Just when it seems things can't get worse for AOL, it appears they have a mole leaking information to Consumerist.com. The Consumerist has been on AOL like a boxer pup on a meatloaf since the "cancel my account" snafu, digging up internal memos and employee manuals. The public relations nightmare continues.
backlash, a renewed Eliot Spitzer investigation, Geronimo-ing subscribers, pottymouthed Netscape employees, fiasco, and you have a company whose hot water has reached boiling.
Soon after memos, EVP of Member Services, Scott Falconer called the aftermath of the incident "severe," and employees were instructed to assume that any call could be recorded and posted on the Web. Falconer pleads with his staff to be extra helpful to all incoming callers. The Member Services crew also received an update instructing them that they were only to pitch the canceling member Consumerist, Gabels calls Ferrari a "poor excuse for a human" and "a laughing stock within AOL." Another commentator, whose anonymous visit tracked back to within the Netscape camp, uses a colloquialism for a male member to describe him.
Perhaps the nastiness AOL seems desperately trying to correct in the aftermath stems from its own policies. New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who fined the company $1.25 million last year because of the difficulty in canceling subscriptions, said he will Most other sales jobs require you to create your own leads, but in the Retention Queue the leads come to you!
It is probably widely whispered and reasoned among employees the key difference is that most other sales professionals focus on people who are actually interested in their product and don't already hate it. Since in the hot seat, as has been mentioned, the process has been expedited.
So once again the PR nightmare comes down on Nicholas Graham, who, really through no fault of his own, enjoys the onus of spinning this particularly onerous series of events. He says what he has to say, even if the company demonstrates otherwise. Consumerist comes down on him as well:
- In a public statement, AOL's Nicholas Graham claimed that John, "violated our customer service guidelines and practices, and everything that AOL believes to be important in customer care - chief among them being respect for the member, and swiftly honoring their requests." If this is true, then why is there such a complex system designed to thwart those very requests? Brevity thrives on simplicity.
Yeah well, Graham history of too-little-too-late clean ups. Jon Miller has his work cut out for him too. Hope they have good dancing shoes.
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