My trick to avoid the long retentions go around is to tell them I'm leaving their service area.
Why are you looking to cancel your phone plan?
Leaving the country.
They know they can't win me over and so they don't even try.
Why are you looking to cancel your phone plan?
Leaving the country.
They know they can't win me over and so they don't even try.
Though nowadays, in the era of pervasive financing and Wall Street investors that care more about revenue than cash flow, I wonder if that would even work. Maybe "I'm being investigated by the Feds and all of my financial relationships are considered suspect, and so would prefer to have as few of them as possible"?
I've had people still try to sign me up when I've said this. I had just moved country, had no job, and was literally living off my credit card. I ended up getting stopped by some people on the street trying to sign me up for some charity, because I'm too nice to tell them to fuck off.
Even after I explained that I literally arrived in the country a week ago, and that I literally have no money, they were still trying to get me to sign up for a recurring donation. Sure, I understand that they get commission, so they want to make a sale. But not only is it extremely unethical to try and get unemployed people to sign up, it's also trying to extract blood from a stone.
I've tried telling the truth, I've tried assertively stating I'm not interested, I've tried so many things...
...at this point, when I pick up a call, I wait for the other side to introduce themselves, and if they call with an unsolicited offer, I just hang up without saying anything. Am I a bad person?
I told the agent that same thing, and he said "Is that really what she wants, or is that just what you want?"
I kept things polite, but he really had me boiling by the end of the call, which took way too much time.
It's my favorite answer, because it normally creates enough awkwardness on the call to make the other party want it over as quickly as possible.
And getting them on your side is always step 1.
Bonus points if they ask "I hope it's nothing we did" and you respond with an extra long pause and "I think it's best for everyone involved if we get this cancelled as quickly as possible."
"Please cancel my service"
"We'd like to retain your business is there anything we can do?"
"Is my service cancelled yet?"
"Why are you cancelling your service?"
"My service is still working, can you cancel it? Is this the cancellation department? Who will be cancelling my service?"
Just pretend like I didn't hear anything they said or asked and keep asking variations of that in an increasingly childlike wondrous tone. Sometimes you can hear the person on the other end getting audibly frustrated until they give in and cancel it just to get you off the phone-and when they finally go "Your service will be cancelled on this date, is there anything else I Can help you with?"
"NOPE THANKS!" and hang up.
Never fails to make me giggle madly. Is it patronizing? Sure. Do I care? No not really-I've asked nicely that I want my service cancelled. That really ought to be the start and end of it. Meeting retention rates is their problem, not mine.
Same thing with upselling at retail establishments. No I'm not a rewards member. No thanks I don't want to sign up. Yep I'm sure. Oh I'm quite aware that I can save 10% over $2500 spent. Hey can I just buy this pair of headphones and gtfo?
Do you also maliciously fill out surveys with less than "excellent" ratings even after you are told that constitutes failure according to corporate management?
I understand the attitude of refusing to play the game, but that doesn't justify making things worse for other victims.
I've started doing this, although I wouldn't characterize it as malicious. I bought a car last fall and that started a ridiculous number of surveys coming my way. I contacted the dealership, the manufacturer, and the survey company asking for the surveys to stop. The dealer and manufacturer both responded saying they would take car of it. The survey company never responded.
The surveys keep coming so I fill them out randomly and return them. It isn't malicious because I'm genuinely dissatisfied with them because they can't stop the surveys.
It's not my job to go out of my way to help these folks meet their retention KPI. Categorically, full-stop and quite literally, that is not my responsibility. I'm a customer who used to pay money for a service, not a call-taker responsible for meeting certain metrics. I don't work for the cable company. I'm not their employee. I'm their customer.
If I don't want to be a member anymore, and I state as such, and repeatedly state as such when said company makes it as difficult as possible to cancel my membership-then I've satisfied my end of that particular transaction. I've stated my business request, I'm asking them in various manners to please honor that request. Where is the malice? If you want to point out that it's probably immature, then I'll probably agree with you. Comparing it to deliberately trying to tank a call-taker though by giving a deceitful and dishonest review I think is an incredible exercise in reaching.
So can you explain this for me? How are you drawing a parallel from me repeating my request to have my service cancelled with maliciously filling out customer response surveys in such a way that deliberately gives the call-taker a negative score?
Because I have explosive diarrhea...