Keeping you connected: our promise to customers

Stephen van Rooyen, Chief Executive Officer, Sky UK & Ireland and Chief Commercial Officer, Sky Group

Updated August 29, 2023

Sky provides connectivity our customers can count on through our Talk, Broadband, and Mobile products, which are used by millions of people right across the UK.

We know how important these everyday connectivity services are to our customers and as many households continue to face a rising cost of living and growing financial pressures, we are focussed on ways we can support our most vulnerable customers.

These include:

• Providing a broadband and mobile social tariff that is easily accessible for eligible customers
• Passing on any savings from Openreach should they implement a wholesale social tariff price 
• Providing value across our services, including through TV Essentials
• Supporting our customers to manage their bills, including enabling customers to move to social tariffs without facing any early termination charges
• Supporting communities that need it most through Sky Up including tech grants and digital hubs.

Dedicated social tariffs:

In early 2022, Sky and NOW both launched broadband social tariffs - Sky Broadband Basics and NOW Broadband Basics - offering a discounted connection to people receiving Universal or Pension Credit, Income Support, Income related Jobseekers Allowance and Income related Employment Support Allowance. These tariffs are designed to help our customers who are struggling with their broadband bills, but who need to stay connected. Both social tariffs provide eligible customers with a broadband connection for just £20 per month.

We also launched a mobile social tariff for all Sky customers on Sky Broadband Basics at the end of 2022. This provides our existing customers with unlimited UK calls and texts and 3GB of data per month for 12 months at no cost at all. This means that our customers who are facing financial pressure can stay connected in and outside the home with Sky for £20 a month – the price of our Sky Broadband Basics package.

We are continuing to look at ways we can pass savings through to our customers, which is why if BT's Openreach chooses to provide a social tariff wholesale price, then we commit to passing that saving directly back to our social tariff customers, reducing the cost of our social tariff in line with the discount. This is important because we pay Openreach wholesale prices in order to connect our customers to broadband. What this means is that the majority of a Sky customer’s broadband bill goes straight to Openreach. This is still the case for the social tariff – with Sky paying Openreach the same wholesale price for our customers on our social tariff as we do for our customers who aren’t.

A recap of our support: 

I know that the economic backdrop is challenging for many households in the UK, and I am focussed on how Sky can help and support our customers in a targeted way. Sky has a range of measures to help keep our customers connected as well as helping them enjoy the content they know and love.

Providing value you can believe in:

• Sky Mobile offers a low-cost SIM-only plan which provides 4GB of data for only £8 a month. 

• Sky Mobile customers can rollover their unused data each month. We store the data in a customer’s ‘data piggybank’ for up to three years and it can also be shared with up to seven SIMs on a customer's account or exchanged for rewards. Research shows that in total mobile users in the UK lose over £80 a year by not using, and therefore losing, the data they pay for each month.

• We let Sky Mobile customers ‘mix’ their plans to suit their financial and lifestyle situations – this means customers can change their plan every month, so they only pay for what they need at that moment. Tens of thousands of customers make the most of this every month.

• Sky offers Superfast Broadband for £28 a month for an 18-month minimum term. 

• We also offer TV Essentials – which allows customers to keep using their Sky Q box and its functionality along with accessing free to air channels and services at a significantly reduced cost.

• Our customers have the option to access Sky content via NOW, which is available without a long-term contract - via monthly passes, and day passes for Sports.

• Sky is consistently top in the customer service rankings of the regulator, Ofcom, where Sky is the least complained about among pay-TV, broadband and mobile providers.

Managing bills:

• Across all our products we offer support to customers who are struggling to pay their bills – this could be changing to a different tariff or providing payment holidays for when they have taken out credit agreements.

• We do not charge an exit fee for customers moving to our social tariff or leaving our social tariff.

• We are one of the only major Broadband and Mobile providers that do not have a specific price increase written into customer contracts - this means you can leave without paying an Early Termination Charge if you’re notified of a price increase during your contract’s minimum term.

• All our contact centre staff are empowered to treat customers as individuals and work with them to find solutions to their individual financial circumstances. Sky’s contact centre staff also receive training to help them identify and support vulnerable customers.

Support for communities that need it most:

• We have a £10 million fund to tackle digital inequality and provide support to a quarter of a million digitally excluded people. This programme, called Sky Up, includes Sky partnering with charities and organisations to create 100 new Digital Hubs targeted at economically deprived areas, providing free Wi-Fi, tech equipment and expert digital training.

• We’re also helping young people get and stay connected through a new Sky Up Grants programme which will see those leaving the care system given equipment and connectivity from Sky so they can access the digital world.

* Over the period 18-21 October 2022, Opinium on behalf of Sky Mobile undertook a survey of 2,000 nationally representative UK adults. Development Economics undertook analysis of survey results to calculate the average amount of unused data each month by mobile customers and the potential cost to this. This analysis was combined with various demographic datasets obtained from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) alongside publicly available information on industry market shares and contract/SIM only prices across Vodafone, EE, O2 and Three.