On Big Brother

[The_Blur]

I work at a company that has an immense amount of information on its customers. Without identifying this company specifically, I will tell you that it is a cable company, meaning that a large number of people are dependent on my company's equipment to provide their daily serving of televised entertainment. With this equipment, customer service agents can track certain information.

We leave notes on accounts to indicate our discussions with customers: what they said, what we said, problems, resolutions, whether they were nice, whether to issue future credits, and anything else that comes up. We can see what PPV events you've ordered. We can see whether you have certain channels. We can tell which cable box ordered which even and how much of it was watched.

Here's the catch. We don't want to know. We don't want to know about all that porn on your account. We don't want to know what movies you enjoy. We don't want to read your emails. We just want to get paid and go home.

OnStar is very much the same. They are a bunch of call center representatives who have a ton of information on your car. Unless there's a serious issue, like a theft or an accident, they don't care whether you average 80 or 12 mph. If they do, they're probably only checking because they want to know if the guy lucky enough to afford that Z06 is driving it like a Z06 instead of driving it like an Aveo. That's what I'd be doing. In fact, I'd probably do everything I could to protect customers who make the most of their superiorly engineered American cars.

I don't like that so many people are so paranoid about OnStar tracking them. GM has a long history of endorsing performance enhancement. GM wants buyers to be responsible so that Goodwrench mechanics don't have to fix blown engines with scrambled internals or replace computers that have been corrupted with terrible tunes. They just don't want to have to fix stupid mistakes that aren't GM's fault. OnStar does not have anything to do with this. OnStar and Goodwrench are two very separate divisions, and OnStar is not secretly compiling files and tracking potentially upgraded cars for Goodwrench to prevent warranty claims.

The real reasons warranties are getting voided is that people are breaking their cars. If GM didn't do it, then don't expect GM to fix it. Your piston didn't shoot through your hood because GM built a crappy engine. You're aftermarket subs did not blow because GM turned up the volume. Let's take some responsibility. Performance enthusiasts potentially have to pay more in repairs. It's usually our fault. Let's not get paranoid and think that we got denied because GM hates you. If GM really hated you, why did GM produce a Camaro based on customer input? If GM really hated you, why did GM stay in the US when it is so much cheaper to go elsewhere?

In summary, OnStar is not spying on you. Stop accusing them of this ridiculousness.

[zebra]

so what sparked this?




good speech, by the way. there are so many people who could potentially learn a lot about you just by going to work & clicking the mouse - more than most people realize. except for the 1 in a million cases, people are gonna be good. if not, they more than likely wouldn't've been hired for that position

[DGthe3]

Originally Posted by zebra

so what sparked this?




good speech, by the way. there are so many people who could potentially learn a lot about you just by going to work & clicking the mouse - more than most people realize. except for the 1 in a million cases, people are gonna be good. if not, they more than likely wouldn't've been hired for that position

I'm guessing this:
High-speed chase ends when OnStar halts SUV

[The_Blur]

This thread was kind of the last straw. There have been a lot of discussions on the topic, but seeing Number 3, a GM insider, face resistance to the idea that GM does not want to monitor its customers, I felt compelled to point out that most companies have no interest in it. There are usually a whole lot more customers than their are employees, so it would be very hard to hire enough employees to do the legwork of flagging accounts for such ridiculous issues as racing as the track. Customer service representatives only pull up your account when you call or show up at the office, so we're not just looking at accounts for the fun of it. It's really not fun a lot of times to find out certain things about certain customers. We don't want to know.