AOL’s Customer Disservice
We’ve talked before about a website called gethuman.com, started by Paul English, that maintains a list of companies’ customer service numbers and ways to circumvent their automated menus. Now someone just needs to come up with ways to circumvent terrible customer service from the actual customer service representatives themselves:
The run-around, now common to the customer service experience, has apparently reached a new apex. CNBC recently covered a story about a man who tried to cancel his AOL account. The representative really took things to a new level in all but refusing to cancel the account, telling the customer what he does and doesn’t do and even asking to talk to his father (the customer is 30 years old).
The transcript is available at msnbc.com. It’s worth the time. Other commentary can be found HERE.
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......Paul English has an awesome website called gethuman.com, which is described as the following: ...a consumer movement created to change the face of customer service. This...Lie: "People are our most important asset." Truth: "People are our most worrisome and unpredictable asset. Our most important assets are really our financial assets." B.S. Detector:...
June 26th, 2006 at 9:30 pm
I laughed when I listened to the call last week. The truth is, this guy is not an exception. AOL reps make it nearly impossible to cancel, which means that the problem wasn’t this rep, but the company policy.
I’ve done the “free trial” thing a couple times with AOL and have ended up getting almost a year free both times because when you call to cancel the reps just won’t let you. “Do you use this for school?” “Let me tell you about a new feature we have.” “I can add two free months on your membership.” etc.
June 26th, 2006 at 10:27 pm
Also if you have your monthly bill automatically withdrawn from your checking account it is difficult to get them to stop taking it out. I’ve seen dozens of people with this problem.
July 20th, 2006 at 1:57 am
Supposedly now a website called consumerist.com has uploaded AOL’s customer service manual in all of its PDF glory for people to peruse to get a good chuckle.
aolmanual.pdf