One possible measure of success is the parody. When Vincent Ferrari tried to cancel his AOL account, his recording of the reps attempts to keep him went quickly around the web. But Mark Day has now taken this and imagined himself trying to cancel a Playboy account and all the extra offers that could come with that subscription.
Although the particular AOL rep was apparently fired for treating the customer like this, I doubt he just decided to come in one day and decided to be awkward. He had to have been following the training and expectations of his bosses. I;ve tried cancelling a BT account and got the same kind of pressure to stay (although not as bad). It’s always cheaper to keep customers than to recriut new ones, but the attempt to keep should never be at the point of leaving. If the customer has got that far, it’s too late – the effort to keep should be done at all stages of the customer life cycle. Keep them happy, provide them the services they need with littlle trouble and they should never go near the cancellation hotline
