I found out via Scobleizer that AOL has plans to lay off 5,000 workers - most likely customer service representatives.
"At a company meeting this morning, Jon Miller (AOL's chief executive officer) told AOL's worldwide work force of 19,000 people that within six months, it was likely that around 5,000 employees would no longer be with the company," said an AOL Spokesman. 1
In another article I found this quote by Jonathan Miller, AOL's chairman:
"Customers “were leaving us over price,” Miller said. “They weren’t leaving us because they were unhappy."
Yes, they were unhappy with the price! Duh!
Also in the article:
Taking its most expansive efforts yet to deal with its long, steady decline in subscribers, AOL is giving away e-mail accounts along with software previously available only to customers who paid as much as $26 a month.
Who the heck was paying for email? Haven't these people heard of Yahoo! or Google's free email?
Yes, AOL reps get a commission for keeping customers from canceling. It is called the "saves department" A very stressful job. They will lose their job if they don't "save" a % of accounts and take high volumes of calls. Usually entry level people getting paid well, with a high turnover because the employees are pressured. AOL doesn't care because they replace them with newly motivated entry level workers. Back in 2000 it was something like $1 for keeping a member for 30 days and a much higher amount for 90 days, that's why they give free months.
Posted by: Anonymous | March 16, 2007 11:34 PM | Permalink to Comment