One great thing about services such as Spotify, Netflix and Gamepass is the straight forward process of cancelling out of their subscription service. With just a couple of steps and a seed of doubt planted (Are you sure you REALLY want to cancel?) you can be outta there until you inevitably come crawling back. Most of these companies don’t care for your loyalty, they offer a reasonable service at a good rate and can count on enormous numbers at one time. Microsoft aren’t like this, they yearn for loyalty and want to be loved, they are jealous when we turn to other services. It is even said that whenever there is a new subscriber to Gamepass there is a party for that person at Microsoft HQ. Subscriber retention is dwindling, the happy family is falling apart and the team at Microsoft are trying something new to avoid people ever leaving home again. They will find you and they will kill you if you ever leave, it’s that simple. Outrageous! They won’t go that far, instead they are rolling out a new plan to make the cancelling process as complex and infuriating as possible.
To start with you can find the option to cancel easy enough, may as well lead the customer on. Continue and you will be blackmailed. How do you like the sound of being asked 20 times if you’re really sure you want to cancel? Each time getting more and more personal like they somehow have inside information on you that they will expose to the world if you continue. Remember when you gave Microsoft access to everything on your phone (I don’t but in this case we all have)? Here’s an example of how that can play out.
Eg; “Embarrassing photos and nasty messages about your boss will be exposed if you want to continue?”
By this time most of us will stick with the subscription service, a small price to pay for continued entertainment and privacy. For those that continue past the guilt and blackmail section will be needing to verify if they are human with a captcha puzzle, you won’t be asked to spot the buses either. If you know Claude Monet paintings, then this will be a breeze! Each image has a small portion of a realist painting, not all of which are Monet, spot the Monet to verify your humanity.
After successfully doing all this the cancellation process will need to hand you off to tech support, mainly because they never counted on any person being this desperate to cancel. Professional tech support is given over the phone and it’s an AI bot. Don’t worry AI is really smart! This AI is so smart it has a whole new accent to decipher, we’ll let you know it’s a mixture of Indian and Aussie with the odd Dutch word thrown in. To show a level of realism to the AI programming it’ll let you know that all their lines are currently busy and you will need to be put on hold. AI music then pumps through the speaker. To make such awful tones one may have used prompts such as upbeat, pop, annoying and kill me now. Wait times are usually between 5 and 55 minutes and they will constantly thank you for your patience. If you really are patient then you will be talked over by the AI consultant that is advanced in the areas of knowing not when to speak and not knowing how to listen. This process is used primarily by Microsoft to buy them some time. If your door hasn’t been kicked down by an agent who has a gun pointed at you then just wait they are on their way.
Microsoft has seen wild success in the new cancellation process, they aren’t just stopping at keeping customers either as they have enough information to get previous ones back too. They know who you are you backstabbing cheat and they will come for you and welcome you back to the family!
Listen to the latest news episode and enjoy the 'on hold' music for yourself.
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