9 replies to this topic

[z2z007]

I'm sure some of you have learned about how AOL got sued for not allowing members to quit their service with ease. This might bring a few laughs.

http://cache.consumerist.com/assets/resour...omaolmanual.pdf
http://consumerist.com/consumer/exclusive/...aled-188005.php

[Alpha2005]

z2z007, on Jul 19 2006, 11:50 AM, said:

I'm sure some of you have learned about how AOL got sued for not allowing members to quit their service with ease. This might bring a few laughs.

http://cache.consumerist.com/assets/resour...omaolmanual.pdf
http://consumerist.com/consumer/exclusive/...aled-188005.php

Lol quitting AOL requires a masters degree in social engineering. It boils down to:

No, no, thanks but no, I am leaving the country and need my account disabled,so no. No I do not want the free account extended 6 more months, I will be gone for a few years....

[azntechguy]

Either that, or do what my dad did, pretend to have English problems and being very slow / unresponsive to what the Retentions guy, leading to a quick conversation and a quick end.

[djharkavy]

azntechguy, on Jul 19 2006, 09:10 PM, said:

Either that, or do what my dad did, pretend to have English problems and being very slow / unresponsive to what the Retentions guy, leading to a quick conversation and a quick end.

It took me about 20 minutes to cancel my father-in-law's account. I just kept telling them that he couldn not afford to pay monthly fees and that he had another form of access. Eventually they got the message.

They have gotten a bit easier since they have started trying to emphasize their portal, instead of their dial-up.

Now you can retain your aol username (as an AIM username) even if you quit them. Which is why I am finally cancelling my aol account. I didn't want to lose scienceteacher.

[wretched]

Don't these people at AOL realize that they'll lose more customers than they'll gain using their "retention" techniques. Knowing they'll go through hell to cancel, customers will never go re-subscribe but if they made cancellation quick and easy, people would be more likely to go back to AOL in the future. It's true for any service.

It also doesn't help that AOL is horrendously overpriced.

[z2z007]

There is no point to the services that AOL offers anyway. Most of them are free elsewhere and many of the members have broadband services from other ISPs while using AOL.

[techkid]

I read an article in the New York Times Business Section called "At AOL. a Plan for a Clean Break," by Saul Hansell. This article talked about how AOL is looking for a way to help raise Time Warner stock. AOL plans to slowly shift from focusing on internet access to free stuff. This free stuff are the features that AOL allows everyone to use at no cost to the user, and this is funded through advertising. As AOL phases out of this, they are going to allow everyone to use certain features for free, but customers who are still going to pay are going to recieve a better version of these free services. Even though this article only covers ideas that are being thrown on the table, it does indifrectly address the discussion that is going on in this thread. If AOL is going to phase out of its internet access, then thier retention "technique" is not going to have major impact on the company as a whole.

[Quixotic]

I hate AOL so much. I can't believe I used them a few years ago. In retrospect, Verizon totally owns it. I don't need a separate program to go online, whereas Verizon lets you stay online from the moment you turn on your computer to when you shut it off. This allows little to no disconnections that happens with AOL (i know i've never gotten disconnected before). plus, i hate their email system; i prefer yahoo email. their browser and im messenger sucks as well, with better choices like Opera (my personal favorite) and Trillian.
Plus their sales representatives are taught to say "how about an extra 3 months" etc etc which is the whole point of this article. I can't wait till FIOS becomes standard, then AOL is going to be screwed.

[techkid]

Quixotic, on Jul 21 2006, 01:51 AM, said:

I hate AOL so much. I can't believe I used them a few years ago. In retrospect, Verizon totally owns it. I don't need a separate program to go online, whereas Verizon lets you stay online from the moment you turn on your computer to when you shut it off. This allows little to no disconnections that happens with AOL (i know i've never gotten disconnected before). plus, i hate their email system; i prefer yahoo email. their browser and im messenger sucks as well, with better choices like Opera (my personal favorite) and Trillian.
Plus their sales representatives are taught to say "how about an extra 3 months" etc etc which is the whole point of this article. I can't wait till FIOS becomes standard, then AOL is going to be screwed.

Since it is easier to just go online and always stay online (which both DSL and optimum online allow you to do), the second your router goes down (which happens a lot) you run into a lot of problems. I personally lose a lot of time trying to rebut my whole system (i have optimum online) and seeing if I can just get online that way. But in the end I have to call customer support and get it all straigtened out. Optimum online's customer support like to stretch out your conversations which wastes even more time. So nothing is perfect, although DSL and optimum online are better (despite the price).

[z2z007]

My router goes down from time to time. It is no big deal. I just release and renew the IP address. (Note that I have cable, static IP)