Taking a page from the record companies, AOL apparently has realized the best way to show their customers love is to attack them.
On June 13, 2006, Vincent Ferrari posted a recording he made of his attempt to leave America Online. It shot to national TV and revealed AOL hadn’t learned the error of its ways. For “John,” the call center employee heard on the tape, to deploy the kind of mental warfare heard on the tape, he had to be well-trained…
In a public statement, AOL’s Nicholas Graham claimed that John, “violated our customer service guidelines and practices, and everything that AOL believes to be important in customer care – chief among them being respect for the member, and swiftly honoring their requests.” If this is true, then why is there such a complex system designed to thwart those very requests? Brevity thrives on simplicity.
To reel you back in, AOL has a six stage system:
1. Greet and Verify
2. Discovery
3. Tailored Value
4. Right Offer
5. Resolve Concerns
6. Motivate to ActivateIn Vincent’s call, John never got past step 2. He got stuck in “Discovery” where he used “digging” to try to get more information about Vincent. John’s goal was to use this intel to build an argument for staying with AOL, and deliver what the manual calls the “tailored value.”
Read the AOL retention manual (7MByte pdf format).
Anyone that still has AOL deserves it.
The good news is that AOL raised the white flag two weeks ago, deciding that it would discontinue actively marketing its dialup service and attempting to retain existing customers.
The great deluge of AOL discs is finally going to end.
AOL is putting the final touches on a plan that would stop marketing its subscription service, which for more than a decade has been the most popular way that Americans connect to the Internet, according to a senior AOL executive close to the plan’s development.
Instead, it will redouble its efforts to build a free, advertising-supported business on the Web, offering current and former members access to the most popular features of its paid service — including e-mail addresses at AOL.com, free virus protection, and use of AOL’s software program.
The plan would save hundreds of millions of dollars a year in marketing costs and involve layoffs of thousands of AOL’s 19,000 employees.
The company would no longer advertise its dial-up service on television or mail software discs, activities that brought in hundreds of thousands of new customers a quarter, partly making up for the rapid defection of members to high-speed offerings from cable and phone companies.
As of March 31, AOL had 18.6 million subscribers, including 6 million connecting mainly through high-speed connections. The overall number declined by 850,000 in the first quarter and by 3.1 million in the 12-month period.
Under the plan being discussed, the company would cease having its employees try to “save” subscribers, by talking them into retaining their service. Recently, a recording of a particularly aggressive AOL employee thwarting a customer’s attempt to cancel his service was widely circulated on the Internet.
Until now, AOL had tried to bolster its dial-up business, which remains highly profitable even as revenue falls. But it has concluded that this effort is a costly distraction, both to customers and to Wall Street.
A year ago, AOL decided to take much of the content it had provided only to subscribers and make it free to anyone visiting AOL.com in hopes of building its advertising revenue. AOL executives say that the initial signs are that this is working. AOL’s advertising revenue in the first quarter was $392 million, up 26 percent from the quarter a year ago.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/07/technology/07aol.html?pagewanted=print
I love how the term “Assumptive” is used to replace the concept “manipulative.”
Then they give examples like, “Protecting your kids and saving money would be great, wouldn’t it?”
I almost expected to see something like, “Only suckers would want to leave AOL. You’re not a sucker, are you?”
There must be a quick lie or something you can tell these guys to get them to cancel unconditionally. Something like: “I’m getting rid of my computer.” or “I have a month to live so I’m cancelling ALL my services.”
DirecTV is the same way; initially your call is answered by a heavily accented off shore type, but as soon as you express intentions of canceling a smooth talking American comes on the line and starts going through his routine. BTW, you can’t cancel online, you got to call.
The AOL free offer always makes me laugh; to use all the hours in the time alloted you’d only get about twleve hours to sleep in four months. The whole free offer disc campaign could be used as the poster child for a global consumption of resources media blitz.
Years ago, when my dad cancelled AOL, he told them that he had just been convicted of attempted murder, and was going to be sentenced to a long prison term. The AOL Salesman didn’t appear to believe him, but nor did he have any arguments on why my dad should stay with AOL.
I recently found out that the Discover card is just as difficult to cancel. I spent about 30 minutes trying to get the guy to stop screwing with me and simply cancel the account. At one point I held scissors up to the phone and said “do you hear this sound? (SNIP, SNIP) This is me cutting my Discover card into 500 pieces.” After he offered to send me replacement cards (I’m not joking!), I asked for his supervisor – “it is obvious you cannot provide the service I need, and I want someone else to help me” – finally he began to listen to me.
I’m going to advertise my services as a professional account-canceller.
I cherish my AOL collectors coaster set.
I have two cherry trees in the back yard. Birds seem to love the cherries more then I do. Well this year I was determined to get the cherries before the birds. Well, I could have put large nets over the trees, but couldn’t find any. Then I came across another trick. Birds are afraid of shiny objects that move. Guess what I did with all those old AOL disks (and a few other old programs). Yup, hung them from the branches. Worked like magic too. Now, if I could get the bugs to stop eating the cherries, I might do even better next year.
Thank you AOL. I really enjoyed that Cherry Pie. I might have done it without your help, but you sure were handy.
Sirs, i want to stop my aol starting as of today 8-806 Thank you Bonnie Freeman