Hard sell ...

What the ...? I rang to cancel my subscription to the Gold Coast Bulletin and the Australian's Mind Games this morning and when I finally made it through to the operator, he asked me for a reason for the cancellation. I said I'd rather not say, but I just wanted to cancel. Then started a rather intensive session of him trying to extract a reason: he needed to put something down, he'd get in trouble if he didn't, it would affect him, you had a reason for joining - you must have a reason for cancelling. I suggested he just tick the box that said the customer declined to say: you're assuming there is something like that he replied, and again "it will affect me if you don't give me a reason". Well, I said, you read out the reasons you have and I'll see which of them I like. I don't want you to make up a fake reason he said, well, I told him, just put down that the customer declined to say. And I think there was one more round "You're a person, I'm a person and it will affect me if you don't say" before he would start processing my request.
Now, I don't know if it was just me, but the rest of the call did seem to take a while as he located my subscriptions and then cancelled them. Hmmm .. and why was it that the short survey at the end of the call I had been promised as I was on hold waiting to speak with an operator wasn't offered? I really wanted to help them improve their service! I must say though, that I'm used to getting a hard sell when folk are looking to sell me something ... not when I'm cancelling something ... although, to be fair, I know it's that he was looking for a way to have me continue the subscription/s so I guess he was on for the "sell".