a consumer experience-based recommendation...
If any of my US friends are looking for career (re)education, I'm going to give a hearty recommendation to avoid Kaplan University at all costs.
Some of you may know (okay, and now you all do!) that I am half-assing my way through a few classes on medical coding, billing, and transcription for hope of a career that doesn't suck balls, doesn't require my entire day to be interacting with customers, and actually allows me to have an independent and comfortable lifestyle (I don't want to be rich, but I don't want to have to count my pennies to eat, pay rent, and have fun every month). I inquired via their website for information on Kaplan's 12-month program. I provided them with my telephone number, e-mail address, and mailing address, and expected to receive an informational brochure and spam four times a week to my e-mail. No. I have not gotten a single e-mail from them (well, with one notable exception, which I'll get to), nor anything paper to my mailbox.
Instead I started receiving phone calls from a Linda Cunningham. A call, which I ignored because the 954 area code was unfamiliar. A message was left from this Linda Cunningham on my voicemail, explaining how they want to set up a pre-admission interview to determine, basically, whether they felt I was good enough to waste their time on teaching. She followed this up with an e-mail that said the same things. Before they even mentioned cost or financial aid or even what the course entailed. I decided that I was not in the mood to audition for career skills courses, and chose not to return that call.
Linda proceeded to call between 6-12 times a week, including two or three times in a row when I did not answer. I would get one or two voicemails in the course of three weeks. Finally one morning when it woke me up at a godawful hour (before 9am but after 8am, so as to be within the rules for solicitation calls), I picked up the phone and said, very clearly, I am not interested, stop calling me. Within FIVE MINUTES I received an e-mail from this Linda that my file had been closed and to contact her if I decided in the future I was interested in an education from them. Unlikely, says I, but at least that's the end of that crap.
Not so fast. A few weeks, maybe as few as ten days, passed by before I was receiving calls from a slightly different number. It turned out to be another Kaplan recruitment employee, named Ellen something-or-other. Ellen never sent me an e-mail. Ellen called twice on the first day and left a message after the second call. Last week I recorded six calls on two separate days. Monday I received one or two, but I didn't pay attention very well because I was busy on Monday flailing over the events of that day. Tuesday, however. Between 5pm and 6:30pm I received FIVE CALLS. Three directly in a row, then two more about 35-40 minutes later. I had it. I called the number back and was routed through a voice answering system. I reached a very bored-sounding woman and asked her who I should speak to about receiving harassing phone calls from this number -- I had, as you recall, asked them to stop calling me and was told in "writing" (e-mail, in this day and age, must be considered as in writing) that my file had been closed. Clearly I was lied to, if they were still calling, else my number had been obtained by other means. She transferred me to a voicebox that informed me was not set up properly and would promptly disconnect the call. I called back again and told the (same bored-sounding) lady that I had been harassed with FIVE calls from that number in the past hour and wanted to find out how it could be stopped. She then took my number (with no other information) and promised it would be stopped within 24 hours.
If I receive another call from anyone or anywhere in Kaplan for ANY REASON, before or after 7pm tomorrow, I am writing a letter of complaint and sending it to the appropriate authorities. FTC, BBB, the Attorney General, whoever. This is ridiculous.
Whether you are a business or a private person, this is not how you handle requests for information. When a prospective customer fills out a request form for further information, you send them information. You may call them, e-mail them, mail them, as long as they have given their implicit permission for you to reach them. With Linda, I accepted the calls without demanding anything but that she stop after I refused to answer, because I had after all asked for information. If you should choose to call a prospective customer, and they do not answer, by all means leave a detailed message on their voicemail along with a good return phone number, and let the customer make the next move. If you do not receive a return call, it is acceptable to call a second time, or even a third time, provided there is time allowed to respond. Use e-mail or the post to follow up as well. What should NOT be done is continually cold-calling these customers back with an automated call system to annoy them as much as humanly possible. What is possibly ethically wrong is telling a customer who has requested to stop receiving calls from you, that their file is closed, when really you mean their number was passed along for another employee to call them from. It would be sneaky and underhanded to pass my number along when I said to stop calling -- they could merely say, "well you told Linda to stop calling and she did" -- but Linda specifically said my file had been CLOSED. Meaning they removed my information from their systems, and would no longer attempt to call or otherwise recruit me.
