{"id":9378,"date":"2006-07-19T06:52:26","date_gmt":"2006-07-19T13:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2006\/07\/19\/aol-retention-manual.html"},"modified":"2006-07-19T06:52:26","modified_gmt":"2006-07-19T13:52:26","slug":"aol_retention_m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/07\/19\/aol_retention_m.html","title":{"rendered":"AOL Retention Manual"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is priceless — a leaked copy of the manual AOL gives its staff on how to retain customers<\/a> that call up to cancel their service<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, AOL certainly has a right to retain its customers. And, heck, I suspect that every other subscription\/service-based company has a similar manual or set of procedures (or wishes it did). But, at some point, “No means no,” and AOL and its reps seem blithely set on completely ignoring that point and continuing onward despite customer anger, outrage, and hair-pulling insanity. After all, as long as the customer never gets to actually cancel, it’s a win for AOL, right? Except for, y’know, all that legal <\/em>stuff and everything<\/a>.<\/p>\n

(via BoingBoing<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n

UPDATE: The full manual can be found here<\/a>. Again, the objection is not to the idea of trying to retain customers, or even better understand why a customer is leaving, but to the inability of AOL to acknowledge that, at some point, you’re not losing a customer but you’re gaining an enemy if you don’t just cancel the frelling account<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is priceless — a leaked copy of the manual AOL gives its staff on how to retain customers that call up to cancel their service. Now, AOL certainly has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[35,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-business","category-media-moguls"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7746,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/08\/23\/aol_hotel_calif.html","url_meta":{"origin":9378,"position":0},"title":"AOL = Hotel California for your credit card","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 23-Aug-05 1:39pm","format":false,"excerpt":"You can cancel any time you like ... but you can never leave. One reader passed on some advice from a friend who works for AOL. \"Get the name of...","rel":"","context":"In "Media Moguls"","block_context":{"text":"Media Moguls","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-moguls"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133206,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/04\/04\/no-more-yahoo-or-aol-just-oath.html","url_meta":{"origin":9378,"position":1},"title":"No more "Yahoo" or "AOL" — just … "Oath"?","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 4-Apr-17 7:36am","format":false,"excerpt":"Of corporate branding there is no understanding. I can certainly appreciate Verizon deciding to file off the \"Yahoo\" name from the assets it's in the process of acquiring, and doing the same for the old \"AOL\" bits it previously acquired -- but \"Oath\"? I really wish I'd been sitting in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7062,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/11\/04\/the_way_of_the.html","url_meta":{"origin":9378,"position":2},"title":"The way of the dinosaurs","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 4-Nov-04 8:34am","format":false,"excerpt":"AOL seems to be in a long, downward spiral. AOL, a unit of media conglomerate Time Warner Inc., has lost millions of subscribers to lower-cost rivals and higher-speed cable and...","rel":"","context":"In "Hi-Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Hi-Tech","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/hi-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1338,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/01\/22\/what_is_the_sou.html","url_meta":{"origin":9378,"position":3},"title":"What is the sound of the other shoe dropping?","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 22-Jan-02 8:05pm","format":false,"excerpt":"AOL Time Warner has filed suit against Micro$oft, seeking damages for its illegal monopolistic practices and the damage it did to Netscape (which AOL bought back in '99). Since the...","rel":"","context":"In "Hi-Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Hi-Tech","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/hi-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8860,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/04\/03\/aol_is_un_ameri.html","url_meta":{"origin":9378,"position":4},"title":"AOL is Un-American","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 3-Apr-06 11:17pm","format":false,"excerpt":"At least to the extent of changing its name. AOL is no longer short for the company, \"America Online.\" It now is \"AOL.\" In an expected move, Time Warner Inc.\u2019s...","rel":"","context":"In "Hi-Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Hi-Tech","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/hi-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7408,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/03\/14\/having_it_both.html","url_meta":{"origin":9378,"position":5},"title":"Having it both ways","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 14-Mar-05 6:21am","format":false,"excerpt":"If, in fact, the new AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) Terms of Service (TOS) include some privacy-busting clauses like ... ... by posting Content on an AIM Product, you grant AOL,...","rel":"","context":"In "Media Moguls"","block_context":{"text":"Media Moguls","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-moguls"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9378\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}