The power of Buzz is changing everything - including some people's jobs according to an article in the New York Times. Your either part of the conversation - or it happens anyway (and you get a media storm and find out the hard way). IF your part of the conversation - at least you can put forward your side of the story.
A lot of the "Buzz" in the Blogosphere about AOL was suddenly negative (judging from the samples I read over using BlogPulse).
"When Vincent Ferrari, 30, of the Bronx, called AOL to cancel his membership last month, it took him a total of 21 minutes, including the time spent on an automated sequence at the beginning and some initial waiting in a queue. He recorded the five minutes of interaction with the AOL customer service representative and, a week later, posted the audio file on his blog, Insignificant Thoughts (insignificantthoughts.com/2006/06/13/cancelling-aol/).
Look what happened: We'll be right back. As soon as the server cools off. We were Digged and in the New York Times on the same day and blew through 12 Gigabytes of bandwidth and 700,000+ hits in 12 hours. I'll be back, but I have to give my server a rest so the other folks on it don't kill me. See you soon, and sorry for being too damn famous for my own good ;-) Fame sucks!
700,000 visitors in 12 hours! That must have cost AOL dearly.
"To listen as Mr. Ferrari tries to cancel his membership is to join him in a wild, horrifying descent into customer-service hell. The AOL representative, self-identified as John, sounds like a native English speaker; he refuses to comply when Mr. Ferrari asks, demands and finally pleads — over and over again — to close his account.
"By my count, he used the word 'cancel' 21 times," said Nicholas J. Graham, an AOL vice president and spokesman. "That's not counting the I-don't-need-it's, I-don't-want-it's and I-don't-use-it's. Add the other inferences, it's probably closer to 30." Mr. Graham, almost needless to say, was sharply critical of John's lack of responsiveness.
Some people who posted comments on the Web about the recording — about 20 percent of them, in Mr. Ferrari's estimation — found it so incredible that they declared it a hoax. But Mr. Graham said the call's authenticity had been internally verified, and he sent Mr. Ferrari a letter of apology. He said John was no longer with the company.
I had a similar experience with Xdrive, an AOL company now. Last month I noticed I could no longer use the Xdrive (which never worked that well anyway - but once AOL took it over it went totally downhill). I had a payment dispute and tried to get my account turned back and after 4 times almost gave up and then called AOL. What I ended up with is 10 minutes on the phone with someone who could not help me and then I got transferred to a non working AOL affilate number! I decided to give up on AOL Xdrive as it was more trouble than it's worth (and they would not give me a discount for being an AOL member)! Which I had taped the conversation - maybe I'd get 700,000 hits too!
"YouTube was also the place to enjoy a new one-minute gem titled "A Comcast Technician Sleeping on My Couch." The technician, in Washington, had arrived at Brian Finkelstein's home to replace a faulty modem and had to call in to Comcast's central office. Placed on hold just like powerless customers, the technician fell asleep after an hour of waiting.
How should Mr. Finkelstein have responded? By writing a letter of complaint to some distant regulatory authority that will require years before it acts? Far more effective means are now at hand. He recorded, then uploaded the video clip with some humorous asides about missed appointments and unfulfilled promises, and got immediate satisfaction in the act of sharing. More than 500,000 viewers have watched Mr. Finkelstein's video "thank you" note to Comcast.
AOL and Comcast executives in charge of customer service may long for the good old days when they had to deal only with a finite number of federal regulators and state attorneys general, not a universe of millions of Web-savvy customers.
"......In 2004, AOL signed an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission about problems related to — care to make a guess? — subscriber's requests for cancellation. That was followed last year with an "assurance of discontinuance" reached with Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney general, concerning — yes — subscriber's requests for cancellation. In both cases, investigations had revealed that AOL practiced a strange form of customer service, continuing to bill subscribers who had called to cancel, and had thought that they had done so, but who were marked down as "saved."
I also noticed last year I was billed for an account I had long since cancelled and forgot about - one of those "free 30 day accounts".....I guess nothing is really free anymore.
There's a wierd process AOL set up to try to stop people from unsubscribing -
"Fifty percent of calls that begin with the intention to cancel end up with the member deciding to stay. If members decide to proceed with the cancellation, then the phone conversation can be treated as an exit interview, helping the company learn about what it should improve. Mr. Graham said that to do anything other than this would not be "good practice."
The NYTimes article compares AOL's unsubscribe process to Netflix
"IF I were asked to think of an online company that provides exemplary customer service to its subscribers, Netflix, the DVD rental company, would come to mind well before AOL. When I took a look to see whether Netflix offered a way for a customer to cancel membership swiftly while online, I discovered that it provides a procedure — a click on a link, a click on a checkmark box, and one more click to complete — that would take no more than two seconds. No exit interviews, no last-ditch offers while I'm held captive on the phone.
Seeing how Netflix would be so protective of my time were I to leave makes me all the more unlikely to do so.
used to work for a outsourcing company in Jerusalem, Israel. For a year and half, I and 280 others worked for the AOL project. It ranged from customer recruitment, reactivation of old AOL accounts, billing and retention. Our site was the top rankings out of 12 sites for quality, customer service, etc...yet AOL in its pursuit of money...outsourced the outsource to India. Many AOl members complimented us because we spoke English they could understand. Also the members found India, etc to be rude, pushy, doing their own thing. One example is that every account has a history of calls, etc and what was done to the account. Most of the entries from India was meaningless phrases, one word, or codes...and at time, the MRM reps in India ingnored or did the exact opposite of what was dicussed with the Member.
Now in-re cancelling accounts. There is two ways: (1) immediate cancellation...which means it is cancelled that very moment. The only draw back to that is if the member has paided to the next billing date, they are out the money. (2) The other way is to have the account cancelled on the next billing date...which is OK, but there is 50/50 chance you will get another bill, because the billing date is not only closing date of the prior billing, but the start of the next. So, it is best to cancell before the billing date...as close as one can. But do not cancell on the billing date. Also, get the cancel confirmation number and keep it for reference.
When I was layoffed...AOL had just introduced a new set of credit guidline(as of 12/07) and it means that there is no more free months, and the member has to show any problems are AOL's fault to get any money back. Before then it was more liberal...but a rep's future on the phones was to keep the amount of free months, credits, and money way down.
There is much more...but in-re cancellation...ask for an immediate cancellation. The rep may try to cajole you to reconsider(after all the poor rep has to deal with "coach" and weird "keep it real" draconian rules) it. But stick to your guns. And if you paid for your service already...wait to a day or two before your billing date...call in an cancel...immediately. This will help.
Lastly, to those who have problems with India...they drove us crazy too, and caused us and the AOL members too much heartache. In spite of all this, I liked working on the AOL project...I tried to help people and gave them what they wanted. I never pushed to retain accounts, etc. I think if AOL wants to survive and flourish...it should totally rethink the way it handles members. The customer comes first and if the complaint, issue, etc is legit...by all means help them and not hinder them.
PS: AOL used to push video professor...this is a rip off...say no. Also, they were pushing HSIO(high speed internet option...aol and another company). See what the HSIO package is about by going to keyword: highspeed and then compare it with the other company or the company AOL is a partner with to see which is the better package.
Posted by: Yaakov | February 28, 2007 2:17 AM | Permalink to Comment