Mark Ramsey Media LLC - sync radio and digital media

I know how your friend feels. I should be an XM Satellite Radio subscriber, but XM doesn’t care enough about me to make me one.
More than a year ago, my new lease car rolled into the parking lot at Shane World Headquarter with heated seats (perfect for Houston weather) and XM radio (perfect for a music and radio junkie).
The lease included a three month subscription.
I was less then inspired by the typical channels—niche jukeboxes with mixes only marginally ahead of those terrestrial radio delivers. I was surprised at the audio quality. Some channels were so tinny and hollow, they reminded me of my first AM radio crackling in a Texas thunderstorm.
Nonetheless, I was a willing participant. First, the trial offer was free. And when I tuned to the high 100s and low 200s I found local broadcasts of Major League Baseball.
Before I knew it, my three months were up. Yet I knew that XM was eager to engage new subscribers, so I assumed that meant eager to retain trial subscribers like me.
I received a letter saying my trial was completed.
I received a postcard with a price guide (retail—no special incentives).
Then, silence. Silence on the radio. Silence in the mail.
Could it be they cared no more than that to keep me aboard?
Now – more than a year later – another letter. They’ve activated a few channels for a two week period to remind me of what I’ve missed and to lure me back with a temporary siren song.
The twenty-or-so channels they chose for me are the uninspired clones of terrestrial radio—“The Top 20 on 20,” country on “Highway 16,” etc.
The letter says I can get hundreds of channels and every Major League Baseball game. But not unless I subscribe.
If I take them up on the offer, it’s just $4.99 a month for three months. (Do these people have three month business plans?)
That sounds like a decent price till I follow a very prominent asterisk which leads me to tiny type about pre-payment, a re-activation fee and automatic renewal.
Not compelling enough, if you ask me. I should be an XM Satellite Radio subscriber, but XM doesn’t care enough about me to make me one.
I’ll just spend my $4.99 on a gallon of gas.

Nope, this is not customer service. This is making the customer go away because Sirius reps don't feel like engaging with them (and perhaps aren't encouraged to).
I have a similar problem. I want to know when my favorite Sirius programs will be playing (is that an ABBA channel I saw last week?), when Howard Stern will be going on vacation (which happens seemingly every third week), and when all those cool in-studio artists will be visiting the Sirius building (who's on the Tony Hawk channel this week?). But, I don't get that from their newsletter or their Web site without a lot of digging. Sometimes I dig around for that information and never find it at all. No one has asked me how I care to get this information, and there is no central spot for me to get that information.
All of this data is in the Sirius databases somewhere. How hard is it to pull that out? I would wager that a smart group of three programmers and one user interface expert and a copywriter could solve this problem in six weeks. I can only assume that it isn't being solve -- and won't be solved -- because Sirius doesn't really want to listen to their customers.
Which is odd because I spend so much time listening to them.
Thanks, as always, Mark, for your incisive and spot-on comments.