AOL shows how not to serve your customers

Posted by jd
July 3, 2006

Request:  Please subscribe to my feed.  Here is help for subscribing.

Image of a customer service agent answering the phone.
The mistreatment of Vincent Ferrari (an AOL customer who wanted to cancel his membership was abused by an AOL employee and did everything possible not to help him – the audio of the conversation was posted on the web) is yet another example that companies that should be setting standards for customer service are actually producing case studies of how not to run your support department. This comes on the heel of how badly Comcast treats its customers. In fact, if you search for any major company/brand, you will hear millions of instances of mistreatment.

Related reading

Tips on improving customer service

Online customer service

Customer relationship management

Customer analytics

Using CRM to create value

How to maximize CRM ROI?

Key account management

Best practices for call center outsourcing

Is your customer king?

While stories of treating customers as headaches by a firm’s employees are nothing new but what is a major change now is the extent to which bad (good, in some cases) information gets out today. No amount of advertising/marketing can do undo the damage that can be done by stories of real people. Let me explain. I was recently shopping for insurance and a firm that sent us what looked like a good offer lost our business after I decided to do a simple Google search before placing the order. I found nothing but horror stories about the firm the moment I put the company name in Google. While the salesperson was trying his best to convince why everyone on the web is wrong and he was right, I chose to trust the mountain of information in forums and blogs more than his sales pitch. And their competitors (with good reviews on the web) were merely a click away.

So what is the message here? Stop treating your customers like *#@%. As I have said repeatedly in the past, your customers, shareholders, and employees are the the three corners of your business. You mistreat one and that is the end of your business.

Advertising, Business strategy, Marketing

If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Comments

No comments yet.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.