What is Digg?218 Comments
- tritium, on 10/12/2007, -10/+187They're popular at AOL, no doubt. I think I spoke to the same group of idiots the evening before Vincent -- I had a thought of recording the phone call via Skype but didn't. I swear to you that the first person I spoke with (name was Susan) wound up freaked out when her computer crashed and STARTING HER SCRIPT OVER AGAIN! VERBATIM!
After 15 minutes of navigating the phone menu:
AOL: "Thank you for calling AOL. My name is Susan. How can I help you?"
Me: "Yes, I'd like to cancel my account."
AOL: "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Why are we canceling the account today?"
--Insert 15-minutes of the same account salvage BS you heard in the Ferrari audio--
AOL: "Oops. My computer just froze up, and I need to start over."
Me: "You're kidding, right?"
AOL:" Yes. Hello. Thank you for calling AOL. My name is Susan. How can I help you?"
Me: "Oh my God. Are you serious?! I'm canceling my account."
AOL: "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."
Me: "Holy Jesus, are you for real?"
AOL: "Why are we canceling the account today?"
...
I sincerely wish I was making this up. It made me lose serious faith in the intelligence of the CSR's at AOL. Some of these guys (and gals) are DIM WITTED. - eridius, on 10/12/2007, -1/+148You just know that guy was doing exactly what he was trained to do, exactly what AOL wanted him to do, and now he's taking the fall so AOL can try and protect its image.
- canadianguy33, on 10/12/2007, -3/+121Hilarious!
The sad thing is that the customer service guy was probably a 'profitable' employee in the eyes of AOL before this. - RadiantBeing, on 10/12/2007, -2/+89It is in AOL's interest to prevent people from canceling their accounts. There is no way a rep would be so motivated to stop Ferrari from canceling if there wasn't a system of incentives or punishments in place. I doubt this is a case of a gung-ho employee becoming overzealous.
- Carbamide, on 10/12/2007, -1/+76Yeah, they tried to fire him, but then he offered them three free months. They tried again, and he transferred them, so they got frustrated and decided to keep him.
- wbrendel, on 10/12/2007, -1/+52This just made me hate AOL even more.
1. Sucker customers into buying your crappy service
2. Train customer service reps to do *anything* to prevent customers from cancelling
3. Get bad PR because customer service rep did exactly what you told him to do
4. Fire customer service rep to make it look like you "handled the situation", even though it was just a pitiful attempt to control the damage - shumacher, on 10/12/2007, -1/+46Yeah, I was expecting to have to make that point. He probably has a certain quota to meet. There's probably financial incentives and a couple of different metrics used by them. Odds are, all he needs to do is finish the call without an actual cancellation taking place, and he's won. I've had a job that put me into that sort of interaction with customers. They train you on scenarios involving customers always reacting with "Really? That's an intersting point!" and so, they emphasize learning responses to objections. In truth, customers don't care about being right - they just start cutting you off. End result? You're left with a pile of responses to objections, a quota, and a choice of either rolling over for every customer, or ignoring customer desires, thowing structured responses at unstructured customers in hopes that you'll get a win between having your teeth kicked in.
I don't have the personality - I got to the point where I started thinking everyone looked pissed from thirty feet away. I'd rehearse arguments in the car all the way home.
In a word, it made me a little crazy.
Oh, and you'll also find this attitude at nearly any big box retailer. Sears, Best Buy, Circuit City, Radio Shack, Fry's, CompUSA... - pixarman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+45And we all know AOL always tells the truth...
- dawgma, on 10/12/2007, -1/+38They did. It was mentioned at the end of the segment.
But that just makes him the fall-guy now. The firing of "John" skirts the larger issue of AOLs company policy... - shumacher, on 10/12/2007, -6/+42@tritium:
Dim-Witted like a fox!
They're playing hot potato.
You're the potato, and Susan just passed you. - david76, on 10/12/2007, -4/+34I'm tempted to open an account just to record the cancellation process.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+29He probably didn't get fired. You hear stories like this far too often which indicates AOL probably is training in this manner, not hiring ***** off the street.
I've had to cancel 3 accounts, one of my own, two for friends, and they all played out just like that guys call. On one of them, the guy tried to get me to take a special offer on a new Compaq from Staples and 6 months of service. Huzzuh? Just ***** cancel the account. - planet0x, on 10/12/2007, -2/+26what makes it even funnier is the AOL targeted ad at the top of this page
- Guspaz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+23Threatening legal action is the wrong way to go. I have a simpler approach:
"Look, you're obviously not going to do what I ask. I have officially requested that you cancel the account. Any further charges to my credit card will be reported as fraudulent charges and will be denied. Goodbye."
