Sirius demonstrates how to lose a customer

We had a Kenwood receiver with Sirius radio installed in our Honda Odyssey just over a year ago. We listened to satellite radio a lot when we were traveling from Utah to Seattle this past year. Having access to over a hundred channels makes the drive a bit more enjoyable especially in mountain regions where analog channels are absent.

A few weeks ago the Sirius channels would have audio for a few seconds and then go out. This happened on each channel. So I called Sirius tech support yesterday and the first guy I talked to was certain the transmission signal just needed to be sent to my receiver again. So he re-sent the signal and I waited five minutes for the stations to update. I’m not certain of the procedure but it sounds similar to flashing a computer’s BIOS. Because the technician was so sure this would fix the problem I was surprised when it didn’t.

So I called up Sirius again and this time I talked to another technician. His English was difficult to understand but it was very clear he didn’t want to help me much. He said there was nothing he could do and shuffled around some papers until he found tech support number for Kenwood. At this point I’m starting to feel like nobody wants to help.

I called Kenwood and talked to a guy who looked up my receiver model. He was very friendly and listened to my problems until he realized my receiver was a month out of warrantee. He told me that he couldn’t help and suggested I talk to the person who sold me the unit. I told him I bought the receiver in St. George, Utah which is about 20 hours from where I live now. He said I could try calling back on a weekday and see if someone else with more authority would “grant a one-time warrantee extension”. Hmmm….this doesn’t sound promising.

I’d had enough at this point and decided it’s not worth the hassle so I logged into the Sirius website to view my account and cancel my subscription. Sirius requires its customers to call in and talk with a customer service rep in order to cancel. Here is the lame email I received from them when I tried to cancel from the website:

Dear Brett,

Thank you for contacting SIRIUS with your request to cancel your subscription. At SIRIUS we value you as a customer and invite you to discuss this request with one of our Customer Care Agents.

We’re glad that you are part of SIRIUS and want to continue to provide you with the very best that radio has to offer.

Sincerely,

Christopher
SIRIUS Customer Care

I feel so valued! And how nice of them to “invite” me to discuss my wish to cancel my account with a Customer Care Agent. This agent only cares about keeping me as a paying customer. I can’t stand companies that make it easy to sign-up and spend money with them online but make it darn near impossible to cancel. AOL and all cell phone companies are famous for this type of customer abuse.

But I finally got patched through to a lady at Sirius who said she’d be happy to help me with my request to cancel my subscription. Not once did she ask why I was cancelling. Not once did she ask what it would take to keep me as a subscriber. Even after I told her that I really liked Sirius when it worked, she said nothing. She continued to type in the background and finally said, “A refund of $124 should show up on your Visa in three to five days”. I was stunned! If this experience is indicative of how Sirius views and treats its customers then it has no chance of surviving. People will endure dealing with cable and phone companies because many have no other options. But satellite radio is a luxury to most people. They won’t pay to be treated like their business means nothing.

What I learned is that I shouldn’t have to call tech support in order to listen to the fricking radio. If I’m paying $13/month to listen to the radio it had better work 24/7 and with no hassle whatsoever. This time the “grief to enjoyment ratio” tipped to far into the grief camp.