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128 Comments
- oOLiquidNightOo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+84"If this was working so well, maybe they would actually be able to keep customers."
if they worked this hard at trying to improve their business model, maybe they would be able to keep their customers. - teaperson, on 10/12/2007, -1/+76If this was working so well, maybe they would actually be able to keep customers.
- billflu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+47"Consumers believe everything is a commodity, i.e. where can I buy the service for the least cost. My objective as a salesperson is to prove otherwise."
lol - itsallgeektome, on 10/12/2007, -0/+44Sad thing is that I'm seeing more of this sort of thing from just about every type of subscription service. You end up keeping the service longer just because you dread the:
1) Hour of wait time for a human voice
2) Another hour fighting the CSR who is trying to "up-sell" more services (because naturally if you want to cancel you must love the service right?)
3) A few weeks later find out that the service was not canceled, canceled incorrectly, or sometimes new services added. Extra bonus if you get a threatening letter saying you haven't paid for that service you thought you'd canceled (had this one happen once when I moved).
4) Repeat steps 1 through 3 until service finally canceled.
Ordering new services with some companies isn't much better either. - erkokite, on 10/12/2007, -5/+41This is almost as bad as Scientology.
- rderveloy, on 10/12/2007, -9/+42AOL is to customer service as __________ is to __________.
a) Bush, intelligence
b) Scientology, sanity
c) TomKat's offspring, demonic hellspawn
d) All of the above. - armbar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+32Seriously, dial-up isn't even worth being called a commodity. It's more like someone selling useless 10 cent balloons at a carnival.
- Zippo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+32If they didn't have a terrible product and craptacular service, they wouldn't have to worry about "customer retention" in the first place.
- ericsnels, on 10/12/2007, -4/+30I'm pretty sure they just changed his name and put him in another cubicle.
- othersomethings, on 10/12/2007, -2/+28A few years back, my husband (then fiance) had AOL for a brief time while waiting for the whole "We're in our own house and settled" thing to get sorted out, and even after cancelling the service effectively, we still got bills. So we cancelled...but we didn't?
DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE AOL.... - canewediggit, on 10/12/2007, -2/+27what about that guy who got fired a couple of weeks back for being the guy on the call with that dude who was all over the news because they wouldn't let him cancel? he should be suing aol now because it seems like all he did was follow their procedures/policies. now they've made him a sacrificial lamb and he was publically embarassed and ridiculed on every news show for a week. if there's a lawyer reading this, i want 10% when you track the guy down and win the case......
- popsumer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+25Hey Digg , this is The Consumerist. We are scanning the 81 page manual as we speak and will post a PDF as soon as we can. Thanks for digging! Stay tuned...
- catalupus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+24My mother in law had to "lose" her credit card and get it replaced to cancel her Earthlink dial-up. They're all the same :-(
- dustedbunny, on 10/12/2007, -2/+24This reminds me of an an article on here where the Customer Service person was giving a woman a hard time because she wanted to cancel her daughter's AOL service. And they wanted to actually speak to her daughter. In fact she was on the phone for over an hour with the....and guess what...
.....her daughter had died in a CAR accident a week earlier.
AOL. pfft. - plamoni, on 10/12/2007, -2/+23They could always treat their customers like MLB.com --
http://www.code-freak.com/mtblog/rants/mlbcom/
That was the only experience I ever had that was worse than canceling AOL. It makes what Vincent went through look like a stroll in the park... - KingAdrock, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21Thats why we all have to digg this up and get it in the public eye.
We have to generate as much bad PR for these lame companies they'll never even think of attemping scams like this. - FishersJEFF, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19This just confirms what we all already knew...AOL sucks, Microsoft is evil, Sony will put root kit on your machine...Basically big business is in it to make business and they don't care if in the long run the piss off a couple of customers because they are jackasses on the phone. Bottom line, it is a last attempt by an otherwise desperate Company that was once huge and sees its customer base dwindling.
- ricree, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18"Seriously, dial-up isn't even worth being called a commodity. It's more like someone selling useless 10 cent balloons at a carnival."
