Recently the two US satellite radio providers, XM and Sirius, cleared all hurdles to their proposed merger.  I was personally happy to see these two companies merge, as I really enjoy satellite radio.  Most of the analisys I read at the time of the announcement was that basically the merger was the only real way to save any satellite radio and provide a meaningful alternative to the horror of Clear Channel.  I have been a subscriber to XM Radio for almost two years now, and I have been very pleased with both the quality of their programming and the ease of the billing process.

Recently I received a notification from XM that they were having issues billing my credit card.  This was due to me having to have my credit card reissued after a data breach at Hannaford Supermarkets.  I had a hard time remembering all the monthly charges coming out of my account and this was one of the ones I failed to update.  I updated the card information at the XM website and soon after I noticed that I received two charges within a few days of each other.  Wondering if I had been double-billed, I contacted XM Customer Service.

The good news was that the rep quickly and accurately explained the situation.  XM had been unable to bill my card for June and as a result when I updated my card information I was billed for June and then a few days later billed for July.  I quickly reviewed my banking information while on the phone with the rep and confirmed that I had been properly charged.

The bad news was that after resolving my simple question, I received not one, not two, but FOUR different “upsell” offers from the customer service rep, each ended with the statement “So I’ll go ahead and set this up for you” rather than a question as to whether I’d like to change my service.  After the fourth upsell attempt, I did something I hate doing – I asked to speak to the rep’s supervisor.  Of course a supervisor wasn’t available, so I ended the call as politely as I could.  I did a little research on the XM website and tracked down the supposed EVP of Listener Care and sent him along an email expressing the fact that I understood that in this day and age I can’t realistically expect to contact customer service and NOT expect to get some kind of upsell; however, FOUR different offers on one call was a little ridiculous.  The reason why I contacted the EVP is because quite simply the rep or the rep’s supervisor has no control over what they are being asked to do as far as upselling existing customers.  That decision lies squarely in the boardroom amongst corporate leaders attempting to squeeze every last dollar out of the current customer base.

My hope is that once there is no competition in the satellite radio market that this poor treatment of their loyal customer base doesn’t continue.  If you’re an XM subscriber, you might want to contact them ad let them know how you feel.