At that point you hang up, and notify your bank immediately. It's YOUR credit card, you can ask the bank to reject any future transactions from someone if you want to. - daworld, on 10/12/2007, -1/+23There needs to be a T-Shirt that says "Cancel My Account" with the AOL logo on there...
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22On a side note, Darl C. McBride has hired the former AOL employee to help thwart customer loss at SCO.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+24This is all part of a disturbing new trend I've noticed getting worse over the past 5 years or so - a company having open hostility towards their customers.
If they can keep billing you, legally or not, they will. If you're in any sort of contract you're doubly screwed.
There has always been hostly towards "stupid customers" behind the scenes, that's normal, but this is new, this is out in the open. The RIAA is really at the forefront here.
As other people have pointed out, everything the "customer service" rep was doing in this case is most definitely due to AOL's policy, and these reps get paid commission and/or bonuses for each customer they chalk up as having "kept". Kept happy doesn't matter, just kept does. Often they will actually agree to cancel your account and if they think their call isn't being monitored they'll just enter in the opposite - "convinced customer to keep account", possibly tacking a month or two of credit onto your account so it appears for a while that they have canceled it and you're no longer being billed.
I work for Nextel (now "Sprint together with Nextel" unfortunately) and I can tell you that if you're in a contract the situation is even worse. I just do repairs, so I don't have to deal with the "retention" end of things but I can tell you our retention department works the same way as AOL. Even worse many of the phones we sell are complete crap. If one breaks AND you've paid the extra fee for "service and repair" you can bring it in to be fixed. Unless it's not repairable. Any damage to the main board, or a faulty main board from the factory (VERY COMMON!) is NOT REPAIRABLE. So then, so long as the customer did not damage the phone themselves, we can swap out the phone for a refurbished one of the same model. Unfortunately they rarely send us the models that are current, in demand, and break all the time. What then? Buy a new one, but this time at full price rather than the lower "with 2-year contract" price you paid in the first place. Or pay us to not provide service to you - IE the $400+ contract cancellation fee.
What to do? For internet only use something month-to-month where they bill you, and never give them a credit or debit card. Pay by check or pay throughly your bank online.
For cell service? You're pretty much out of luck. You can use pre-paid but that costs a lot more per minute, they tack on $1 per day fees just for using it at all, and those pre-paid phone cards you can buy? The minutes start expiring off them after a few months whether you use them or not.
My solution is just to do without a cell phone, even though I work for a cellular phone company. - omnithought, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20I was hoping Vincent could have slipped in there at the end that it was a company-wide problem, not an exception. The story kind of got spun at the end as if it was just the one guy that was like that.
- q3ctf4, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20"You just know that guy was doing exactly what he was trained to do, exactly what AOL wanted him to do, and now he's taking the fall so AOL can try and protect its image."
The only role John should have played was finding out why the customer wanted to cancel. "We are sorry to hear you are canceling sir/madam, may we ask if there is any particular reason for doing so?" - and then cancel. This data should then be sent over to marketing where it can be used appropriately.
John from AOL should go on NBC and tell everybody what possessed him to behave like this. Financial incentives and/or unrealistic job quotas? Then, I'd like to hear AOL try and protect their image about having "zero-tolerance" for customer care incidents like these. - Create, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19great! gets my digg
the more exposure customer service nightmares like this get, the more businesses are gonna have to listen - meefman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18When I cancelled my AOL acct years ago, they tried telling me that cable was slower than AOL dial up!
- shumacher, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18@NSResponder:
Sears did tighten up their return policies in early 2005. They're still pretty liberal, but not like before. In the past, they used a "reasonable period of time" for a return period. Now, you get 90 days, and its a hard limit. You're not likely to get a return on day 91 without a good reason. If you bang it up, it's yours.
But that's not what I was talking about. I was talking about programs that put employees at odds with customers in the way described in this story.
Try to buy and eligible item from a motivated employee without a service plan. In particular, look at treadmills, lawn tractors, big screen televisions, camcorders and premium appliances.
It's not likely to happen without a fight. Try returning a service plan without the associated item in the store. Good luck with that one!
