Online Brand Management: AOL's 2006 Customer Service Disaster

This is a couple of years old, but worth sharing: Vincent Ferrari tries to cancel his AOL account: This bit of negative customer service did AOL a world of damage when this story went public in 2006. While it's an hilarious expose on how bad customer service can be, it is also a warning: If the weakest point of your company is exposed by the right blogger, whether it is just a written complaint or a video or an audio recording, one incident can cost you and your brand dearly. BTW, as someone who's had to cancel AOL before myself, I can assure you, that's how ALL of their employees acted - back then, anyway. The press release AOL issued to stem the flow did nothing more than fan the fires of other angry former customers, each willing and able to share with the world their own experiences. It's pretty easy to see how online brand management is going to become a LOT more important to businesses from now on. Slapping a press release response just won't help anymore if this happens to you.

About the Author: Eric Reid

I am the Social Media Services Manager for Off Madison Ave. I've been with the company since 2006, when I was hired to do SEO, and link building in particular. When social networking sites started cropping up, at first I started using them to create backlinks - but they weren't the best for that, given all of the "nofollow" attributes. However, I did see the potential for all of the direct referral traffic they represent. Since then I've been actively pursuing both tactics for clients: Links that can help them for search, and social postings that get them involved in the conversation. It's about the coolest job you could ever get. ;)

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