The Washington Post asked Jason Calacanis, an AOL exec and headmaster of Weblogs Inc, what he thought of the infamous AOL call. Here’s our responses, in brevis, to what he blogged.
AOL
Quit AOL By Fax, Mail, or Phone
By 7.25.06
In all the boogaloo about AOL’s manual and call centers, we forgot some very important pieces of information.
AOL Founder ‘Sorry’ For Time Warner Mating
By 7.24.06
It’s uncertain to whom AOL founder Steve Case, looking as boyish as ever, directed his apology, but he’s, “Sorry” for AOL’s merger with Time-Warner (TW). Not that the merger occurred, no, they will always have those hot Savannah nights, but he’s, “disappointed and frustrated that it hasn’t developed in the way that we all hoped at the time it could.”
Former Elite AOL Retainer Interviewed
By 7.24.06
Tricks an AOL retainer used to keep people from cancelling:
NYT Notes AOL Manual Upload, Questions Raised
By 7.22.06
After we uploaded an AOL retention manual, AOL says “No Comment” to its authenticity in an article in today’s New York Times “What’s Online” section:
Interview With Former AOL Retention Superstar
By 7.21.06
At his peak, our interviewee “saved” over 87% of the people who called him up to cancel their account. We’re still working on editing the whole thing, and in fact, have to get on the phone with another consultant in a second here, but we wanted to share this teaser clip with you.
Top Stories of The Week
By 7.21.06
• Scientologists Bullying Man’s Mind. The most pitiful thing is that these guys probably paid a lot of money to learn how to be complete dicks.
AOL Don’t Wanna Talk Bout No Manual
By 7.20.06
CNet got AOL on the horn to talk about the AOL retention manual we uploaded, but the big triangle didn’t have much to say, except for:
Retro AOL Bashing
By 7.20.06
Even before the roaring 2000’s ravaged AOL’s subscriber base like colectomy through Denny’s, the ISP was catching flack over its retention policies, as noted in an article from the golden-tinged yesteryears of 1998.
AOL Retention Manual Uploaded in Full
By 7.19.06
And finally, here is the full AOL retention manual, along with flowchart. Right click
A Blogosphere Reacts
By 7.19.06
People are linking to the our AOL retention manual article, as well as a mal-edited Comcast broadcast. They’re saying things and we’re reading them. Now we’re telling them to you.
AOL Retention Manual Revealed
By 7.18.06
In August of 2005, America Online settled with the office of NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer over complaints about how arduous AOL made it to cancel service. In addition to a $1.25 million fine, AOL agreed to streamline the cancellation process and submit all calls for third-party review. 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…
AOL Employees Slander Vincent Ferrari On Company Time
By 7.15.06
This is not the AOL manual. So acclimated to squirting off-the-cuff posts, throwing haymakers at peccadilloes, the prospect of three-plus pages, single-spaced, is a bit daunting. It needs more editing and is sleeping soundly in a drawer. The material is so wrong, we have to make sure we do it right.
