Any Price Rise is Regrettable

This morning I got this note from the milkman!

So my daily pinta went up by not 1p or 2p but 3 pence a pint two days ago. Couching this news in apologies doesn’t make  it any easier to take!

What justification do they have for such a massive price rise? Are the cows producing less milk? And wouldn’t have been nice to have been notified in advance so that I could make the choice of telling them to take a running jump!

Having milk delivered is so much more convenient and it comes in proper bottles which is better for the environment so I know I will accept it but for them to make this assumption really makes my blood boil!

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Politicians & Twitter

When the candidates for leader of the Labour Party were announced what seems like years ago now so long and drawn out was the process, I decided to follow them all on Twitter. I hoped that I would be able to get a picture of the candidates outside of the rhetoric and be able to form an opinion of them as people.

Why am I disappointed that it didn’t happen? Most of the tweets from all five candidates consisted of saying “Thanks for your support!” ” Come and meet a b c d or e at such and such place” or how rewarding it was to attend events such as from Ed Balls “just cut a cake at ……. nursery school”.

Moreover, although it wasn’t specified, many of the tweets appeared to have been written by members of their team and not by the candidate themselves. Isn’t that deception?

So at the end of the campaign apart from learning that Andy Burnham supports Brentford, I have no more idea of what the candidates are really like. Trawling through the rhetoric hasn’t helped either as I am still unable to say if Ed Milliband will be a better leader than David, Andy, Diane or Ed would have been.

It’s a pity that the result of this experiment is no better than when I tried it with my local Labour party candidate during the general election. If politicians are going to use social networking sites it seems to me that they should learn how to use them first!

BSkyB Update 2

Just to keep you in the loop, my Sky box arrived yesterday morning!

It wasn’t a Sky engineer but Shaun from a firm called First Line Digital who are franchised by Sky, which probably accounts for his being pleasant, helpful and very efficient.

Anyway he set up the HD box and was about to show me the difference in the picture quality when viewing a programme in HD, only for him to find that I didn’t have an HD subscription set up!

As you will see in my first post on this subject I described how I made the decision to adjust my package to accommodate an HD subscription and in God’s name who would request an HD box without signing up for HD services anyway. He rang through to Sky and I got to speak to an advisor, the 6th person since this saga started and I confirmed I wanted HD.

The HD picture is different, sharp and clear but the brightness of the colour takes some getting used to; overall, though, the clarity alone makes it worth it. However, how much it’ll cost is another thing, having spoken to so many people and had so may different answers I’ve lost track of what they will decide I should be paying. I fear the battle is not yet over!

On a lighter note, Sky rang this morning for me to complete an automated customer satisfaction survey! Alas, there wasn’t an option for ROFL!

BSkyB update

Alas the saga continues!

At 1.00pm I received a call from Sky asking me if I wanted to have my HD box earlier than Monday, I pointed out that I had expected to have it today so my answer to her question was in the affirmative. She said to give her 10 or 15 minutes and she’d ring me back.

One hour and 45 minutes later I was still waiting and wondering what was going on and had yet another visit been cancelled without telling me. I returned her call but the number she called from is not available to mere customers so I rang the main number and having gone through the number of options yet again I got an advisor, that’s fourth I’ve spoken to today.

I had to explain the whole sorry mess again and he said “I see your installation was cancelled. Why was that?” Poor bloke, it’s lucky I’m totally exhausted by the situation or he’d have got both barrels. He didn’t know who had rung but confirmed that the installation was still booked for Monday morning.

At least this bloke admitted that all their apologies for my inconvenience were meaningless and he put in a request for a credit of £40 credit to be applied to my account.

Watch this space!!!!!

BSkyB

On Tuesday my Sky+ box went wrong so I rang and booked a service call for Thursday afternoon. After a conversation with J it seemed more economical to adjust my package and upgrade to an HD box.

I rang back and they cancelled the service call, arranged the adjusted package and the installation of an HD box for this afternoon. I was a happy bunny ‘cos I’d have it for the weekend and be able to record the final of the US Open (always a night game and I can’t stay awake that late).

This morning I received a letter from Sky saying “Welcome back” and my account was £51 outstanding “please ring ….to arrange payment”. Very confused I rang Sky only to be told that I should ignore the letter but that the installation visit had been cancelled. I assured them that I had not cancelled but they couldn’t tell me why the visit had been cancelled or by whom!

I was tranferred to three different advisors and eventually I demanded to speak to a manager but despite being on the phone for almost an hour (a good proportion of which was me being put on hold) all I achieved was them repeating empty apologies that the visit had been cancelled but no explanation. Not only that they could not re-instate the visit and could only book a new call for Monday morning.

I’ve been a customer of Sky for many years but this doesn’t seem to matter to them. Oh yes, they will reimburse me for the days I haven’t had the Sky+ service but it seems to me that, as my son says, as long as they can screw you for as much money as possible, customer service comes a very poor second.

Another point is that had I not received the weird letter from Sky I would have been sitting here all afternoon waiting for them to arrive.

A letter to the CEO, Jeremy Darroch, is on it’s way but I won’t hold my breath!!!!