AOL’s PR Nightmare

PR BLACK EYE. It will be some time before AOL will be able to make up for the subscriber revenue shortfall through ad sales. So analysts expect cuts in operating costs, including a reduction in staff size. “Their revenues are going to be less, and it’s an obvious step that you have to reduce expenses when you purposefully reduce revenue,” says Hallerman.

Analysts declined to speculate on just how much cutting AOL would have to do. But it’s not a stretch to think the company could eventually dissolve its entire embattled customer-service and retention departments, says Jason Helfstein, an analyst with CIBC World Markets.

AOL has faced a barrage of negative press and legal action over its aggressive customer service department, which had a policy of rewarding employees who “saved” customers calling to cancel. In 2005, the company paid New York State more than $1 million in fines after about 300 people called to complain that they had difficulty canceling their service. This year, a former AOL customer Vincent Ferrari recorded a heated, grueling 21-minute attempt to cancel his account and posted the resulting audio over the Internet.

Yep. Tomorrow’s the day. Read more about it at BusinessWeek.

[tags]aol, businessweek[/tags]

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  • Bonejob

    I personally think they are going ahead with AOL free – the local call center out here has put a hiring freeze on and several insiders that I personally know who still work there were given the “ok” to search for other jobs in preparing for layoffs.

  • http://www.randallatnyc.com Randall

    Ain’t the internet and social media great? Sure, you didn’t cause AOL’s access business to fail, but this PR flack has sure led to some [rightly] negative press.

  • http://www.insignificantthoughts.com Vinny

    It certainly didn’t help, that’s for sure.

  • JB

    AOL soon to be OOB. I love it! In part thanks to Vinny. :-)

  • Bonejob

    I personally love it too – but as a former employee of AOL I knew that is was just a matter of time that ‘someone’ would expose the vile and festering customer service problems that AOL had and tried to hide despite the facts they were sued and sued and fined – Vinny’s recording of the call and the exposed AOL retention manual showed and proved that AOL didn’t change despite claiming they had. I think it now shows ALL consumers that they don’t have to put up with a companies ‘bs’ and that something so simpe as the internet is a powerful tool/catalyst to change. In my opinion AOL messed with the bull (vinny) and got the horn up the ****!!!

  • http://www.insignificantthoughts.com Vinny

    It oughta be REALLY interesting to see what they come up with at tomorrow’s big meeting.

    I can hardly wait.

  • Bill

    Thank you, Vinny, once again, for your actions and for this forum.

  • Bill

    If AOL does in fact end their “retention” practices, you, Vinny, can know that you’ve made the world a little less greedy, a little less evil, a little more humane, and a little more thoughtful.

  • Bonejob

    I personally think they are going ahead with AOL free – the local call center out here has put a hiring freeze on and several insiders that I personally know who still work there were given the “ok” to search for other jobs in preparing for layoffs.

  • http://www.randallatnyc.com/ Randall

    Ain’t the internet and social media great? Sure, you didn’t cause AOL’s access business to fail, but this PR flack has sure led to some [rightly] negative press.

  • http://www.insignificantthoughts.com/ Vinny

    It certainly didn’t help, that’s for sure.

  • JB

    AOL soon to be OOB. I love it! In part thanks to Vinny. :-)

  • Bonejob

    I personally love it too – but as a former employee of AOL I knew that is was just a matter of time that ‘someone’ would expose the vile and festering customer service problems that AOL had and tried to hide despite the facts they were sued and sued and fined – Vinny’s recording of the call and the exposed AOL retention manual showed and proved that AOL didn’t change despite claiming they had. I think it now shows ALL consumers that they don’t have to put up with a companies ‘bs’ and that something so simpe as the internet is a powerful tool/catalyst to change. In my opinion AOL messed with the bull (vinny) and got the horn up the ****!!!

  • http://www.insignificantthoughts.com/ Vinny

    It oughta be REALLY interesting to see what they come up with at tomorrow’s big meeting.

    I can hardly wait.

  • Bill

    Thank you, Vinny, once again, for your actions and for this forum.

  • Bill

    If AOL does in fact end their “retention” practices, you, Vinny, can know that you’ve made the world a little less greedy, a little less evil, a little more humane, and a little more thoughtful.