A Warning About Canceling GameTap Service and a Recount of My Experience
. I just cancelled my subscription to downloadable computer game provider GameTap. I started my subscription without any real hassle, taking advantage of a promotion offering the service for one month at 99 cents, and then $9.99/month afterwards. Signing up was easy and only required me to create an account by entering a username, password, secret question and answer, as well as an e-mail address, and after account creation I entered billing information for my credit card, as well as a phone number to contact if there were any problems. I tried the service and decided it wasn’t something I’d value, since the only game I played was Railroad Tycoon 2 and with the GameTap software starting up a game was a little tedious. Basically the software slowed down my system when running and for the one game of the hundreds available that I actually liked, canceling was my best option. I missed canceling after the 30 day period so I will end up with a single months charge on my card (more on the reason I missed below), but that is not what this is about, it is about the tedious and uninviting process that one must go through to cancel.
Before I was able to reach anyone I waited about 30 minutes on hold. When a representative picked up he asked me what I needed assistance with and I told him that I was going to cancel, there didn’t seem to be any problem with that. He then asked me everything but the user name. Starting with last name, then zip code, then…he found the first name associated with the account and inquired “Is your name Andrew?” I gave him an affirmative reaction but inside I was thinking to myself something along these lines: “Yeah duh, I don't think there are any other people with the last name of Fielding in my zip code who have a GameTap account, and if there were the database would have shown multiples and he could have asked me for my first name.” Anyways after that he repeated my username back to me and asked me to give all the information I gave when signing up. The representative will asked for everything including my full address and phone number. He also needed me to give him the last four digits of the credit card used to sign up. Luckily, I only have one credit card so I immediately knew which card I had used and got it out of my wallet to find the last four digits and then read them back to the customer service representative. However for the many people with multiple credit cards, remembering which card was used for a specific subscription may require a little game of saying the four digits of each card until the voice on the other one says "okay, that's the right number".
After all of that 'verification' he asked me if I was interested in "a free month of GameTap on us." I declined as I had already reconsidered and reconfirmed my decision to cancel while waiting on hold for 30 minutes prior to speaking to a representative and I didn't want to have to endure the cancellation process again. The offer was their sole attempt to retain me as a customer, and if I had accepted it, it would have allowed them to start billing me again after the month was up unless I were to remember and find the time to cancel again. After declining the free month I was put on hold, the explanation being to allow Jimmy, the customer service representative, to retrieve a confirmation code. When he came back he spat the code out really fast, southern style, like Boomhauer on 'King of the Hill'. I couldn't understand but a few digits the first time he said it and after a few attempts at having him repeat it I asked him to give me the code, digit by digit, allowing me to write each digit down on a post-it. After writing down the eight-number confirmation code I repeated it back and he ensured it was correct, and I hung up, effectively ending the phone call that shouldn't have ever had to happen to begin with.
The thing that angers me about holding for the confirmation code is that it really is not necessary if the process on their end is set up correctly and well thought out. Maybe they do it for a psychological effect, just as a car salesman always has to go and talk to his boss during negotiations. In both instances the action (holding and seeing the boss, respectively) empowered employees and/or technology would save money and time, but the difference that makes it totally unacceptable for GameTap to do is that psychology isn't a worthwhile excuse. I don't know much about psychology but I know that one way that a car salesman is benefited by going and seeing his boss, is that it makes the customer think they are either haggling well or getting a good deal. Another way in which the care salesman's tactic works is because it gives the customer (which often may be more than one person, and is almost always making a large financial decision) time to think about their limit and sometimes to convince their purchasing partner to agree to the deal, in an environment that does not include the intimidation or curious ear of the salesperson. Those seem to be good reasons for not empowering employees to make sales without having to be a middle man while haggling; however neither makes any sense when applied to GameTap. The person canceling with GameTap wants to cancel and is not making a financial decision to invest but rather to end a subscription to which has put on them a small financial burden that does not entail the evaluation and other brain activity associated with a purchase or leasing of a vehicle. If you know someone who needs to gather a team to make the decision to cancel a subscription to a video game service that costs no more than two hours of work in the U.S. at the federal minimum wage, then I would be very interested in their ability to function normally in the world. So unless GameTap is expecting customers to be of the kind to have group phone calls when canceling subscriptions who spend every waking moment evaluation the value of the 35 cent pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum that they purchased three weeks ago, there isn't a good reason to require canceling customers to spend additional time waiting on hold just to get a confirmation code. And if the reason for the wait is that GameTap has never heard of employee empowerment or basic billing technology, then they must get with the game and fix whatever is holding them back from being like other businesses.
