When marketing is too aggressive

Cancellations are a valuable sales lead.

Apparently, that’s the message in the AOL Retention manual:

If you stop and think about it, every Member that calls in to cancel their account is a hot lead. Most other sales jobs require you to create your own leads, but in the Retention Queue the leads come to you! Be eager to take more calls, get more leads and close more sales. More leads means more selling opportunities for you and cost savings for AOL.

Despite claiming publically that AOL is happy to cancel ISP accounts, apparently there’s a whole process - in the US at least - where sales staff attempt to resell AOL accounts to those trying to close them, via a six stage system:

1. Greet and Verify
2. Discovery
3. Tailored Value
4. Right Offer
5. Resolve Concerns
6. Motivate to Activate

The issue came to a head when Vincent Ferrari tried to cancel his AOL account - but also happened to record his call. A call recording that then went national in the USA.

Apparently, AOL has serious customer perception problems in the US about closing accounts. Which doesn’t seem surprising when a fatal car crash is no excuse for a cancellation.

Is a cancellation a sales lead?

Only when you show respect for the client, do what they ask, and do what you can to wish them well.

You know - sometimes they even come back.

But if you disrespect the customer, it’s not just the customer you could lose, but anyone the customer tells their story to.