And then charging over $20 per month for said balloons. - remiprev, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16http://www.duggmirror.com/tech_news/Details_of_AOL_customer_retention_manual_revealed!/
- debtman7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Your best bet is to say nothing. Any salesman, of which a customer retention specialist is just one type, uses the same method for bringing you around. They ask questions, act friendly, and dig for information. Primarily what they want are your reasons. Most people feel an obligation to come up with a reason to cancel a service or not purchase something, and a good salesperson knows that if they can invalidate your reasons, an odd quirk of human sociology makes it hard for you to stand up to them.
Your best bet, then, is to not give them anything. Just say no, or I don't want it. If they ask you why, repeat I don't want it. Keep it up a few times, divulge absolutely nothing else about yourself, and they should give up fairly quickly. - othersomethings, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17@khalidur
....um...no. But thanks for that "clever" comment. - khalidur2, on 10/12/2007, -5/+18YE!!!!! scientology suXX0rz!!!!!!!!!!!
- Inbal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Actually, it was a daughter trying to cancel her mother's account, who died two days before. She clearly said "I want to cancel because my mum died two days ago" and the reply was "what can we do to solve your mother's problem with the account?". How can you get any meaner than that?
- kent1146, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12What I would really like to see is an anti-customer-retention manual... ie, what can you say to stump the guy trying to get you to keep your service, so he leaves you alone and just cancels you already.
Keep digg'ing! I wanna hear about this story on Diggnation next week! - Xfraze, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10I used AOL when I was like 8. Needless to say, I got my dad's account banned because I would send spam and be disruptive in chat rooms. Those hot college chicks you were talking to? Yeah...that was me.
- nofxjunkee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9You should've told her to call the CC company and ask them not to process the charges instead. You know, you are allowed to say who can charge things to your CC.
- springlake04, on 10/12/2007, -6/+14Worst tech product ever ...................
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,125772,pg,2,00.asp
PCWorld.com - The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time - simplycontent, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10The exact thing happened to me - ended up paying AOL $150 just to get rid of them. Absolutely ridiculous. I wish there were some sort of consumer board to make sure companies had to follow ethical guidelines. ::scratches chin:: < / sarcasm >
- chiller2002, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9The article specifically addresses that issue saying:
To AOL's credit, John seems to have missed the section that advised to, "Never get angry with the Member...Don't criticize the Member by saying things like "you don't have to be so difficult with me" or "you're impossible to deal with." Maybe that's because most of the manual is devoted to overcoming customer's objections and selling them on AOL's awesomeness. - caselogic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8my experience was the AOL woman telling me that i was an idiot because i don't use there resource hog of a anti virus. lame. and after repeatedly yelling at this person to just sit in silence and they canceled my account. she hung up on me. lame again.
- russizm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7When I worked as a credit card CSR for a huge bank (think recent merges) and a customer wanted to cancel, there was a tab to see if they were "retention eligible". So, if they made the bank enough money we would be forced to transfer them to "an account specialist" which was just retention. If the account was not retention eligible it was just a click of the button to cancel it.
It wasn't as bad as AOL, (depending if the rep you got had met their accounts saved quota) if you got the point across that you were going to cancel no matter what then it usually wasn't a problem. - cosmotron, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8This is more like a "How To Give Our Customers A Pain In The Butt"...
- cdawzrd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7How about you be like, I've read your retention manual, I know you have software in front of you called "Merlin" that you are going to try to use to keep me on the line, and if you do not cancel my account immediately I will have my credit card company deny your charges.
- Smoove, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Somehow I always figgered those hot chix were really gay eight-year-olds. Now I know for sure.
- foolfromhell, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Some sales cannot be made. There is a certain point after which you're just wasting your time. Past that, you risk enraging the customer. Then there's the point where the customer tapes the conversation and humiliates you in the national media.
lol - dunezone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I had it back in 94 or 95 and my brother gave out our password to one of those random message, the ironic thing is that AOL cancelled our account instead of us cancelling it.
- shaolinpunks, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6i'm tempted to turn off adblock just to see that
- smuirhead, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I cancelled an AOL account some years ago and the conversation went like this:
Me: I'd like to cancel my account
Them: Can I ask why you're cancelling?
Me: No reason
[long pause]
Them: ok. well, i'll cancel that account.
