I wanted to cancel my alarm service. Contract had ended two years ago. They informed me that, by contract, I must submit my cancellation in writing. Well, here is my response: To Whom It May Concern: This letter serves as my formal notice of cancellation. We no longer require the use of your service. I do hope that is reason enough for you, given that you seem terribly concerned about it and required the poor gentleman on the phone, Jason, to make every possible overture to retain us as customers, even after I had clearly explained that cancellation was the only option I would consider. Then, to make things worse on your poor employee, Jason (who was extremely courteous and professional), you required him to inform me that cancellation would be quite a bit more difficult, requiring written notice from me, even though we are no longer under any contractual obligations and I was able to adequately identify myself via phone. Unfortunately, while not his fault, Jason was subject to my frustration. Boy, he must really like working with you guys that he is willing to shoulder this burden for you every day. I bet you guys treat him pretty well. Maybe a key to the washroom is in order for Jason… I have so much time on my hands that, frankly, I was in need of an additional duty today. And, once again, while I’m no longer under contract, and was able to clearly and adequately identify myself via phone, I was told more than once that I still had to write this letter. I can only guess that this is a method you use to deter people from taking the time to actually cancel. You may want to reconsider. It doesn’t seem to work. So, as long as I’m taking the time, I thought I would, in addition to supplying the required information you need, tell you a little bit about me. I’m a training and development professional who specializes in Customer Experience and conflict resolution. Boy, could we talk! I make it a point to observe company policies and practices to see if there is any way to streamline the customer experience and eliminate unnecessary roadblocks. Hint: Making it hard to terminate a business relationship is one of those things I try to counsel against. It really makes the customer feel as if they are trapped and not empowered to spend their money where they see fit. You must understand that this makes said customer feel devalued, and may even motivate one to start a campaign of word of mouth advocacy against the offending company. Geez, these days the reach of that kind of campaign could be significant, what with all of the online forums and social media tools. A guy like me, for instance, who has 27 online accounts, a leadership blog, two webpages, and who teaches and trains hundreds of people a week, could begin to feel a little more empowered if he shared his negative experience with people via those myriad venues. In closing, I do expect that the account will be closed upon receipt of this letter. I really, really appreciate the opportunity to correspond with you. Writing is a lost art these days. This exercise has been very helpful to me and I expect the next letter I have to write to a company who is asking me to take extraordinary and unnecessary measures will be even better. It has been such a great exercise, that I would like to invite you to do the same. It would be very nice to receive official correspondence stating that the account has been closed and our business relationship has ended. Thank you for your consideration and prompt response.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 20:55:17 +0000
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