Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Exploiting Visa's Concierge Service For All Its Worth

 
 

Sent to you by David via Google Reader:

 
 

via The Consumerist by Phil Villarreal on 5/4/10

Blogging at Four Hour Work Week, John tells about how he made Visa his personal assistant via its concierge service. Testing it out to see whether or not he could get the CSRs to agree to his silly whims, he decided to enlist the company's help in securing a huge tub of nacho cheese:

TEST #1: GIANT TUB OF NACHO CHEESE

I made my first call to the Visa Chase Freedom concierge service by calling the toll-free number on the back of my card. I was connected to a concierge named David, who I pictured wearing a little bellboy hat, like a hotel concierge, though I think they just wear a telephone headset nowadays.

David spoke English, which was a nice change from my usual calls to Visa. "I'm traveling to Austin next week, and I want a big tub of nacho cheese. Make that a HUGE tub," I told him. "Enough to fill a punch bowl."

"Does it need to be in a tub?" he asked, taking the request with the seriousness of someone who worked for me.

"Can, jar, tub, I don't care," I said. "I just want liquid cheese, and a lot of it."

"Would you like us to get back to you by phone or email?"

"Phone, please. I don't want there to be any miscommunication about my cheese."

"Is it okay if we have this information to you by 2:00 pm tomorrow?" he asked.

"That would be fine," I responded, "as long as I get my cheese intel."

"You'll get it, sir," he assured me. "Thank you for calling Visa Signature concierge service."

Someone from Visa actually called him back with an address and phone number of the store with the cheese he was looking for. Click on the link to read about how John got Visa to help him solve a crossword puzzle.

How to Make Visa Obey Your Every Desire: The Credit Card Concierge Experiment [Four Hour Work Week]
(Thanks, Eric!)


 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 

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