AOL's PR Is Broken
Some are saying that AOL’s PR Is Broken these days. Just when it seems things can’t get worse for AOL, it appears they have a mole leaking information to Consumerist.com. The Consumerist has been on AOL like a boxer pup on a meatloaf since the “cancel my account” snafu, digging up internal memos and employee manuals. The public relations nightmare continues.Add the revelations in those internal documents to a bevy of other incidents that includes consumer backlash, a renewed Eliot Spitzer investigation, Geronimo-ing subscribers, pottymouthed Netscape employees, worst-of-the-worst product reviews, and seeds of distrust sown during the Goodmail fiasco, and you have a company whose hot water has reached boiling. Soon after Vincent Ferrari went national with his recorded phone call to AOL, where he was badgered by a retention consultant ignoring Ferrari’s demand that his account be cancelled, the Member Services team was sent a flurry of memos and policy changes. According to the memos, EVP of Member Services, Scott Falconer called the aftermath of the incident “severe,” and employees were instructed to assume that any call could be recorded and posted on the Web. Falconer pleads with his staff to be extra helpful to all incoming callers. The Member Services crew also received an update instructing them that they were only to pitch the canceling member two offers before acquiescing if the member declines both. The new instructions to be nice to customers, even if they’re canceling, does not seem to apply to AOL-owned Netscape employees, especially if they’re dealing with a former customer who caused all this trouble to begin with.