Overall the process sucks. I've heard of some companies that are worse, namely MSN, but this was just pathetic for a company that is based totally on computer technology, to require cancellations by phone. Also the only way to find out that that is the only way to cancel is to go to the 'contact us' link on the website and you see some text that alerts you to the fact. This text isn't even very straightforward about having to cancel by phone, it just says that you cannot cancel by email or live chat, and since there are no account options when one logs in on the site the only option left is calling a toll-free number. If there was any good side it was that the call-center (if it is even that, I'm guessing it is more like an office with a few reps) is located in the U.S. based on the southern accent of the guy. GameTap seems to not even care about their own bottom-line since a human being always costs more than a computer (a simple script to change a subscription from active to discontinued in the database, or even simply delete a user from the db should be relatively simple). Regardless of what economists claim about keeping customers being cheaper than getting new ones, added costs to keep a customer are only warranted if a true effort to keep the customer is made (I'd have actually been happier if I had to be transferred to a cancellation specialist because it at least shows there is a legitimate reason to have me call.) Despite that, the hassle of having to make a phone call to cancel (I tried to cancel online while in Thailand but without a phone that was toll-free eligible I couldn't and therefore ended up paying for a month since my trial period ended the day I got back and I didn't get back until after GameTap had closed for the day) and the long wait times (you'd think they'd want to make you feel as good as possible and persuade you to stay) is just unacceptable, especially for a completely digital company.
The wait time and service was completely opposite of United Airlines. They have short wait times and a very good computerized system that takes your info first so the representative can immediately deal with your concern. I found that the United people worked much faster than GameTap and were able to deal with problems promptly and, despite having accents that make me think the call center is out of the United States, spoke very good English and understood almost everything I was saying. (One guy did not understand what I meant when I wanted to rescind my upgrade request, but I don't hold that against him since I'm sure there are some U.S. based representatives that wouldn't know what I meant.)
The fact that a company like United allows the customer to do most things online (In fact rescinding a reservation request seems to be the only thing I can't do online...yes even cancel a flight), while an internet company that requires signing up online, downloading and installing their software (which phones home when it is running), and even offers live online chat support, requires calling a toll-free number and waiting to cancel or change billing information, is absurd. It is obvious to me that GameTap truly does not truly have interest in providing all customers with convenient services for anything other than signing up. A canceling customer may not be giving you money any more, but a canceling customer does not necessarily have a negative opinion of your company or even the product, so it really would be a good idea not to make their cancellation experience a negative one.
After writing the above essay/story/whatchamacallit I decided to see if I was the only person to have been displeased with the company. Of no surprise to me the BBB shows that I am not, in fact the company isn’t even a member of the BBB. According to the Better Business Bureau the company has had 25 complaints against it in only one year of having a BBB file. Of these complaints, all 25 are closed, meaning that there is no action expected to occur on the complaints. However of the complaints categorized on the page (I only count 24 but the total is listed as 25) 12 of them were closed without the company responding to, or resolving the complaints. In fact of the other 12 complaints, there are 3 that are definitively listed as resolved, however for none of those has the complainer actually acknowledge the resolution. As for the other 9, all are in the service issues department and are listed as resolved with both complainer acknowledgement of resolution and no complainer acknowledgement of resolution (it is not possible to tell how many fall into each category since they are clumped together). This means that it is possible that for the 24 complaints described, as few as just one complaint was resolved to the satisfaction of the person who had the complaint. It is worthy to note that all eight complaints in the “Refunds or Exchange Issues” went without a response from the company, Overall the company is rated unsatisfactory, which is not something to be proud of as most companies easily maintain satisfactory ratings while GameTap achieves the low rating of unsatisfactory due to the amount of unanswered complaints.
(GameTap’s BBB file: Link )
***I know that service is declining but really this isn’t acceptable and there are definitely ways and reasons to avoid this that might even be easier for the company itself.
The grammatical, syntax and other type of errors found in this article are known to the author and some problems were fixed but many remain because I just don’t have the concentration or the time (I’ve spent already a bunch of time writing this) to fix everything or edit and clarify anymore. I’ve already added one page from the original length and editing more would lead me to write even more stuff.