…and, of course, it’s not just AOL who instructs their customer service reps to exhort, pressure, extol even bully canceling customers into staying with the service. The entire industry of cancellation call centers seems to work upon customer retention quotas. And it’s not just in the U.S.
csr
Some Skeptical Musings on the AOL CSR Statement
By 6.16.06
When AOL said that part of their zero tolerance asshole employee policy was “swiftly honoring [customer] requests,” we all pretty much rolled our eyes into the back of our head and spent a few minutes scrutinizing our snarky, sarcastic brains.
AOL Fires Infamous CSR
By 6.15.06
The AOL customer service rep who tried so very hard to prevent Vincent Ferrai from cancelling his service has been fired.
HOWTO: Cancel Anything
By 6.15.06
Courtesy of an anonymous reader and telcom worker, BoingBoing has some advice for cancelling any kind of service over the phone, which we’ve distilled here:
Great Moments in Irish Customer Service: Eircom
By 6.15.06
I have been making some rather incompetent attempts to get a Linksys WRT54G up and running so I can do some Consumerist blogging naked in bed or sitting on the toilet. These, as you may have guessed, have not met with much success, meaning I am currently writing this to you fully clothed and, as usual, full of shit.
Update: Canceling Fax Service Like Passing Gallstones
By 6.15.06
Surprise, surprise, it’s hard for others to cancel J2 as well. Not only that, but their chat-based CSRs definitely have robotic paragraphs they insert into the conversation. Compare the chat log after the jump with our previous post on the same matter, you’ll find that Amy R. says the exact same lame retention spiel as Sharon. W.
Travelocity Atrocity
By 6.14.06
Turns out the Travelocity Guarantee isn’t that. Think of it more as a courtesy statement of what you might expect to pay should Travelocity have all its shit together. This guy recorded a call he had with a Travelocity supervisor. He wanted them to honor the agreed-upon price. They didn’t.
Canceling Fax Service Like Passing Gallstones
By 6.14.06
L.S. writes that she had a devil of a time trying to cancel her service with J2, an online fax and voicemail service. The cancellation info was buried deep in the website and several links and phone numbers were only dead-ends bedecked with red herrings.
Jaws Of Comcast
By 6.13.06
Just when you thought it was safe to connect your computer to the internet, Comcast customer service rears its crappy head again.
The Best Thing We Have Ever Posted: Reader Tries To Cancel AOL
By 6.13.06
This is the best thing we have ever posted. It’s so good that we almost don’t want to comment on this mp3 that Consumerist reader Vincent Ferrari recording him trying to cancel his AOL account. [More]
Update: Boston Macy’s Removes Gay Mannequins
By 6.9.06
A customer complained to Macy’s about their removal of gay mannequins from Boston window displays in response to a campaign by an anti-gay religious group.
Cingular CSR Admits Service Sucks, Keeps Customer
By 6.8.06
It’s strangely refreshing to get a casual and honest CSR on the other end of the phone. Instead of binder-read lip service that always translates to “We appreciate your concerns, so go fuck yourself” the opposite approach is placating. A lot of time, people who call customer service lines just want an admission that there’s a problem, for someone to listen to them: outside of that, they tend to be pretty patient about resolution as long as they don’t feel like they are being given the cold shoulder or patronized.
AOL Wants to Eat the Dead
By 6.7.06
A reader well versed in customer service shares with us this following anecdote about how much AOL cares about servicing your dead relatives. David writes:
How To Get A Support Ticket From HP
By 6.7.06
While Ben continues to burst aneurysms out of his skin like tiny out-of-control fire hoses in his efforts to cancel his MySpace account, here’s a reminder that impenetrably convoluted instructions to get support aren’t limited to community websites aimed primarily at Popken and his sulky teenage emo girl peer group.
Crossing Swords With Sprint PCS
By 6.6.06
Gregg wasn’t paying attention. Slowly, every so surely, his Sprint bill had crept up until it was charging him $100 for a data service he never used. After four months of inattention and automatic credit-card bill payments, his overpayment mounted to over $800. The low-level CSR argued with Greg that it was his fault so he leapfrogged her and did battle with the supervisor. We’re making it sound more exciting than it really is, after all, Greg says in his intro:
