, what most people get wrong is....Get through to the right department!

Cancellations;

If your out of contract for your TV then the team you need to be speaking to are the cancellations team, not downgrades. Tell them that you want to cancel your whole package either because you've seen better offers elsewhere or because your not watching the TV and they will give you an offer on the whole package to reduce the costs and stick you in another contract.

Downgrades;

If your in contract for anything this is a trickier game, first off remember that you cannot just say 'I dont want to cancel anything I just want it cheaper' as this isn't going to go anywhere, the agent is ONLY allowed to make an offer based on what your not in contract with and say your looking to cancel. If you have Movies/Sports you can tell them you want to cancel these and they will make you an offer to discount them, if you have Multiscreen tell them your thinking about cancelling that and you can get an offer on that too, you want to work on the highest value packages based on 3 criteria...

1) DTV (Digital Television) this comprises of Basic TV (Original, Variety, Family) and Premiums which are Movies/Sports. You never get good deals on the Basic TV so Movies/Sports are the things you want to be discussing here. Movies/Sports are £35 a month, Half price for 6months is a standard good offer usually available. You can only expect £2-3 a month off basic TV and that's on a good day.

2) Products, This includes Mutiscreen and HD. Multiscreen is the highest value product here so that's your target if you have it. HD is worth £5.25 per month Multiscreen is 11.25. Half price Mutiscreen for 6/12months is usually available.

3) Comms, This is your Line Rental and Broadband. This is always a good one as Sky is competing highly with other providers for these services so you can usually get a good offer on these. Line rental half price for 12months or a recontract on the BB free for a year is possible.

But remember, you can only have ONE offer on each of these criteria, the system will not allow you to 'Stack offers' so you need to get the best one on each of the three.

 

[KHAN]

Dinzi, that's actually a pretty good offer, based on what you have. As I said in the long post we can only work with the extras on the account. £45 is about as good as your going to get i'm afraid.

Camalot
If your doing a 'Home-Move' they will often charge you to move your services, if your out of contract the best way to go about it is to either;

Go through to cancellations, say you want to cancel your services, tell them your moving house and dont want to take it with you and they should offer you free home-move and a deal to keep your account

or

Cancel your account, re-open it at your new address and get a new customer offer with free install and a new HD Skybox.

Meatball if you want to PM me your A/C number and/or details and i'll have a look at the account for you and let you know.

Giggz Have a read of my long post, yes definately you should be able to get your Multiscreen half price for a year and if you have Movies/Sports you should be able to get that half price for 6months.

 

[KHAN]

Jano

Usually they would offer you a discount off Movies/Sports to stop you cancelling them, unless as I said you already had some kind of offer on the TV already in which case they cant give another offer. If they have already cancelled those channels off you can only wait for an offer to be sent to you to put those channels back on. Keeping an eye on your offers on 'MySky' through the Sky.com website (if your registered there) is a good way, the Sky page on Facebook also gives some good offers too. As the HD is only 5.25 a month there isn't much of a saving to be had there and there isn't always an offer available to give out on that. Phone/BB is a good route to go, call up and say your considering cancelling as you've seen better offers elsewhere and you want to know if they can offer you a better deal to stay with them before you put the order through with another company. (When you move BB you order with another company and they cancel your services with sky on your behalf so they know this is their chance to give you an offer before they loose you)

Giggz Yeah you just phone up, say something like you've changed your hours at work and need to make savings or reduce your package. As i've said the people on the other end know most people are calling to get deals and their bonus is based on you calling saying you want to cancel but go away taking nothing off so it works well for both you and the advisor. Downgrades/Cancellations cant call you you need to call in yourself i'm afriad


TheHitMan-1973 Sometimes it depends on the person you get through to, it doesn't hurt to try again. The departments close at 8pm so a good way is to call about 7:30-7:40 as they dont want to be hanging on the phone past finishing time so will prob. throw you some good offers just so they dont have to hang around past finish time As I said it does depend on what you have with Sky and what offers you already have.

 

[KHAN]

Was it a 12month offer Hitman? 35% isn't too bad an offer tbh, not from you calling up and asking for a discount anyway. As I said it's a bit of a game and you need to accept that you've got to play it a certain way. It's not that the advisors dont want to give you a better offer it's just that Sky have only given them certain offers they are able to give you. We dont make them up ourselves we just click on the offers that come up.

For the BEST offers, I would advise to make sure your contact details are upto-date (Phone, Email Etc.) then cancel your account and you should get a call just before the account is actually cancelled making you a really good deal to stop it happening from the Winback team. Or you need to let it all cancel off and wait for a call from them to re-activate the account. It's a pain but you can get deals where you pay just 25% of the normal prices this way.

 

[KHAN]

TALON1973

Any offers they send you in the post are called 'Mailshots' and are saved on your account so that when you call in the advisor clicks on them and applies the offer. You just need to call in and say you recieved a Mailshot for the offer.

SUNNY

I dont see anything in my private message folder? Maybe you sent it through trust and it's in my email which I will check later when I can.