The Sears loophole is that you can return at an apparel register. Those employees rarely care about coverage because it's not a metric they get graded on. - DROB003, on 10/12/2007, -5/+21This only appeared on national news because this story appeared on Digg
- eaasness, on 10/12/2007, -4/+20My thoughts exactly. I almost feel a little sorry for "John" he was just doing his job.
- antdude, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16MSNBC should had mentioned the earlier story: http://digg.com/links/AOL_Refuses_to_Cancel_Service_for_Deceased_Woman
- dude3609, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17FULL LENGTH UN-EDITED CONVERSATION - http://media.putfile.com/AOL-Cancellation
btw, this dude got off lucky. I've had several of these experiences in the past and they were all much worse then this guys case. Its just that this dude managed to get it on tape and send it in to cnn. Big props to him for the effort :) - deelux247, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14I worked for a few weeks as a CSR at the AOL call center in Albuquerque, back in the days when AOL made a switch to pricing for unlimited hours of access, which resulted in people unable to get online and a flood of customer complaints.
People calling to cancel accounts were transferred to "Member Save," CSRs who would offer a couple free months to keep people from canceling.
The telephone sets on our desk had lights. Green meant the line was open, red meant calls were waiting. It was common for the light to remain red throughout the duration of my four-hour shift. As soon as I finished with one customer, another would be on the line. Imagine four hours straight of irate customers.
Many of the calls I handled were from people unhappy that their credit card was charged for AOL books and other items they said they did not request. Other people would dial up online through an AOL 888 number instead of a local number, not realizing the 888 number was not toll-free. So they'd end up with phone bills in the hundreds of dollars, and call AOL to complain.
Most of the people working at the call center were young college students like me, drawn by a $9 an hour pay and a free AOL account. I worked the late shift after a full day of classes and physical education courses.
There is one memorable night: I had been up since 6 a.m., had been through a full day of classes and P.E. activities and, being a poor student, had only eaten some sort of miserable snack from the machine the whole day.
As my late night shift at AOL was coming to an end around 11 p.m., I was losing it. I literally fell asleep while talking to a customer! What a mess.
After realizing I didn't like the way AOL treated customers and realizing this kind of job was not for me, I happily turned in a resignation letter. It was a wonderful feeling to walk out of those doors! - blankoboy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15What would have been great is if Matt Lauer had been able to digg up the actual guy who got fired so we could hear his end of the story. Also, to have both him and Vincent on at the same time....double whammy for AOL. heh.
For the record, I live in Japan and you would NEVER get that kind of customer service on the phone. Completely unimaginable. - wardriver20, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13In about a week...
John shows up at NBC and tell his side of the story. - VeganG, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12I installed an AOL trial once, years ago, while I was waiting for broadband to be installed. When I called to cancel it, they offered another month, so I took it. I milked it for half a year before I figured how ridiculous it was. I wonder how long I could've stretched the free AOL, though.
- Celeron, on 10/12/2007, -6/+17Well, after seeing the video, I can see he was "fired." That's what Comcast told me too after I complainedd to them about how the technician didn't come to my home to install the tv cable box. I waited all day, and yet the damn guy didn't come. I called, they said they would take actions, then later they told me they fired him. Don't know whether they were lying since it was over the phone and such.
- kalisphoenix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Once again, the guys with the worst jobs are making $8 an hour. Who here honestly thinks that the AOL employee gave a damn whether this guy kept or cancelled his service.... aside from the orders passed down from up on high.
- buggysam, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9I was thinking the same. Wonder how many AOL cancellation recordings are going to start appearing now :)
- Mesach, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12This kinda makes me want to open several AOL accounts in the future then go through this and record the conversations and see if anything has changed... and if not send it back to matt lauer to show them that it has not.
Yes. I really am this self loathing. - Stratochief66, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Why not fire him, its good PR, plus they have a couple hundred other phone operators trained to pull the same thing.
- Gregd, on 10/12/2007, -7/+16What the hell? Why should anyone feel sorry for this guy who was "just doing his job"? Was he forced to work at AOL at gun point? If I worked for a company and they instructed me to treat people like that, I'd walk out the damn door. He's just as culpable as the corporation he represents. Please.
- Andrico4, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11I hope my kids will grow up in a world without sickness, crime, and AOL.
