I want to start this off by presenting AOL the coveted “worst company of all-time” award. Next, I want to say if you are visiting my site and you are an AOL customer you can do 1 of 2 things. 1) Leave and 2) well, just leave. Thanks.
Now, on with the story. Let’s begin with a quick list of recent news involving the company.
1) It was awarded the “Worst Tech Product Of All Time” by PC World – Beating out major players like Windows ME (makes me cringe just thinking about it), the Sony rootkit scandal, and the Eyetop Wearable DVD player. Only AOL could receive the worst tech product award of all time and in everyone’s eyes, the worst company ever award. Congratulations.
2) A report titled “AOL Embarrassed by CNBC Report On Its Business Practices” (here) that describes the horrors of dealing with the companies sales reps is released. This especially focuses on the process of cancelling an account…or lack thereof a process.
3) Then, Vincent Ferrari recorded his phone call with AOL when he attempted to cancel his account. Let’s just say when you tell a sales rep that he is annoying the s*** out of you and he replies with “It goes both ways”…I really don’t need to say much. If you have 5 minutes (literally) you have to listen to the call. I have to admit that I’ve listened to it about 15 times because I am just dumbfounded that something like this could actually happen. You can also watch Vincent’s interview with WNBC.
4) If this is not enough bad publicity, this has got to be the story that will lead to the much anticipated demise of this company. A woman called to cancel her moms account. Why didn’t she just have her mom cancel it you might ask? She died in a car wreck two days earlier. Surely after the women presented them with the coroner’s id number this thing should be taken care of right? Wrong. The guy taking care of the issue responded by telling the woman “I’m sorry that your mom was unhappy with the service. Can I suggest lowering the number of hours per month to reduce the bill?” Wow. Are these people robots…no wait, robots are smarter than these ignorant morons. The guy went on to tell her that she would have to have her mom call to cancel the account. Now here’s the kicker, they’re still waiting for that phone call apparently. Yep, last time the woman checked, the account was still active. Amazing.
How can a company like this still be in existence? They feed off of the computer illiterate. Period. The reason I say this is because anytime you have a tech related offer and you throw in the word free, people bite. Once they pop that “free” disc in and install all that AOL software, you may as well infect your computer with viruses and spyware. You’re next step? Get your re-install cd out and get to work.
AOL became the giant they are today because of an above average and aggressive marketing scheme that was maybe one of the largest ever initiated. Everywhere you turned there were AOL discs offering free minutes. In magazines, mailed directly to people, in every Blockbuster in the world (when they didn’t suck), online ads, everywhere. What they didn’t tell you is that the only way you can cancel your account is if you die…err, wait. Nevermind. Let me rephrase.
What they didn’t tell you was that you can’t cancel your account unless you record the phone call, put it online, submit it to every major social website and get invited to dozens of talk shows to tell your story. Sounds simple enough right?
In one of the articles it talks about people being double billed, over-charged, and just plain charged at random. How can one company be so bad at everything they do? You would think they could get something right. Or maybe they do. Maybe they have perfected the worst business model of all time. Touché AOL.
Since the company has lost almost a million subscribers in the last quarter, a number that will not likely decline any time soon. My guess is that the next step for AOL would be to start pulling records of all the dead people in the world and try to bill them. Or even better, just keep billing all the customers that cancelled. Ya, that’ll teach those un-loyal bastards.
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