John Clelland with his sister Helen. Photo \/ supplied<\/p>\n
John duly sent an email to Sky, attaching Helen\u2019s death certificate.<\/p>\n
Things took a bizarre turn with Sky\u2019s response.<\/p>\n
After introducing themselves, asking how John was, and apologising for the delayed response, a customer service worker\u2019s letter soon became a mangled mess of words, including mistaking Helen for a man.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Sky appears more profound as we express our sorrow for the loss of Helen Clelland and extend our heartfelt condolences to his family,\u201d says the letter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to inform you that your cancellation request has been processed, and I have forwarded your case to our retention team for further action.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease be aware that there may be additional cancellation charges associated with this request. It will respond within 24 to 48 hours. Take note that the policy for cancelling the account is a one-month process.\u201d<\/p>\n
The letter concludes by offering to help with any further inquiries, before signing off: \u201cNg? mihi nui. Thank you very much.\u201d<\/p>\n
A screenshot of the Sky TV customer service response sent to John Clelland.<\/p>\n
When John Clelland posted the response on a Sky TV customer complaints Facebook page, the reaction was swift. <\/p>\n
\u201cInsensitive and unprofessional\u201d; \u201ddisgusting”; \u201cappalling and offensive\u201d, wrote various respondents of Sky\u2019s position.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirstly, so sorry for your loss. And secondly, that is a shocking reply,\u201d said one person.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are terrible at customer service,\u201d said another.<\/p>\n
Another respondent said the same thing had happened to her when her mother died 14 years ago. \u201cThey asked me to bring the decoder into the store. I was \u2018mmmmm no, I\u2019ll send it\u2019 and \u2018No, we are not paying the last month\u2019. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey said we will send it to Baycorp [debt collection]. I laughed so much. I said \u2018Good luck with that, I don\u2019t think the Pearly Gates have a letter box\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
What happened?<\/p>\n
Several respondents questioned whether the letter to John Clelland was an AI response that went wrong. <\/p>\n
Was it indeed that or even a possible scam?<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not deeply offended by what happened \u2026 it\u2019s just I couldn\u2019t believe the lack of quality in their response,\u201c said John Clelland.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was quite odd, to the degree that I thought I had somehow responded to a scam or something. That\u2019s how bad it was. It was like, \u2018What are they doing?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cEven the fact that they said, \u2018Oh, and our business retention team will get in touch with you\u2019. It\u2019s like even if somebody passes away, they\u2019re still going to try and keep you connected… maybe they do that, but they don\u2019t have to state it in a response. <\/p>\n
\u201cOnce again, didn\u2019t bother me; I just found it amusing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sky TV’s Mt Wellington studios.<\/p>\n
Sky TV, which has apologised to John Clelland, has confirmed it was indeed a human response. <\/p>\n
Several commenters pointed out that Sky now operates an overseas call centre, and that the response might have come from a person for whom English is not their first language.<\/p>\n
John Clelland later updated his Facebook post to say it was not a race issue, but more a training and communications issue that \u201cother organisations seem better at responding to currently\u201d.<\/p>\n
He is more bemused than upset. \u201cI\u2019m more, \u2018Sky, get your act together. That\u2019s just not good enough\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you are finalising a loved one\u2019s existence, money is the least important thing. I have dealt with multiple \u2018suppliers\u2019 for Helen\u2019s affairs and everybody else was extremely professional and they are clearly well-trained in these circumstances. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut this Sky response made me almost laugh in its multiple levels of incompetence, from meaningless phrases, to misgendering a dead person, and not quite being able to type a M\u0101ori phrase properly…<\/p>\n
\u201cI would also add that not all the responses to my post hit the mark as is usual in these circumstances, as a lot of people infer what they want to infer. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis to me is not a race thing, in our daily lives we are surrounded by people of all cultures and it has been no different over the last few weeks. <\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody has been beautiful and kind, and the communication has been nothing more than excellent, except for this one very weird response.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sky\u2019s apology<\/p>\n
Helen Clelland loved watching live sport on Sky TV. Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n
Sky has been quick to respond, with its head of customer service contacting John Clelland. The company has told him it will refund any charges. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe response provided to Mr Clelland falls short of the standard we expect, and we sincerely apologise for his experience,\u201d said a spokeswoman.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, in this instance, information was included in the response by a customer service representative that doesn\u2019t reflect the care and sensitivity we aim to provide in situations like this. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a specialised team who aim to handle these matters sensitively and according to the needs of the individual customer\u2019s circumstances. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are reinforcing clear expectations with our team about how to handle accounts related to bereavement to prevent this happening again.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said Sky\u2019s head of customer service had reached out to John Clelland \u201cto personally apologise and ensure his needs are addressed appropriately\u201d.<\/p>\n
Sky also explained that the \u201cng\u0101 mihi nui\u201d was spelt correctly but can sometimes show up with a question mark if a software update needs to be made. <\/p>\n
John Clelland has accepted Sky\u2019s apology.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always knew Sky would do the right thing in the long run in these circumstances, but I\u2019ve dealt with quite a few suppliers since my sister\u2019s passing and everybody else got it right, pivoting to a softer and professional response very quickly,\u201d John Clelland told Sky. \u201cI know you will fix this.\u201d<\/p>\n
And he told the Herald: \u201cI don\u2019t think this is an isolated situation necessarily, but I also think that they\u2019ll probably get their s*** together and sort things out on the basis of it. I\u2019d be surprised if they didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand\u2019s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Clelland with his sister Helen. Photo \/ supplied John duly sent an email to Sky, attaching Helen\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[38860,94,22404,31468,4381,634,11557,81550,5504,8241,79225,107064,2936,9851,1073,111,139,69,5034,8861,213,23369,303,6277,5592],"class_list":["post-163138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-apologised","tag-appalling","tag-bizarre","tag-brother","tag-customers","tag-death","tag-describes","tag-disgusting","tag-following","tag-himself","tag-initial","tag-insensitive","tag-insider","tag-longtime","tag-media","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-response","tag-sky","tag-sports","tag-tvs","tag-very","tag-wake","tag-weird"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}