RHUER RANTS ABOUT AFFILIATE HELL

Legal Minion reporting in, after twenty minutes on the phone with two clients.

Each was referred to us by the same affiliate company. We work with various debt settlement groups to offer legal advice and document services to their clients. Most of the time, things run smoothly... but this one company we work with is anything but easy. They're constantly giving clients the wrong information and after six+ months of re-explaining things to these poor callers, a rant is well overdue.

1) We are not Affiliate A's legal department.

2) We do not already have your information or documents.

2a) No, I don't know why they told you we did.

2b) No, Affiliate A will not send it to us. You must do this.

2b.1) No, we cannot reimburse you for the cost of faxing.

3) There IS a fee for legal services.

3b) This amount is based on type of documents you have. The ones we don't have yet.

3b.1) Yes, I know you faxed them to Affiliate A. That's not us. See #1.

All of the above points are typically not explained by the rep at Affiliate A, who usually places them on hold and then transfers them to us either a) without notifying the client that they're being transferred, or b) telling them they're going to the legal department. Quite often, the affiliate rep will also transfer clients to us for things we don't manage: settlements/negotiations, questions on payments, desires to cancel their account, etc. Quite often, they will neglect to tell the client to contact us until they are right up against a deadline to file legal documents or quickly approaching their court date. And then of course, it's our fault we can't process everything in less than 48 hours.

As for Affiliate A's actual legal department? Well, they work on negotiations and arbitration type stuff... and they do have people who call clients to talk to them about those subjects. The issue there? They leave their name, but no means of contacting them directly. So we get those transfers too, and I have to tell people that "Sorry, Rep 1 doesn't work for us. No, we're not Affiliate A. No, I don't know why they transferred you here.

Does anyone else out there have affiliate woes? I'm sure I can't be the only one.

--Legal Minion

 

Comments

[The Last Archimedean]

Sounds like Affiliate A needs new management. Specifically, one with a functioning collective brain so they get their associates trained properlty.

[Su Chan]

Solution:

Invoice Affiliate A for $60/hour/5 min interval for each incorrectly-referred call that you wasted your's (and the practice's) time on, and doing their job for them. This includes every call you spend 30 seconds on explaining to client they have the wrong number/department. At $5 per handling, this will tot up nicely.

If they require 'emergency response' to meet a deadline, then a $180 priority surcharge fee applies to get this done.

It's amazing how effective this can be.

If you don't get approval for this then at least record all the time you're spending doing their work and fixing their mistakes.

Bring this to your supervisor's/senior's attention. Even better if you fall behind in other work while dealing with this and they want to know why.

[Fortune Cookie]

We do. For some reason the bank I work for has decided it would be a good idea to completely discontinue the personal phone lines into the branches. Meaning the customers cannot calll them directly and ALWAYS show up at our call center. WE do not have means of contacting them except for notes or appointments. But who needs an appointment for every single small thing? much less a one hour appointment to hand over a smallish document? O_o

[Queer Geek]

Actually custys mistake our company with a competiting retailer and insist we are one and the same.

Brand X is sold at Y company so we don't carry the item. Therefore, we won't return it!

It's amazing how people can't read their receipt to remember when they buy their stuff from.

[Yoel]

1. The plugin does list the price aloamtticauly when you're on the product page.2. You'll have to use a theme that takes a post Featured Image and display it on the homepage like the theme I used in the tutorial.

[Moon]

Amazon Product In a Post is the name of the excellent plguin that we’ll use. Let’s call it Amazon PIP for short. This plguin allows us to easily add Amazon products as WordPress posts. After installing the plguin, we simply create a new post the usual way.I forgot to mention that after installing the plguin, we also need to adjust the options by going to admin dashboard->Amazon PIP->Amazon PIP Options. On that page, you'll find a field where you should enter your Amazon affiliate ID!