Your job and the job of the people you employ is riding on your customers.
Which way would you rather have it?
EA's games kick ass, or at least they have lately.
How ya look at it, really.
They usually go so far as to give you free stuff, if you were a good customer.
quote:
There was much rejoicing when Maradon XP said this:
I use that line a lot at work, where if you want to cancel services, we have to send you to our winbak team that gives you sales pitches and tries to keep you from cancellingThey usually go so far as to give you free stuff, if you were a good customer.
Free porn for a month? Prz?
quote:
ACES! Another post by Arrenn Lightblade:
I was looking at it more from the point of view that while they give sales pitches for 5 minutes, you are getting charged for it.
Unless it's a toll free call.
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Delphi Aegis got all f'ed up on Angel Dust and wrote:
Free porn for a month? Prz?
Considering that amounts to $27.99 for the most hardcore channel we carry, it probably wouldn't be a problem.
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Arrenn Lightblade impressed everyone with:
I was looking at it more from the point of view that while they give sales pitches for 5 minutes, you are getting charged for it.
If it was a tolled line, which are pretty rare these days, then sure, but otherwise it's out of their pocket, so I guess the least you can do is listen to their pitches. A tolled line would be pretty sleazy though.
Think about that for a second.
The Sims online has sold around eight million copies.
How big a call center does it take to support that kind of customer base, even if only thier cancellations?
That crappy phone line is one of, oh, let's say a thousand (this is likely a gross underestimation). And it was undoutably a toll free line.
Now let's get a thousand CSR's manning those thousand phones. Let's pay them a bit more than minimum wage - say $7 an hour. Let's say the call center is open from 8am to 8pm, seven days a week. It's probably 24/7, but let's just suppose.
$7 an hour * 1000 * 12 hours = $84,000
So they're paying eighty four thousand dollars A DAY before you even figure in the phone bill and the cut of whatever contract company owns the call center, JUST so they can have one last shot at convincing you to keep your subscription.
Contempt is the very LAST thing they're treating you with.
It would be nice to be able to just *click* and be done with it. You don't need someone trying to talk you out of it.
But, the SIMs are evil anyway, so he had it coming.
quote:...
Nobody really understood why Palador ChibiDragon wrote:
It's kinda like getting 15 warnings from windows that you have to [OK] just because you want to empty the recycle bin.
I only get one.
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Black Mage had this to say about Captain Planet:
I only get one.
Same here. I'm not the best with Windows, but I don't have my computer THAT messed up.
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Palador ChibiDragon was listening to Cher while typing:
It would be nice to be able to just *click* and be done with it.
It is nice, which is precisely why it makes NO business sense for it to be that way with cancelling a subscription.
From the customer's point of view, if you're dead set on cancelling your account, I can see how the system may seem like a worthless hassle.
But consider the people who aren't dead set on cancelling thier account. Say someone just had a bad encounter in game and they're cancelling out of frustration. Or say someone's having some sort of bug because they forgot to patch something. Or say someone's CD broke. Or say they got really into Railroad Tycoon, which sucks, and forgot about the sims for a while.
With push-button cancellation, those customers are gone, probably forever. Lost revenue for the business, lost entertainment value for the customer.
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Drysart wrote this stupid crap:
If you call Sprint PCS and try to cancel your service, they'll offer you ass-kicking deals on your service to get you to stay. You can cut your monthly bill in half... as long as you aren't under contract.
I got a $200 phone for $50 and a year contract 
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Maradon XP painfully thought these words up:
With push-button cancellation, those customers are gone, probably forever. Lost revenue for the business, lost entertainment value for the customer.
Oh, I understand that, and I can see why they do it. I'm not really against it either. I'm just saying that I can understand why he doesn't like it.
That's why it's there.
The only time I ever delete anything is after I'm certain I don't want it back.
Then it gets the ol' shift-delete.
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Densetsu Model 2000 was programmed to say:
Eh, I don't even use the recycle bin.The only time I ever delete anything is after I'm certain I don't want it back.
Then it gets the ol' shift-delete.
why not just set windows to automatically delete the file, instead of sending it to the recycle bin? It's a setting you can choose, that way no more shift key required...
No, Really. Bite me.
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Drysart had this to say about Punky Brewster:
If you call Sprint PCS and try to cancel your service, they'll offer you ass-kicking deals on your service to get you to stay. You can cut your monthly bill in half... as long as you aren't under contract.
My dad called up Nextel about some minor bill thing or something and mentioned some crappy customer service got last time he called. The guy basically cut the bills price in half almost and gave my parents the second best plan.
Bitching can be good sometimes.
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Naimah had this to say about dark elf butts:
I prefer to be able to decide for myself whenever I'm done with a game. They do not even present an option to be able to end your subscription online.
credit card chargeback time.
edit:
ok, honestly I know it's the good salesman thing to do. And you have to figure that
most people who threaten to cancel their accounts only do it because they want someone to sell them into keeping it, BUT, if I really want to cancel my account then I find it rather rude to argue.
I went into Wells Fargo the other day to close my savings account. Keep in mind that I still have their checking account, credit card, and overdraft line of credit but they were charging me 10$ a month for a savings account that I have not once used in a year and a half. Try as I may I could not convince the banking manager that I was in no way unhappy with the service I had recieved and I would gladly re-open the account if I deemed it necessary but I was not interested in paying 10$ a month for an empty savings account. How is that not treating the customer poorly? [ 02-03-2003: Message edited by: Kermitov ]
Especially since, as reported by TV, it's as addictive as heroin.