Never had to talk to them again :) - DannyX0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5It used to be different, I remember when I would use the three-months-for-free AOL cd and before the time was up, I'd call to cancel and they'd just give me another month free. It wasn't until six months later that they finally let me cancel.
but now I have DSL, ha! - Hardcase, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5AOL doesn't have a lock on the "customer retention" game.
Way back before AOL or even desktop PCs, really, I worked for an insurance company. I sold insurance (shudder) door to door. I even made decent money at it (for a college dropout with pretty much no training in anything). We had a script. It included all the motions, do this, say that, pick up this, etc. The Company even scripted the questions and protests from the customers and we had scripted answers for everything - and I mean, everything. I never ran across a question or a comment from a customer that I hadn't already heard in a training session, so I always had an answer. In the end, it was just a matter of wearing down the customer.
If I could get in the door, it was almost certainly a sale, 90% of the time. Yeah, I knocked on a lot of doors, but I probably got past 5% of them. Then I just had to be a smarmy, conscienceless, soulless bastard. Because the product paid me a 60% commission in the first year and was just a tool to generate leads to load the poor, unsuspecting customer up with absolutely pointless (but with embarrassingly high commissions) insurance products when it came time to renew.
I did it for 8 months, then quit and joined the Navy. In retrospect, I'd have to say that having the opportunity to shoot at people from a distance was a more morally palatable choice than sucking up their money for a worthless product.
-h- - ai42, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Just find the number and tell them you would like to pre-cancel your future account. I'm sure they will try to sell you something.
- nofxjunkee, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I hope you cancelled that card and got one with someone else after that fiasco. The CC company profits from the charges to, so you can't be sure they were being 100% honest with you.
- ronin2040, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4im wondering, if you stated that you wanted to cancel, then remained silent for a minute or so while they rattled off, and then just repeated yourself, if they might not just get the message?
- chiller2002, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I've also worked in a CC call center for a big bank (maybe even the same one!) and we had the same practice. No point in trying to keep customers that don't make the back much money. But, I listened in on a couple of the retention calls and they were no where near as bad as AOL retention. Most calls were just asking why they were cancelling and if the bank could do something about it (i.e. lower the interest rate, waive a fee). If the customer just didn't want it anymore, they typically would rattle a few benifets of keeping the account open but in the end would cancel the account if the customer really didn't want the card. In fact, there are a lot of customers that call "to cancel" just to see if they can get the lower interest rate or have a fee waived--they almost always got what they wanted.
- Crowe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I love hearing these. Does anyone have some more recordings of people's experience with AOL?
- andrew522, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Although, Microsoft hasnt been as much of thier evil selves lately, giving out free pizza and xbox live arcade points, and dropping some of the wga features.
hopefully it will last.
all the other companies - I agree. - taylorhayward, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4AOL Corporate Office: 703-265-1000
Enjoy! - p8ntballer1662, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@ Matty
The same occured for me. Before i got cable, i was using AOL Dial-up (:b). When I finally got it years ago, i called in and spent HALF AN HOUR on the phone telling them to cancel my damn account. confused after the call, i looked back at my CC bills for the next few months. Neraly a YEAR later, i started seeing charges from "AOL." Frustrated and quite pissy, might i add, i called in and they said i had been using it, when i didn't even have the program on my damned computers for a year. Frustrated and dispondent, I started to bitch at the rep, and finally, after another HOUR of my life down the drain, my Acc was canceled.
so, in conclusion, ***** AOL. - oringo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6@nofxjunkee,
Not really. I once had my CC# stolen, and it was used to open an AOL service by the thief. I called my credit card company (chase), telling them the CC# was stolen and I need to close that account. They called me back after a week, telling me that they couldn't close the account because there was a re-occuring.charge (AOL). AOL on the other hand refuses (why wouldn't they?) to stop the charge because I am not the person who requested the service!!! After a 3-month battle the CC company finally got AOL to stop the charge and cancelled my CC account. - techmonkey4u, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5hmmm.. AOL and Scientology? Let's delve, shall we?
Both use famous people for promotional purposes
Both want more money from their members
Both want more members
Both target the weak-minded
Both lower IQ's =P
Any more? -
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