Online Brand Management: AOL’s 2006 Customer Service Disaster
This is a couple of years old, but worth sharing: Vincent Ferrari tries to cancel his AOL account:
This bit of negative customer service did AOL a world of damage when this story went public in 2006. While it’s an hilarious expose on how bad customer service can be, it is also a warning: If the weakest point of your company is exposed by the right blogger, whether it is just a written complaint or a video or an audio recording, one incident can cost you and your brand dearly.
BTW, as someone who’s had to cancel AOL before myself, I can assure you, that’s how ALL of their employees acted - back then, anyway. The press release AOL issued to stem the flow did nothing more than fan the fires of other angry former customers, each willing and able to share with the world their own experiences.
It’s pretty easy to see how online brand management is going to become a LOT more important to businesses from now on. Slapping a press release response just won’t help anymore if this happens to you.
July 30th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Eric, great post. Thanks for digging this out of the archives. Funny, I was having this similar conversation with someone last week. I’m pretty sure this is still AOL’s practice.