 

[KHAN]

Sorry peeps, cant help with any issues where I have to access your Sky account as it records any agents who do so as a 'footprint' on the account but am happy to advise any offers or give general advise on how to get things done.

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Update on some new offers available;

12Months FREE UPGRADE TO FAMILY PACKAGE (12month Recontract) which is ually £36pm.

(Basic channels in HD, all basic TV channels, plus the Boxsets of TV series available through the On-Demand service) This is available to all customers whatever package your on (Except if your already on Family obviously)

If you are currently on 'Original' bundle which is £21.50 you will get free upgrade saving £14.50 per month (£174 a year)

If currently on 'Variety' package which is £30 you save £6 (£72 a year)

*They are also offering 12months free Broadband Unlimited if you order this for the first time at the same time as upgrading to Family package, or if you already have the Family package.

*If you have a non-wifi box, or you are unable/unwilling to connect using an ethernet cable then you can ask the advisor about getting a Free Wireless On-Demand Dongle. Some account are eligable to get a free one some are not, always worth asking!

MULTISCREEN

If you used to have Multiscreen with sky in the last year or 2 Sky are now sending out 'Mailshots' (letters) offering to turn the service back on and are even offering a free (Wireless) Sky+ HDw Box and free Install (if you need it in a different room)

Also if you are upgrading to the family package and taking Multiscreen for the first time you can get a free 2TB HDw SkyBox (£499 RRP) or you can buy one for £49 if you already have Family package.

SKY ASIA PACK

Offering the Asian channels, Zee, Sony, B4U Movies, ARY Digital etc.

Usually £15 per months, currently on offer for £5 per month for 12months. Anyone who doesn't already have the package can get this offer, or they will prob. offer it to you if you are calling speaking to the downgrades team about removing it.

BROADBAND

Half Price Broadband Unlimited for 12months for new customers, or Free for 12months if you have or are upgrading to the Family package. (Usually £7.50per month but going up to £10 per month for new customers shortly)

3month Half Price MUTV, Chelsea TV, Liverpool TV. (Usually £7 per month)

Sky Go Extra 2months FREE

 

[KHAN]

Skaif

75% is difficult to get, usually that's the kind of offer you might get if you've cancelled your account and Sky has rung you just before or just after your notice period is up, but as long as you are out of contract it's always worth calling in and saying something along the lines of 'My current offer is about to expire and I dont think I watch enough TV to justify keeping the account open at normal prices' and see what they can offer you keep the account going. Just remember my point about saying you want to cancel the account to get through to the actual cancellations team not just the downgrades team. With TV you can always give your notice to cancel and call up anytime before the 31days notice saying you changed your mind. Hitmans point about 35% off not being enough I dont really agree with, Sky is a luxury if you like the service you took it out for a reason knowing the normal prices so %35 less than what you thought it was going to be isn't at all bad. I've used the same supermarket for 20 years and never been offered that much off my shop, my Hairdresser has never offered me that off a haircut etc etc.

GinG

Yeah 60% off plus a £100 credit is a great offer, about as good as it gets tbh! Boxes are always difficult, i'm not sure what options the cancellation team have on that tbh give them a bell see what they can do, you can always get one used from Gumtree etc.

Jonesiani

Do you already have a % offer on your account? Sky go extra is usaully £5ppm and the Family with Sports should be £71. As i've said you cannot have more than 1 offer at the same time on your account but if you dont then Half Price Sports for 3Months is available, and they are still offering Sky Sports for £17ppm for 12months (Non-Contractual) plus Half Price Sky Go Extra for 6months. These are 'Downgrade offers' obviously if your out of contract you are better off saying you want to cancel the full TV account and being put through past downgrades to the actual cancellations team to see if you can get a % offer off the whole account to stay with Sky.

 

[KHAN]

Still bit steep on demand a lot of smart tv's have on demand and in HD and for basic channels there not much different to freeview

It depends on what you watch I guess, channels like Sky Atlantic arn't available anywhere else (In America they pay £21 a month for that channel alone, it's just called HBO channel there) Sky1 and The Documetaries are usually a good watch and if you got kids the cartoon/music channels are a must. Smart TV's get things like BBC iPlayer, ITV Catchup etc. but if you look at the prices of getting the actual Box Sets of TV series like Game of Thrones, 24, ETC. are going to set you back a few hundred quid.

 

[KHAN]

Hi Khan
Am currently with sky for just my phone and BB,no fibre here or likely to be
Been with you for about 5 years +
Costs are now £31+pennies per month,which is seeming a bit high
Any idea/guestimates of what I could negotiate it down to?
Am happy to stay with sky but Plusnet is also looking pretty good price wise

Don`t need or want TV as we have Freesat and Freeview

Problem here is your line rental is £16.40 a month, you might be able to get an offer on it but they dont give them out often as Sky basically pays this out to Openzone etc. which does maintenance on all the phone lines, Sky does not actually profit from this but occasionally will give you an offer so that you stay with them rather than go elsewhere.

