Illegitimate Save
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AOL Saves
In the business of retention (preventing customer churn), a Save is when a company representative prevents the customer from canceling their service. On its own, Saves aren't necessarily bad, except when the customer felt intimidated or forced into being retained by the company.
Most customer-centric companies have a general interest in knowing why their customers are leaving so they can better improve their products and services. Unfortunately, at AOL, the information customers provide at the time of retention are only used to retain you for short-term and does not get reviewed by AOL executives (or anyone else, for that matter).
Illegitimate Saves
An Illegitimate Save occurs usually for financial or job security reasons. At AOL, there was a time they mandated a 60% minimum Save rate, resulting in aggressive interactions between AOL customers and employees.
In the event of an Illegitimate Save, AOL employees are granted three Illegitimate Saves before they are terminated. If an employee goes to their manager within a 24-hour period, they are given amnesty because they informed management.
Tactics
Common tactics to induce an Illegitimate Save are:
- Stating they can't hear the customer, requiring them to call back and releasing the call.
- Running a "Yes Train," meaning they ask forceful rhetorical questions making you say "Yes" repeatedly, then throwing in "let's keep your account active," resulting in a quick "Yes" from you.
- If the customer had multiple accounts, you'd access ("touch") those accounts and fail to inform the customer about them. (Assuming those accounts are neglected, the agent receives credit for the retention of them.)
- Aggressive, over-specific verification on the account; that is if you had a middle initial but didn't say it, they would refuse to cancel the account.
- Similar to above, Over-verification; where they ask you for more information necessary in order to intimidate you and cause you to call back another time.
Enforcement
Enforcement of Illegitimate Saves varies by the manager, the performance level of the representative and the level of tolerance from customers. AOL failed to address their own guidelines so frequently, the FTC mandated third-party verification to monitor AOL's retention activity.
As a customer, you can file a complaint to the following destinations if you feel your cancellation request was not honored, or honored in an ethical fashion:
- AOL Corporate Headquarters:
- AOL LLC
- 770 Broadway
- New York, NY 10003
- (212) 652 6400
- Executive Contact:
Most higher executives have their executive assistant read and manage their e-mail, forwarding it to executive-escalation departments for later handling.
- CEO, Randy Falco - Randy.Falco@corp.aol.com
- COO, Ron Grant - Ron.Grant@corp.aol.com
- VP: Member Services, Kim Partoll - Kim.Partoll@corp.aol.com
