Phone employees must be given drop-dead quotas or something because they really resist not being able to do their won’t-you-please-stay spiels at cancellation time, no matter what you say.
Once when cancelling an AmEx card, I TOLD the agent immediately “I am cancelling my card, and I decline in advance any offers you make to keep me on this card”; she still couldn’t seem to resist interjecting about 3 or 4 time-wasting counter-offers. It was extra annoying when she started prefacing them with “I know you said you just wanted to cancel BUT...”. (Really?!? That means you know I don’t want it and you know you are wasting my time, yet you choose to waste it anyway! Is your manager behind you or something?)
I have seen this with everything from cards to cable companies. All I can figure is that these companies simply have too much power. There just aren’t that many cable choices or card choices for example, so how exactly am I going to storm off and never return?
The agent is probably required to walk you through them. The people who have taken away the agent's power to actually make your customer experience a happy one will never directly encounter the consequences of their decisions.
Once when cancelling an AmEx card, I TOLD the agent immediately “I am cancelling my card, and I decline in advance any offers you make to keep me on this card”; she still couldn’t seem to resist interjecting about 3 or 4 time-wasting counter-offers. It was extra annoying when she started prefacing them with “I know you said you just wanted to cancel BUT...”. (Really?!? That means you know I don’t want it and you know you are wasting my time, yet you choose to waste it anyway! Is your manager behind you or something?)
I have seen this with everything from cards to cable companies. All I can figure is that these companies simply have too much power. There just aren’t that many cable choices or card choices for example, so how exactly am I going to storm off and never return?