If your paying £31 then I'm guessing your Broadband is actually 'Connect' which is actually a BT Broadband product. We lease it if there is no Sky Exchange in your area and Sky actually makes a loss on it. They pay more to BT to get this than they charge you to have it because again they would rather you be a Sky customer rather than a BT one so they take the hit.

I have seen them occasionally give out offers to make Connect the same costs as Sky BB Unlimited which is 7.50 (Connect is 17) if your out of contract best thing to do is give them a ring, say you want to cancel your BB so you get through to the proper cancellation line and if they dont offer you anything give your notice and wait to see if they either make you an offer there and then or call you within a week or 2 to make you an offer. You can safely call back within 20days and say you've changed your mind if they dont. (Cancel notice is actually 31days but there is a point where it is too late to stop it being cancelled 20days is a safe time to say you changed your mind)

 

[KHAN]

I'm on essentially the base level pack (no extra channels) but I do pay for the HD channels. Last year I managed to get that discounted down to £20 a month however that discount has now ended. Am I likely to be able to get anything better this time? Going to give them a call today about it. Not really looking to upgrade to additional channels etc, just want to keep what I have.

Forgot to say, I think I'm on one of the older legacy bundles because although I just get mostly the base channels I think I also get the F1 channel and all of the on-demand content.

So your basically paying £11.25 a month just to get the F1 Channel and the Sky1/Atlantic channels in HD. Again, being on the base pack means you wont get any offers from 'Downgrades' on that, you might be able to get an offer to keep the HD legacy though, 6Months half price (saving 5.62 at least) if your out of contract you've got to go down the 'I want to cancel the whole account because i'm not watcing enough TV to justify paying for Sky so I'm going to change to Freeview' route and see if you can get a % off the Original pack.

 

[KHAN]

Hey Khan,

I have never been on Sky mainly due to the costs involved and whether or not it would be worthwhile for me. What is the best deal that is available for new customers that includes TV, Phone and Broadband?

Thanks

I've got codes so that you get

£25 for 12months (whole contract) entire DTV package, That's the Family package (All base channels + On-Demand Box-Sets + HD) All of the Sky Movies channels and all of the Sports Channels.

It's £16.40 for Line Rental (No offer on that)

£7.50 per months for Sky Broadband Unlimited (Phone line Internet) Currently offering it 12months Free for new customers.

Free HD Wireless Sky+ Box
Free Installation.

That's £41.40 per month for the whole Sky package. (Usually £95.90)

Let me know if you want a code.

 

[KHAN]

Thanks mate I would really want Unlimited Fibre which I should have mentioned. Do you know what the cost of that would be instead of normal broadband?

EDIT: And really would need unlimited calls as that's what we have now. Sorry!

Sky Fibre Unlimited is normally £20 a month but they are offering it for £10 a month for 6months atm. The Talk Unlimted package is £5 per month.

So;

£56.40 for 6months,
£66.40 for remaining 6months.

Usually £113.40

It is a one off cost of £6.95 for delivery of the router which will go onto your first bill.

They are changing the Sky Talk packages soon to include free Mobile calls, but that's a couple of months on and would cost you an extra £3 a month if you decide you want to take that option.

 

[KHAN]

Yeah it's 40mbps BB Fibre, tbf to Sky they dont do any traffic management or slowing down in peak hours so it's prob. the best Fibre service around atm. Doesn't get the mega speeds of Virgin o/c but you never get those headline speeds in the real world anyway.

Yeah that's everything all in m8, All the TV packages including the premiums, at the end of the 12months best thing to do is call into the cancellation line and say you were given a really good price but now it's run out you want to cancel as you could not afford those prices and see what offer they give you carry it on

 

[KHAN]

I'm looking to get Sky when I move to a new house in a couple of weeks. Is this the best offer?

Free Sky+ HD 2TB Box = £20 a month (for Original) + £10 one-off fee

Can I also add the Broadband for £3.75 a month offer? (area doesn't have fibre yet)
And will Sky install a phone line for me?

As I said a couple of posts up I have codes for £25 for a year the WHOLE tv package including movies and sports, free box and install.

Sky will install a new phone line for free (£120 with BT) and they are now doing Broadband for a year for free

 

[KHAN]

That's amazing.
Can you email me the code please pal? I can't log in to trust because of the special character in my username.

Sent to your email

 

[KHAN]

Khan,

you have any codes for existing customers ?

There usually is but nothing atm sorry bud will keep it updated and let you know when something comes in.

 

[KHAN]

I know Miss has kinda taken over this thread but if anyone wants any half price for a year sky tv offers let me know

 

[KHAN]

I need some advice,

We have a brand new concrete driveway and no sky install / dish.

How would they install my sky and broadband?? Can't see any points going to the house.

They place a dish on the wall of the house, and run cables from the dish to the room you want the sky in, it doesn't require a feed from outside the property just the dish and the cables to the skybox. Companies like virgin need to run a fibre cable from the street which is what your thinking, but Sky uses satallites so nothing needs to come up your drive