AOL Unofficial Clarification of Policies

Response

Posted in Unspecified

This is really unofficial, but coming from someone in the trenches I feel the need to respond to Vincent Ferrari. I am leaving comments open and will not update past this post because this is all I have to say. I am ready to be insulted and called a liar, but thats ok because I got to say my piece.

I don't think that what the consultant did was ok, he handled the call all wrong but I did want to clarify some stuff that has been said. I also apologize to anyone who had a bad time with AOL, but I like my company and job and its hard to sit by without saying anything.

Facts

Pay/ As a saves consultant I am not paid for the number of people I keep. I am paid based on Member Satisfaction, which are surveys sent to people who decide to keep their service. If I helped them, they mark me well and I get a bonus. So I guess it is partly based on retained customers, since the cancelled ones don't get surveyed. But it does me no good to save people because I won't get paid on it as you will see in the next paragraph.

TPV/ This is a third party verification system that I have to transfer to if I retain any members. The member has to tell this third party they know their account is still open and they requested it open. If not I get sent back for an invalid save and placed on a final corrective or even terminated. If I get caught not transferring TPV I am terminated too.

Keep it real/ This is AOLs policy helping to keep our noses clean. If I do anything misleading on a call and its heard by our quality team I lose between 25 to 100% of my bonus. The quality team is international, as well as local, and my coach and css listen to calls daily. There is very little room for any weird stuff.

We don't cancel accounts for people who die/ We have a form that needs to be filled out and we ask that information be faxed to us, but we will cancel it. We will even update it to a living persons credit or checking if they can also provide proof. For those that think this is going too far you know that if we were to cancel an account without verification even once and it turned out that the person cancelling was just trying to mess with the person whose account it really was we'd be on the Today Show for not keeping members accounts secure. Its a double edged sword and we lose either way.

Usahge and reactivation/You can keep your screen names by registering at AIM.com along with a free email address. We tell people this (as John did) at the end of the call. Using this free mail account will not reactivate your account. The only ways you can reactivate your account is to call us and give us payment information again or if you actually log on to the AOL software and reenter your password and sign on. My idea is that that is what John was trying to hammily trying to tell Mr Ferrari when he mentioned usage. If his dad was using it, and logged back on after V Ferrari canceled, he would reactiivate and there would be another phone call and bad stuff.

Answers

I looked at other websites (Consumerist.com) and I know people have questions about our acronyms so I'll clarify. TPV is third party verification. KIR is keep it real. FOCUS is our mission for 2006: Fullfill our member advocacy, optomize cost structure, catch the broadband market, upgrade our sales skills, strengthen execution capabilities. I know the V Ferrari call was not anything like this goal but I try my best everyday to do that. Also, we make well above minimum wage, day one benefits, and get 2 free aol accounts.

Rumors

So this may not be true but let me tell you what I heard on the floor-

John was an outsourcer, not an internal AOL employee.

We might be giving AOL stuff away for Broadband users.

I do worry about my call center being closed which is more of a possibility now that this call is making headllines.

This one is a tough call because I can't check unless I go into his account but this is the rumor anyway/ Mr Ferrari called in over 170 times before he got John and this recording. Again, just a rumor, but one that could be cleared up if Mr Ferrari would give AOL permission to release his records (notes on his account).

Thats all I have. I don't think this will be as big as Mr Ferrari's posts, but I feel better knowing that I have set some of the record straight, and hopefully you understand that one bad apple does not ruin the bunch. I'm sorry if you had a bad problem with us but please remember that we are not all Johns and some of us really want to help.

AOL