Monday, April 13, 2009

Great Customer Service or Another Sign of the Times?


To much chagrin, I made the decision to call Sirius Satellite Radio to cancel my service today. The reason is that I received a great new radio to replace my factory one for Christmas. The new Kenwood radio is satellite radio ready; however, I would not be able to use my Jeep's factory Sirius antenna with it to pick up the signal, and would have to purchase a new Sirius antenna. (This took much research to confirm... tried my damnedest to get the factory antenna to work!) After all these years of Sirius and XM radio being around, I would have figured they would have made it easier to exchange radio units!

Don't get me wrong; I own stock in Sirius, love the service, and enjoy listening to Howard Stern. Even with those feelings, I still wanted to cancel the service due to having to purchase a new antenna for a service I'm already paying $20 a month for.

I figured that Sirius would somehow try to keep my business, but I didn't expect that they could change my mind. After speaking to an initial representative, I was transferred to a 'cancellation specialist' of sorts. I explained my situation with the new radio, and without pause she said, "what if we sent you a new antenna?" I quickly asked what the charge would be, and she responded "None, we'll provide the new antenna with no charge for the hardware or shipping. Please accept this with our apologies for the inconvenience." I was blown away and stated that I would keep my service if they sent a new antenna.

That was either great customer service, or just another sign of the hard economic times. I think its a lot of both. I have been a customer of Sirius for over 3 years, and it would have been a shame for them to lose me over a $50 antenna. Kudos to Sirius for making the smart business decision! Sirius Satellite Radio, if this antenna works as planned, then you will have a customer for a long time to come.

No comments: