Like the other 19.5 million-plus subscribers to Sirius-XM, I enjoy commercial-free radio and have since 2002 when I purchased my first XM Radio.
The variety of offerings in their lineup and the outstanding audio quality were what hooked me the first time I listened.
Since then, XM and its only competitor Sirius have combined into the monopolistic Sirius-XM Radio.
Along with the good parts of the separate companies came the bad parts of the conglomeration.
To the dismay and consternation of many subscribers of Sirius-XM Radio, the company continues to use two separate customer management systems as well as two separate billing systems.
This in and of itself is not that big of a deal. Many merged corporations maintain multiple and redundant systems, like Home Depot, which until recently maintained three point-of-sale systems.
However, most corporations implement middleware that integrates the multiple systems into a unified system presenting a holistic interface to their customers and their customer service personnel alike.
Unfortunately, Sirius-XM is not one of those corporations, and as a result, any customer with billing issues that cross both systems quickly learns that the customer care call centers are incapable of rectifying their issues.
I have been in the throes of such a dilemma, which has taken over a year to resolve.
Like everyone else, I had been calling the customer care numbers seeking relief, only to find myself placed on hold repeatedly and transferred from agent to agent while attempting to explain my particular billing issue to call center agents who didn't possess the ability to research the issues across the separated systems, a pertinent fact not shared with customers during the calls.
In my case, my first account was with XM Radio, where I never experienced a problem of any type, billing or otherwise.
After the merger which created Sirius-XM, I continued to enjoy a trouble-free experience until I purchased a new car with a built-in Sirius-enabled radio.
I called the customer care number to activate the new radio and deactivate the older XM add-on radio. All appeared to go smoothly during the call, but little did I know the trouble I had purchased for myself.
Article comments
1 - Bob
I'm about to sell my car with XM and buy one with Sirius. For the reasons that you cite -- they are still separate platforms, and uniting them will require half their subscribers to swap out their radios, my plan was to do this in two steps -- call XM to cancel my old subscription and then call Sirius to activate the new one. Hopefully, this will avoid the problems you ran into.
2 - Dave Dragon
That may work. Be sure to have them email you a confirmation that the account was canceled, in-case you have issues going forward.
Good Luck.
3 - Joe Malitz
Big thanks to the author. I called the toll free number with a problem I was having and a lady got on the phone and was super helpful. She fixed everything.
4 - Dave Dragon
Thats good to hear Joe. Glad you found the relief you were looking for.
5 - Dave
I just canceled by account with these yahoos. It took me and hour and a half of waiting on hold, telling the same thing to five different people, and being disconnected twice to get it done. An hour and a half! Unreal.
6 - Pam Messingham
....so now you don't have xm in your car? I love my XM radio in mine...I jam to the 60's music all the time.
7 - john
Take a tranquilizer before calling sirius customer service.
8 - Peter
I understand the inconvenience faced through calling Cust. care services,, sometimes issues become unresolved according to misunderstanding of information given to the agent, and in many cases, the agent couldn't get to the right resolution, or even couldn't tell when to escalate to a higher line!
9 - John
I contacted the Sirius customer service person and they were very nice but refused to cancel my service. My car is in the shop and waiting for parts from Japan as I have a Toyota. They only would suspend my service for 5 months. This will not be enough time since the parts have to come from Japan and they are behind in shipping due to the Nuclear Power Plant explosion. I will follow the above advice to take my request for cancellation of Sirius service to a higher authority.