This behaviour has led me to the decision to never use Kaplan University or anyone involved with them for any career education or further learning requirements. And I will recommend against them to anyone I know who might be considering the same.
As a contrast: I once filled out similar requests for ITT Tech and Phoenix University. Both made me phone calls (one asked for best time to call) and respectfully complied when I told them I preferred not to use phone for these sorts of things and merely wanted something like a further-information package to help me decide -- I do better with decisions when I can see the facts laid out before me, rather than spoken in my ear. (Not to mention that these sorts of calls trigger anxiety attacks like you wouldn't believe.) Both of these organisations left me alone. ITT called a second time, with a second agent, but apologised after I said I had not wished to speak on the phone; he explained that the previous call to me was not logged properly in the system. I have not heard from them since. That is kind behaviour. I never did receive information from either of them via mail/e-mail, but that's okay since I can't afford them either.
I want to make clear that I am not a huge fan of telephone recruitment/information for anything. If I fill out a form for information, I kind of want an e-mail or packet/brochure mailed to my PO Box that tells me costs for the product/service I am interested in, and what my money will get me. I don't particularly want to discuss this over the phone where I have no visual aids to help me think about it. I realise that not all people can't handle phone conversations of this variety, but I really think that this aggressive telephone-marketing is exceedingly off-putting, and there should be an option to ask for NO telephone interaction. If they can't send even brochures of "what your product/service is, what the different tiers are, what you'll get, and how we'll help you get there," then I don't really want to hear a phone spiel. Companies who offer goods and services SHOULD be willing to provide information in more ways than just over the telephone, especially if their websites have little to no real information on their products/services and direct you at every turn to contact them for further information.
Some of you may know (okay, and now you all do!) that I am half-assing my way through a few classes on medical coding, billing, and transcription for hope of a career that doesn't suck balls, doesn't require my entire day to be interacting with customers, and actually allows me to have an independent and comfortable lifestyle (I don't want to be rich, but I don't want to have to count my pennies to eat, pay rent, and have fun every month). I inquired via their website for information on Kaplan's 12-month program. I provided them with my telephone number, e-mail address, and mailing address, and expected to receive an informational brochure and spam four times a week to my e-mail. No. I have not gotten a single e-mail from them (well, with one notable exception, which I'll get to), nor anything paper to my mailbox.
Instead I started receiving phone calls from a Linda Cunningham. A call, which I ignored because the 954 area code was unfamiliar. A message was left from this Linda Cunningham on my voicemail, explaining how they want to set up a pre-admission interview to determine, basically, whether they felt I was good enough to waste their time on teaching. She followed this up with an e-mail that said the same things. Before they even mentioned cost or financial aid or even what the course entailed. I decided that I was not in the mood to audition for career skills courses, and chose not to return that call.
Linda proceeded to call between 6-12 times a week, including two or three times in a row when I did not answer. I would get one or two voicemails in the course of three weeks. Finally one morning when it woke me up at a godawful hour (before 9am but after 8am, so as to be within the rules for solicitation calls), I picked up the phone and said, very clearly, I am not interested, stop calling me. Within FIVE MINUTES I received an e-mail from this Linda that my file had been closed and to contact her if I decided in the future I was interested in an education from them. Unlikely, says I, but at least that's the end of that crap.
