I checked this person out and she's anonymous (to you, not me) but legit…
Bully for your piece about cancelling one's online subscription to get a cheaper rate. I work in the Subscriber Retention division of a big online company. This is not an office. It's just a headset attached to my home computer but when you try to cancel your subscription to our service, your call is routed to me and it's my job to talk you out of it. I have a series of speeches on my monitor which were written for us. It says on the top not to use them verbatim but to paraphrase and put them into our own words.
The first line of attack is to act puzzled and hurt. Why would you leave us? What have we done wrong? Don't you realize how many people love our service? You would be amazed that this works with some people. They don't want to hurt my feelings so they stay with us.
If they mention the price, I am then to go to Speech 2, Speech 3 or Speech 4. Each comes with a lower rate. Very few people ever hear Speech 4. If there's any chance of getting them to not cancel, they grab the offer with Speech 2. If not, they say so firmly that they want out that it ends there. They don't even want to hear another offer.
Speech 3 is interesting because while it involves a lower rate than Speech 2, it also commits you to spend more money with us by extending you for an additional two years. Some people say they aren't getting enough out of our service to warrant what they're paying but they then sign on for two more years for 35% off.
For the few people who make it as far as Speech 4, it's one year at about 60% off and I'm allowed to throw in a few extra months. I always make this sound like it's something I'm not supposed to offer but since the caller seems like a nice person, I'm going to risk getting in trouble with my boss and offer something I shouldn't. Sometimes, the person who calls is my boss or is working for my boss. They make such calls from time to time to check up on us and see how we're doing our jobs. One time, my employer told me I had him convinced that I was breaking the rules and might get fired to offer him the 60% off.
I did this for another company before. That was a sex-oriented site with many photos of nude women. We only had three speeches there and the discounts if you went all the way weren't that great. But in Speech 3, I told the caller (a man, of course) that I was hoping he could at least continue to subscribe to the site until my pictures were posted. I am the last person you would ever want to see naked and if I ever did take such photos and they put them up, everyone would instantly cancel at once. However, I have a good sexy voice and I sound like I'm in my twenties (I'm 48) and I told the callers I would soon be on the site under the name Heather. A lot of them would decide to stick around for that. Some of them would even ask what I was wearing at that moment.
My pal Joe Brancatelli, who operates the best damn travel site on the web, suggests one should never set up a subscription to auto-renew and if possible, should pay by check instead of credit card. That shifts the game. If you're auto-renewing, they've got you and don't have to offer you any better deal. If they have to sell you again each year, they'll start bombarding you with special offers and better rates. Probably good advice. Anyway, my thanks to "Heather" for the above message and I'm sorry she didn't tell me what she had on when she wrote it. I'm guessing the radio.