- citrusfizz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10i worked for a company called bargain network crappy company here in goleta, ca but as a msr or csr whatever you want to call it i was paid BASED on my caller retention anywhere from 8.50p/h (horrible caller retention) to 29.50p/h (great caller retention for the day, 8.50 was anything above 50 percent of the accounts i looked up i didn't cancel and 29.50p/h was for 8 percent of less of the accounts i looked up i actually cxled .. so as you can see There is a HUGE pay raise if you retain your customers and the company trains you very well how to badger the ***** out of the customers until they just say FINE and hang up.. so i am guessing AOL is the same way and i am guessing that AOL hands out A LOT of free time to get them to stay just as bargain network does
- aresef, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Doesn't every customer service line have a disclaimer before you talk to somebody saying "Your call may be recorded..."? I think he gets the implied consent there.
- WrecksTXP, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Although the emplyee at AOL has some responsibility to not work for a company that forces them to become robots, I think the responsibility here lies in the company. I guarantee you the CSR in this video was only doing his job exactly as he was ordered to. The apology letter implied that the guy got fired but I bet the CSR left on his own accord. How could they fire the guy for doing his job?
- obezyana, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7My grandmother did that - it started when she was going to Texas with no computer for about six weeks and didn't want to pay for a month and a half of AOL that she wouldn't be using.
IIRC, she managed to get free AOL for several years, but she finally got tired of calling to "cancel" every month and didn't think AOL was actually worth paying for. - NSResponder, on 10/12/2007, -10/+17I've never had any trouble trying to return something at Sears. I've never tried to return anything to Nordstrom's, but their reputation is for excellent customer service.
-jcr - eliot2000, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8The disease behind these symptoms is inept management. Customer service would improve 100% if only corporate management would trust their employees as thinking, intelligent human beings. Instead, they get to looking at metrics, spot trends, and attempt to force the metrics to create trends, instead of realizing it works the other way around. AOL probably noticed that longer retention calls tended to result in saved accounts, so they started riding people whose times are low. Result: Ferrari's ordeal and customer service people who start their scripting over to drag out call times.
A parallel from my telecom cubicle: If I talk to a customer, and they mention in passing that they do not have a PC, when I'm done solving their problem, I still have to ask, per the almighty script, if they have a computer. If they say, "I just said I don't", which they all do, I still end up attempting to sell them a DSL line, because I'll get fired if I don't. If it's irritating to deal with people who seem not to be listening, or even thinking, imagine what it's like for customer service people who get caught in the crossfire. I'm one of five or six people in the office not taking serious doses of antidepressants.
So I might be a little bitter. - LNahid2000, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Half a year is nothing. Back in the day when I couldn't get broadband, I stayed with AOL for a couple years without paying for it. The first time I called to cancel, they gave me 3 months free. Every time after that, they kept giving me more months free. At the time I couldn't get anything but dialup so I didn't care. I guess that's one good thing about AOL lol.
- scott1, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9@tritium
After reading your post I now what AOL startgy is when a customer is trying to cancle there account:
Try to annoy the customer to a point where they will hang up and live with there crappy internet service - Pirkel, on 10/12/2007, -23/+30Did anyone notice the spelling errors in the transcript?
Wow, why was I dugg down?
..... - Stratochief66, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Heh, love Celeron's comment. Either that or they fired him and he just kept taking his paycheck out of their account. When AOL called the bank to end it, the bank told AOL that it could not be done without cancelling the current one and creating a new account. In the end AOL decided it was less of a hassle to just keep paying him than to move all their business to a new bank account. Game, set, and match!
- 1911wolf, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9I doubt that call got his account canceled. I haven't used AOL since 1996 but don't they send out a letter now after the call that you must sign and return? That's what my neighbor told me when she went through the hell he did but with some guy in India that couldn't be understood.
- banjk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7I know for a fact that they give big incentives to their Retention Specialists. They have a call center here. Starts at about $15.00/hr. They give 30-day retention and 90-day retention bonuses. You are expected to have a "Saves" rate of about 75%+ or you get fired. Nearly all of the RS's are on Xanax or something similar just to go to work.
It's wrong. It's evil. And I used to do it making around $55,000/yr. I knew people who ran into the 90's.
AOL is evil...plain and simple. - Pie_Man, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Vincent Ferrari , You were here in the comments section during the initial digg. You are probibly busy with all the media attention and wont get to catch up on digg for a while.
Just wanted to let you know. Good job...YOU ARE A HERO!!!
Almost a modern version of David and Goliath. I guarantee that there are a bunch of VPs and Excecutives who are triaging all sorts of PR stuff to lick their massive wound from this.
Behold the power of Digg...we can't forget Gizmodo played a big part too -
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