Poor Customer Service, a Key to Subscriber Retention

Larrylambert
The Haven
Published in
3 min readAug 9, 2022

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Yes, you read that right.

Cartoon by Lambert-King

Years ago, in the dark ages of entertainment, record clubs roamed the earth. For a small fee, you could get a few albums from your favorite recording artists. The running joke was how hard it was to get out of a record club once you joined.

I’ve never been in a record club but had a similar experience recently. A while back, my wife and I quit cable. Instead, we started using different apps for our TV viewing. All in all, it’s been an upgrade. Still, the transition hasn’t been entirely glitch-free.

No record of my account could be found.

My wife was looking at our bank statement and found a reoccurring charge of $5.67. It was for a TV programming app I had hardly ever watched. I decided to cancel the service. And then the adventure began.

I tried to be a good boy and do it online lest I disturb a customer service rep. Well, despite my best efforts, I could not find a record of the account. I braced myself before calling a customer service rep. I made the call, and the adventure escalated.

What was that phone number again?

So, I called a customer service rep and he asked me for my phone number. The idea being perhaps the mystery…

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Larrylambert
The Haven

You probably don't know my name, but have likely seen my work. I've written for numerous syndicated cartoon strips and my gags have appeared in national pubs.