So to address my recent post on the topic of canceling my long-time XM subscription, here’s the other shoe dropping to the matter:
I called. The first representative I spoke with — I figured out quickly by the accent that they’ve outsourced their call center to the Philippines — doesn’t have the authority to cancel my account, which is really a ruse for getting you to someone involved in customer retention. About 15 seconds on, I’m now speaking to someone in customer retention who wants to know why I’m canceling my service.
“You’ve increased my fees, your programming has become too repetitive since you merged (the very fear I had when XM was bought by Sirius was the adoption of Sirius’ repetitive playlists, and frankly I’d puke if the 70′s channel played Albert Hammond’s “It Never Rains in Southern California” just one more time), and I’ve lost my ability to listen online.”
“Well, I’m authorized to offer you 5 months for $23, and we’ll throw in XM Online.”
“Let me think about that. Nope. Sorry.”
“Ok, we’ve disconnected you and we’ll refund your pro-rated balance, have a nice day.”
That was that. I’d have been surprised had they not offered me something to remain a customer, given they’re offering me a chance to reactivate a radio I no longer have for $4 a month. Now my remaining issue is whether I still want to keep it in the new car, which has XM NavTraffic. I’ve found that actually helpful, but I’m not sure what happens to that if I don’t keep a Sirius subscription around. The subscription on my other vehicle expires in August. Right now, that’s in the driveway under a couple feet of melting snow, and I figure I’ll be ready to drive it by the Spring thaw here. I’m sure they won’t be too pleased about my not continuing that subscription, since that car is the 2 mile commuter vehicle (round trip).
And as one reader had made mention, I’ve found that often Sirius and XM are lax about completely shutting down a radio. We’ll see in a couple weeks whether I still get a signal, or if my radio has been shut down.
To answer a nagging question…yes, most terrestrial radio still pretty much sucks. But my iPod doesn’t, and with about 20,000 songs, I’m not yet likely to get tired from repetition.
I'm Andrew Buck, the man behind the words. I'm the blogger for Suburbanites.com, in addition to being the author of "The Corrupt Republic" and "(Not) PMO-in-a-Can", as well as a strategic Project/Program Management practitioner for too many years to remember. More information about me is available in the "About" link, as well as at http://www.generalnational.com