Preparation for Moving

One of the supposedly fun things when it comes to moving is the transfer of existing stuff to the new place. Over the last couple of days I’ve had two experiences that were polar opposites.

First, BT. Amazingly – and obviously we still need to see the proof of it next Friday – they’ve been really efficient, and seem to be pretty well organised. I’ve been able to call them, organise the connection of a new phone line, and have the ADSL connection done at the same time, and making sure it’s ready to go on the day we move in. In addition, I know what our new account number will be, what the new phone number will be, and also everything is in place for getting the final bill sorted once we’ve moved – they’ll tell me how much it’ll be, and it’ll be paid by direct debit. And how long did it take to get everything sorted? One phone call, maybe fifteen minutes all told. Most impressive.

And then, of course, we come to Sky. So far I’ve had to register our user account online, go through the Sky website (a sack of shit in itself) follow useless ‘help’ information, fill in a form, and receive absolutely no information in return about whether they a) have received the information about us moving house, or b) will do anything about it.

So I tried calling them direct, and it took at least five minutes to get through five levels of automated voice stuff, “to direct me to the right person”. Once I’d eventually got to the ‘correct’ location, the person in the call-center answering told me their systems were down, and I’d have to try again! And all at national rate, too. I was promised a callback, but that hasn’t happened yet either.

So, BT are currently looking pretty impressive, and – as usual – Sky are looking like total tosspots.