First of all it has areas of no service all over the place near mineapolis and st. paul.

CUSTOMER SERVICE IS HORRID.

I signed up for three free months of radio and then navtraffic at 3.99 per month for three months. Well they charged me $20, who knows why, that doesn't add up.

Then now they charged me again and it hasn't even been a month, and I don't know why I'm getting charged $20 per month

I've emailed them twice and haven't had a response for two days, which they state they'll get back to you in 24 hrs.

Now I've been on hold for over 1 hour trying to get ahold of customer service.

WHAT A JOKE. Pissed isn't describing how I feel right now.

Duke

 

Hmmm, I like mine...

I paid for 12 months, after my 3-month free trial was over...

Mine picks up even in the garage... But, I'll tell ya, that damn Comedy channel (150) is going to cause me to have a wreck... Some of that crap is really funny!

 

Yep happy with mine too....never had to call customer service though

 

I had to call them to do mine, because when I tried to reactivate it via the internet, the SOB didn't ever synch up. But the lady I spoke to (definitely an Indian woman, if the call didn't go to India) was helpful; even though she sounded a bit, "programmed". Got me fixed right up. I can even listen to it from my desktop, if I'd just go through the steps to do it...

You ask what's happened to customer service? It's gone to India, for $3,000 / year, as opposed to paying an American $3,000 a month.

Let's just say "I know people" who have put in a great many circuits into India, for that purpose...

I couldn't help but laugh when YaHoo News rana story called: Outsourcing saves less than claimed, 4/13/2006. Saving on 15% rather than many corporate egg-heads who thought/claimed a potential 60% savings.

I think in terms of pi**ed customers, that 15% may be chipped away too, when you consider customer-loyalty, and turn-ver at the companies, as employees leave the $3,000 /year job for the one paying $3,300/year.

 

My brother-in-law works at a corporate level for one of the big call center firms. He claims the thing that is really driving the call center jobs overseas is not cost savings -- it's the fact that they can't seem to motivate the Americans who take these kinds of jobs.

At this level of the American workforce, turnover is a huge problem, deliquency and tardiness are rampant, and no amount of incentives seem to improve the situation. He claims they've offered generous ($500.00 and up) quarterly bonuses for not missing work or being late, and the folks manning these call center jobs just shrug it off like it's no big deal.

Go figure -- if my boss offered me a $500.00 bonus just for not missing work in a given quarter, you can bet I'd have to be on my deathbed to miss a day of work! Just think of it -- over the course of a year that'd be an easy additional $2000.00 contribution directly into my Mustang Fund!

 

pretty bold statement for a guy that doesn't ever "go" to work.

 

Yeah -- but I'll bet you a cool $500.00 that if I got a quarterly bonus for checking in with my boss at 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM every workday, I'd be there with bells on!

 

Oh, in case you were wondering -- I haven't had a single thing to do all week! I haven't even gotten a phone call or an email from work! As far as I'm aware, my boss is on vacation, but I haven't called to confirm it!



Edit: Oops -- I forgot. I did my quarterly "self review" on Wednesday.....

 

Yeah, the ONLY phone calls I've gotten today at work, have been from my wife...

Not a SINGLE call from a work-related client...
I enjoy the peace, but it's scary too... The one thing you don't want to be now-a-days, is, not busy...

My boss said don't look a gift-horse in the mouth, so- I'll take his advice...

 

Gotta love the corporate spin... blame the employees. The truth is at the bottom line (cost).

Let's just say that I know the people hiring the people that will be using the circuits that BigHersh's "friends" have installed. The overseas employees are no different than the above-described American workforce.

 

They charge you first month to activate the radio. It like 9 dollars tacked on. I've not had a problem with the xm reception ever and the antenna underneath my bedcover on the rail. You sure you got the antenna installed right? My brother had one on the dash and his had dropouts all over the place untile we put it on the roof of the truck. Tell us where you placed the antenna?? As far as overseas techsupport goes. Its gotta be way cheaper labor. People wanna work in the states, but why pay them all that social security and taxes. When you can get it cheaper in another country.

 

I worked for a large Corporation for manymany years. Perfect attendance got you marks on your attendance record for having perfect attenfance, but there was no bonus.

All we got were "donut parties". I would rather have 2-3 extra days off each (year to replace all those days of "comp time" we never could get as Management employees) that a couple of donuts for perfect attendance anytime.

 

I got my wife XM for our anniversary, and I liked it so much, I went back and got one for my car too. I love it, and have had no issues at all.

 

A few things here.

1) the CSR phone rep thing. Statistics show that depression is rampant among telemarketers and people is telephone based jobs. Lots of them don't last because they have no interest in their jobs, their jobs tend to pay low, and they get so much abuse from customers. A $500 bonus per quarter is nothing in real terms. If you made say, $8 an hour at 40 hours a week thats only $320 pretax. $1280 a month to deal with BS all day long. Then figure that even if you got $500 a month in bonus you'd still be below poverty, so who really cares?

2) We all know I push sirius over xm. Its personal preference, stock ownership, and a general opinion of mine. However, to defend them both, there shouldn't be any place that has low reception. The only way for that to happen is with a sat becoming defective. Now, I do recall that XM's birds were a crappier technology and their orbits were rapidly decaying, however there shouldn't be an area so specific that had reception issues. There are 2 or 3 birds overhead that you get signal from, plus the ground repeater towers. You should never loose signal for more than just a second or two except when under overpasses and canopies like gas stations (homes and other wood based roofing don't really effect them that much, depends on wiring above you. Mostly only metal and concrete block the signal) That being said, I'd check my antenna wire to see if it was defective. There should be a place on the menu of the unit that you can see the amount of reception being recieved. Drive around and see if it gets higher or lower. If it remains low, replace the antenna. I also remember alot of you place your antenna below paneling on the dash. This is a bad idea, it needs to be on the roof. Even a luggage rack on the top of an SUV can cause poor signal quality 4 inches away. If this is the case, move the antenna first then see about a new antenna if that doesn't fix it.

3) and finally, customer service is poor for both companies. It took me over 4 months to get a user name and password for online listening from sirius, then one day it just quit working. I have called them and stayed on the line for over an hour talking to a rep who couldn't figure out why it wouldn't let me log on since he knew we had the name and password correct. Even when he reset the password to something else it only worked for a couple days before it went south again. Both companies get an F for service

 

I have the antenna placed under the wiper cowl.

Duke