Called XM Today

[ctrcbob]

Phoned XM Radio today with the number listed on channel 1 just to ask a question. Think it was 1-800-XM-RADIO (Not important what the question was). Two things.

1. The woman who answered spoke broken English and when I asked where she was located, she said "in the Caribbean" but she did not say where and I did not ask. Question for those of you who have called XM. Did you get someone from the US or someone offshore? I've heard of people having billing problems with XM and just want to know if any of you spoke with US personnel or offshore personnel.

2. The second thing has nothing to do with XM. When I called, I did not want them to see the number I was calling from, so I used the *67 before the phone number. Surprise surprise surprise. the *67 did not block my number. She knew exactly who I was and where I lived. I'm going to have a little talk with my landline company to see why they were able to identify my number.

 

[dataguy]

I believe that XM outsources to Sitel (at least they were with them a couple of years ago), which operates call centers around the world.

Star 67 will never work when calling emergency services (for obvious reasons) and toll-free numbers (since the recipient pays for the calls--without that, it would be easier for people to maliciously abuse the toll-free numbers). The obvious side effect is that with your number ID'ed, companies can easily look up your info in their CRM database.

 

[ctrcbob]

Did not know about the *67 not working on toll free numbers. Thanks for the info.

 

[LLT]

I could rant all day about the woes of XM (I know, ranting is so out of character for me! )

I have 8 XM radios through them in my various autos. Yet, EVERY time I call - it's a 30 minute+ phone call... 10 minutes to convey the radio ID as she keeps reading it back in broken indlish, another 10 minutes to do a radio swap (and charge me $15), another 10 to try and talk me into keeping the old radio active (duhhhhhr, I traded the vehicle in - why would I want to keep it active?) and trying to push their "Best of Sirius" (as if I want that degenerate Stern tainting the speakers of my vehicle) on me. They're a terrible company, IMO.... and the quality of the service itself has gone downhill since this great "merger" -- reduced bandwidth capacity = reduced sound quality. Some stations sound like AM!

I loathe them. Unfortunately, the wife (who doesn't have to call them) loves them.

 

[dataguy]

The same can be argued about a lot of companies. Call centers have never been particularly easy to deal with or helpful, and off-shoring is the same plus the added language, distance, and organizational separation (hard to help you if you're not able to help or cannot escalate to someone who can)

The fact that XM/Sirius does it is more a reflection that they're not doing well financially. Off-shoring and outsourcing customer service is a cost savings measure. Good customer service is extremely expensive, and it's probably cheaper to throw retention deals and to work out manufacturer tie-ins than to spend an order of magnitude more for in-house call centers.

 

[crhbobby]

I called them to transfer XM from my last car... It took about 15 minutes. Broken english....could barely understand them. I was able to get XM for 77 for a year last year... If I can't get a good deal again, I will probably cancel it in January.

Bob

 

[crupp]

Question; If we do not renew our XM subsciptions that came with the Genesis, what happens to the XM button by the DIS? I know it know longers will take you to XM, do you think it could be re-routed to another function?

 

[SterlingDave]

Question; If we do not renew our XM subsciptions that came with the Genesis, what happens to the XM button by the DIS? I know it know longers will take you to XM, do you think it could be re-routed to another function?

Crupp, I believe that the mathmeticians would call that the NULL function.

For the times that I have called XM (last time was about 3 months ago) I have always gotten American English speaking folks...the only accent I heard from a person at one the call centers was from Tenn. Dang nab it!

 

[dataguy]

Question; If we do not renew our XM subsciptions that came with the Genesis, what happens to the XM button by the DIS? I know it know longers will take you to XM, do you think it could be re-routed to another function?

It doesn't? I thought it would default to allow Channels 0 (Radio ID) and 1 (XM promo) to allow and encourage you to re-subscribe.

 

[LLT]

Question; If we do not renew our XM subsciptions that came with the Genesis, what happens to the XM button by the DIS? I know it know longers will take you to XM, do you think it could be re-routed to another function?

The XM band will continue to come on, but you'll only be able to cycle between 0 and the preview channels.

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[crupp]

yea, not ideal. I posed a question to Nav TV about assigning the VIM to that button. THat would pretty cool