Rep Won't Let Customer Quit AOL

[amarinth]

@buttonjockey308

Just like tech support anywhere, if you’re not getting anything out of it, hang up, call back. You’re bound to strike gold somehwere.

You got straight through? Usually, I have to wait on hold for 45 minutes when I want to speak to tech support anywhere. I’m not willing to do that 3 times in a row. So, I’m already in the mood to make whomever is at the other end fo that phone fix the problem.

[Little_Nemo]

I heard a good piece of advice on the radio today. They said you should call to make cancellations on evenings and weekends. Tech support people are there 24 hours a day but the retention people generally work 40 hour weeks. So if you call at night, there won’t be any retention people there to put your call through to. The tech support people are being judged by how many customer problems they can solve per hour. So if you call and tell them “I don’t want AOL anymore.” They’ll say “If I disconnect your service, will that solve your problem? Yes? Okay, all done, thank you, have a nice day. Next.”

[GusNSpot]

I have never had a problem with cancelling an AOHell account.

[EddyTeddyFreddy]

@GusNSpot

I have never had a problem with cancelling an AOHell account.

Maybe they were trying to tell you something? :dubious:

[Renee]

It took my poor mother, who really isn’t that much of a wimp, nearly an hour to cancel her AOL account. She was crying by the end of the call. I wasn’t there, or I would have cussed the asshole out.

[Wnabtokio]

@Lissa

I know it’s frustrating, but try not to get mad at the representative. They’re just doing their job. I once had a similar job and I can tell you that it’s pretty miserable to be shouted at all day.

1. The reps can’t change the policy.

2. They have to nag, or bribe or plead (whatever the call center has decided as their tactic). The bosses often listen in secretly on calls. (I was once chastized for taking “no” for an answer.)

3. Phone centers are often in economically depressed areas and require no higher education. They’re often staffed by people who don’t have much to chose from when it comes to having a job.

4. Politeness doesn’t take that much more time, and I think makes the world a tiny bit better. Keep repeating “No, thank you” in a polite but firm voice. I had three prepared “rebuttals” that I had to recite if the customer refused the offer, and after the third, I was free to give up and end the call. From my experience being on the recieving end, three “rebuttals” seems to be the norm. You can say a polite, “No, thank you,” three times, can’t you? (Karma, my friend.)

5. Your interaction with them is a few minutes long. They have to listen to angry people all day. It’s a shitty job. Why make it shittier for them? They’re just trying to earn a living, and have feelings, too.

I don’t work in a retention department, but on behalf of all corporate phone monkeys everywhere, I thank you.

[Gary_Robson]

Some years back I was working on a writing project that required some AOL screenshots. I grabbed a handy “8,231.5 free hours of AOL” CD and signed up. When the project was completed a couple of months later, I canceled. It was a long, painful, argumentative, annoying process, but they told me my account was canceled.

I got billed the next month. I called them to demand that they remove the charge. I was told that they could cancel my service, but they couldn’t reimburse me for “services I had already used.” I told the rep to look up the last time my account was used, and he’d find that it had been over 5 weeks. I had clearly used no services during that period. It still took a conversation with a supervisor and a fax to get reimbursed for the extra month and get the account closed once and for all.

I think AOL goes beyond “retention” and into blatant dishonesty and attempted theft.