Not so fast. A few weeks, maybe as few as ten days, passed by before I was receiving calls from a slightly different number. It turned out to be another Kaplan recruitment employee, named Ellen something-or-other. Ellen never sent me an e-mail. Ellen called twice on the first day and left a message after the second call. Last week I recorded six calls on two separate days. Monday I received one or two, but I didn't pay attention very well because I was busy on Monday flailing over the events of that day. Tuesday, however. Between 5pm and 6:30pm I received FIVE CALLS. Three directly in a row, then two more about 35-40 minutes later. I had it. I called the number back and was routed through a voice answering system. I reached a very bored-sounding woman and asked her who I should speak to about receiving harassing phone calls from this number -- I had, as you recall, asked them to stop calling me and was told in "writing" (e-mail, in this day and age, must be considered as in writing) that my file had been closed. Clearly I was lied to, if they were still calling, else my number had been obtained by other means. She transferred me to a voicebox that informed me was not set up properly and would promptly disconnect the call. I called back again and told the (same bored-sounding) lady that I had been harassed with FIVE calls from that number in the past hour and wanted to find out how it could be stopped. She then took my number (with no other information) and promised it would be stopped within 24 hours.
If I receive another call from anyone or anywhere in Kaplan for ANY REASON, before or after 7pm tomorrow, I am writing a letter of complaint and sending it to the appropriate authorities. FTC, BBB, the Attorney General, whoever. This is ridiculous.
Whether you are a business or a private person, this is not how you handle requests for information. When a prospective customer fills out a request form for further information, you send them information. You may call them, e-mail them, mail them, as long as they have given their implicit permission for you to reach them. With Linda, I accepted the calls without demanding anything but that she stop after I refused to answer, because I had after all asked for information. If you should choose to call a prospective customer, and they do not answer, by all means leave a detailed message on their voicemail along with a good return phone number, and let the customer make the next move. If you do not receive a return call, it is acceptable to call a second time, or even a third time, provided there is time allowed to respond. Use e-mail or the post to follow up as well. What should NOT be done is continually cold-calling these customers back with an automated call system to annoy them as much as humanly possible. What is possibly ethically wrong is telling a customer who has requested to stop receiving calls from you, that their file is closed, when really you mean their number was passed along for another employee to call them from. It would be sneaky and underhanded to pass my number along when I said to stop calling -- they could merely say, "well you told Linda to stop calling and she did" -- but Linda specifically said my file had been CLOSED. Meaning they removed my information from their systems, and would no longer attempt to call or otherwise recruit me.
This behaviour has led me to the decision to never use Kaplan University or anyone involved with them for any career education or further learning requirements. And I will recommend against them to anyone I know who might be considering the same.
As a contrast: I once filled out similar requests for ITT Tech and Phoenix University. Both made me phone calls (one asked for best time to call) and respectfully complied when I told them I preferred not to use phone for these sorts of things and merely wanted something like a further-information package to help me decide -- I do better with decisions when I can see the facts laid out before me, rather than spoken in my ear. (Not to mention that these sorts of calls trigger anxiety attacks like you wouldn't believe.) Both of these organisations left me alone. ITT called a second time, with a second agent, but apologised after I said I had not wished to speak on the phone; he explained that the previous call to me was not logged properly in the system. I have not heard from them since. That is kind behaviour. I never did receive information from either of them via mail/e-mail, but that's okay since I can't afford them either.
I want to make clear that I am not a huge fan of telephone recruitment/information for anything. If I fill out a form for information, I kind of want an e-mail or packet/brochure mailed to my PO Box that tells me costs for the product/service I am interested in, and what my money will get me. I don't particularly want to discuss this over the phone where I have no visual aids to help me think about it. I realise that not all people can't handle phone conversations of this variety, but I really think that this aggressive telephone-marketing is exceedingly off-putting, and there should be an option to ask for NO telephone interaction. If they can't send even brochures of "what your product/service is, what the different tiers are, what you'll get, and how we'll help you get there," then I don't really want to hear a phone spiel. Companies who offer goods and services SHOULD be willing to provide information in more ways than just over the telephone, especially if their websites have little to no real information on their products/services and direct you at every turn to contact them for further information.