I know I know. Not getting something for free, shouldn’t be pit-worthy, but I think it’s just me being too nice, and this woman should be pitted for their mis-service of me.
Situation:
I had a 3-month free trail of XM Radio. It ran out. I called to sign up. I bought the 3-yr service and they overcharged me by $200. (Strike 1!) Luckily my credit card company called me about the charge, and I called back and they made a refund.(ball 1?)
Then, and here’s the major issue I have, for the following month, I tried to connect my service to my radio. Unsuccessfully. I called 3-4 a week asking them to send a refresh signal. I used the website to send a signal the other days of the week. They say it may take up to 3 hours to connect, and really I don’t have that amount of time to leave my car outside. Even on the weekends.
So, yesterday I called yet again, and this time something different happened. At first the Cust Serv woman told me crazy things. Like she didn’t have any charge history on me. Nor did they have my CC on file. red lights and loud klaxons started going off in my head. After confirming the charge they made with my CC co, I called and confirmed the following things:
The radio they had listed on my account was not the one in my car! (Strike 2!)
So for a month when they would send a signal, they were sending it to some unknown radio. And when I used the website, the ID from the radio in my car was listed as not-yet-bought.(still in a store somewhere!)
So they cleared that up, and 20 minutes later I had XM radio in my car…yay :dubious:
Now for the bad part, I called to get a refund for that month, and after some convincing they gave me that, then this woman had the audacity to try to up-sell me on another radio. I suggested, asked for actually, that the mistakes made on their part, the gas spent leaving my car on outside, the time spent sitting in my car for a month, means I deserved something as small as a $6 radio (marked down from $75) for free. They said no, and wouldn’t agree that as a customer I’ve been mistreated, and for that (Strike 3!) I send her to the pit.
XM has the single worst customer service I’ve ever experienced or heard about, and I worked in a shitty customer service call center for four years.
Every single time I called them about things, they screwed it up. They screwed up the subscription (quarterly instead of monthly, but I think this was a “mistake” as the rep was pushing me for quarterly), they screwed up when I called to fix it and didn’t fix it, they screwed up the refund amount, they screwed up actually changing the subscription again AFTER the refund, and finally, they screwed up the cancellation somehow such that it didn’t actually completely cancel. About 8 months after cancelling, I started getting bills for new service without contacting them. The rep said “the account opened again by itself” (uh, whatever) and closed it. I still got bills but finally resolved that, too. Finally that was the last of them.
This was the phone reps. Emails I sent received nonrelevant replies, and if I responded to clarify, I’d get the same response again.
I liked the service, but damn, they need some better people there before I ever resubscribe. One of the few times I’ve actually had to cancel something exclusively due to bad service.
Ditto. Great product, but got tired of perpetually wrestling with them about one thing or another. (For some idiotic reason, your account number with them is the number on your radio. Makes it fun when you’re trying to get the discount you supposedly were to get when you originally signed up, but that radio got stolen. They never were able to untangle that one, and apply my credits to the new radio.) My wife, who’s much calmer and more patient than I am, took over dealing with XM because she liked the service. But after not using it for several weeks (while paying our bills on time), I pulled it out to keep me company on a drive up the Eastern corridor. Couldn’t get the damned thing to work for more than a half-hour at a time, no matter what they or I did. At that point, even my wife threw in the towel. Fuck 'em.
I am becoming more and more distrusting of companies who say it will take longer than a few minutes to set up service and have it start working. I think they tell you it takes a few hours because, by the time a few hours have gone by, the guy on the phone’s shift will be over, and someone else will have to handle your call.
We just dumped Sirius for similar craptacular service. Reception in both of our cars started cutting out; both of us got the “Acquiring Signal” sign at exactly the same places during our respective commutes, which to me says that the problem is with their satellite. I’ve been hearing rumors that they removed or realigned one of their satellites recently, and I’m inclined to believe the rumors. The problem started happening to both cars at the same time.
Yet all calls to them to try to fix this problem resulted in them saying that we probably caused our own problems with faulty installation. We canceled their ass, but not after getting the “freebie” lures to stay and the upselling routine. Fuck 'em. Why is customer service so universally sucky nowadays?
Odd, I have never had issues with XM CS. I’ve activated 3 radios, and had one billing dispute (because of the multiple radio switch- understandable) which was corrected within 5 mins or so. Heck, one of the times was on Christmas day.
Although, it has been over a year since I dealt with them.
In all of my CS experience, I think I met one person who actually enjoyed dealing with upset people, and correcting their problems.
People just don’t care. Yeah, they get paid to do a job, but the culture of the company is going to determine whether they are truly helpful or not imho.
I was having problems with my reception and ended up gatting a new attenae at Best Buy. The guy there said the type I had was known to crap out wehen it got water in tit and corroded. He assured me the new design didn’t have that. BTW, I had my Sirius for two years before this happened. Generally I have been pleased.