I’ve written about companies I love before or at least mentioned them – Southwest Airlines and Apple are probably my two favorite in terms of a good customer experience. SIRIUS/XM Radio Customer Care – not so much.
Here’s a copy of an email I sent to SIRIUS Radio Customer Care today in regards to their customer service experience. The beauty of today’s internet with blogs and social networking communities, is that you can easily share horrible experiences with the world in an effort to move companies that could care less towards a fantastic customer experience… and I can even create nifty ‘Perez Hilton-ish Images’ …
I’ll keep you updated on this pressing issue as it develops!
Sirius/XM Corporate Customer Care,
I am writing to have a payment of $14.98 refunded to my debit card on file.
I cancelled my account on June 11, 2009 by calling Sirius Customer Care. At that time, I was offered quite a few options to stay but declined them all. I was canceling because the radio I had was an FM-Radio Transmitter and just didn’t sound that good in my Jeep. I told the rep I didn’t wouldn’t want to reactivate at a later date unless Sirius was actually a part of my radio and not via an FM Transmitter. To my knowledge, the service was cancelled on June 11, 2009.
Yesterday, I was looking over my bank statement and noticed a charge on November 12 of $14.98 and on December 15 of $44.79.
When I called in to Sirius Customer Care, I was told my account was put on a temporary hold for five months and reactivated on November 11. This was not what I had requested back in June.
After speaking with about six different Customer Care Reps and Managers, the second payment of $44.79 was refunded to my credit card. However, because – as the Customer Care Manager put it – “I didn’t notice the first payment in November, it’s basically like you accepted it,” the first payment of $14.98 was not refunded.
The subpar communication skills and an unwillingness-to-help attitude of the representatives at Sirius is one reason while I’ll have to seriously consider being a Sirius/XM customer again. When my wife and I purchase our next car we were planning on ensuring it was Sirius/XM-Ready. That may not be a concern now based on the experience I had.
Secondly, it’s unacceptable that Sirius/XM would put a ‘five month hold’ on an account and expect customers to know that the account is being reactivated without notifying the customer that five months has passed and the account is about to be reactivated. To me, it’s simply a tactic to ’save customers’ by offering them a hold and after five months time has passed, the customer forgets about it and Sirius/XM begins to receive money again.
Lastly, it’s annoying as a customer to have to spend an hour talking with “Customer Care Representatives” who take no ownership and have zero empathy. Responses like, “That’s what the notes say” and “Who else do you want to talk to besides me, my manager is going to say the same thing” simply create more irate customers. Even more annoying is having to type an email to request a $14.98 charge be refunded to my debit card. And what makes this entire issue ultra-annoying is that the ’save tactics’ offered last night were well in excess of a $14.98 value – 6 months of service for $20 (a $67.60 value based on the quarterly payment plan) and a FREE radio (I’m assuming SIRIUS/XM Radios and shipping would be more than $14.98).
Please refund my debit card the additional $14.98 so that I can put this issue behind me and one day consider being a customer again.
Regards,
Brad Shaffer