I recently decided to upgrade my mobile phone and get an iPhone. This involved me having to cancel my phone with my current provider, simply because they did not offer the handset I wanted.

I remember when I initially signed up for my ‘phone then it probably took no more than five minutes to complete, but trying to leave was a whole different story.

After queuing on the telephone for over ten minutes I finally got through to someone. I explained why I’m leaving and that I had considered other alternatives to the handset I wanted, but I’d made my mind up so would just like to cancel.

The person I was speaking to then went into a sales pitch about some other ‘phone I could have. I stated again that I had already looked at this, but had made my mind up. However each response I gave was met with a “please hold” and treated to tinny hold music as the person I was speaking to presumably read through a script. This was most frustrating as all the questions they kept asking me were already irrelevant, as they would have known if they had just listened to what I had said previously.

When the sales pitch finally run out of steam, I can only describe the next line of questioning as an attempted guilt trip for wanting to leave!

I think I finally won out in the end with the following conversation:

Me: OK, do any of your phones have a lightsaber application?

Operator: I am sorry Mr. Supple. Can you better describe the application you are requesting?

Me: You know, a lightsaber! Like in Star Wars? I can wave my ‘phone around and it makes humming noises and goes “KISSSH” when I act like I’m fighting with it and I can have mock battles with other people in my office who have the same application. I can be a dark lord of the Sith purging the Jedi menace.

Operator: Please hold

<horrible rendition of Vivaldi>

Operator: We do have this other telephone. This handset has an industry leading screen size, it is very good

Me: Lightsaber?

Operator: No, but it…

Me: Ah, sorry – but I’m sold on this application.

The positive part in my little saga was that it proved to be a great reminder of how we do not treat our customers at Daily.

We always appreciate the feedback we get, as this helps us improve our service, but while we do make sure it’s the account owner doing the cancelling and quickly ask what the reason is so we can find out if there’s something we can improve on, we don’t make customers jump through hoops (often masquerading as “security measures”) such as getting people to send in multiple copies of signed faxes, hunt through well hidden links in control panels, go through 200 questions about how dare they even consider going elsewhere etc.

To me, if you treat customers right from the start, offer them the best service you can, take on their suggestions and ideas then they will want to stay and you will build a fantastic relationship which will last over many years.

If on the other hand your approach is to only wake-up when a customer mentions cancelling and to expect them to change their mind when they encounter your Krypton Factor style of completing a cancellation procedure, then you’ll find you’ll have quite a few people abandoning ship!