This is not surprising, I got a deal with the NYT and attempted to cancel through a phone call where they extended the offer. 12 months later same call, they asked what would I need to stay and I said same offer indefinitely, 1$ a month is worth it but not much more as a European when its not my main source of news. For some reason I still prefer dead trees when I can find the time.
Nearly a third of new subscribers to news publications cancel in the first 24hrs
61–70 of 183 posts
Re: Nearly a third of new subscribers to news publications cancel in the first 24hrs
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do things play out if you call your credit card company and say, "Please don't allow any more charges from this vendor. I'm trying to cancel but they're making it hard."?
I wish I could cancel a credit card recurring payment as easily as a standing order or direct debit. But guess what - it's in the interests of the business and the credit card company for me to keep paying
setup a virtual temp card number with revolut/paypal etc, change the card on the account then cancel the card.
Re: Nearly a third of new subscribers to news publications cancel in the first 24hrs
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
The harder a service is to cancel, the more unlikely I am to ever re-subscribe. That's something they need to start studying in business/MBA school. That SOME customer churn reduction strategies directly lead to indefinite loss of customers. To give a specific anecdote: Ooma offers a very interesting service, hassle-free "landline" (VoIP) turn-key phone service, the price is reasonable, and they have multiple offerin…
My guess is that the MBAs are right, and losing the business of people like you is outweighed by larger gains.
And by "people like me" you mean customers that don't want a business to treat them poorly?
Re: Nearly a third of new subscribers to news publications cancel in the first 24hrs
#64The reason being: a single publication gives a vary narrow perspective
Re: Nearly a third of new subscribers to news publications cancel in the first 24hrs
#65This is just lack of auto renew protections. Consumers are wise to this, and they’re not really canceling. I bet if you could turn off auto-renew they wouldn’t cancel. But, to nobody’s surprise, the MBAs don’t like options where the user doesn’t give away money by accident. Auto renew is one of those things that should be illegal to default users into.
The harder a service is to cancel, the more unlikely I am to ever re-subscribe. That's something they need to start studying in business/MBA school. That SOME customer churn reduction strategies directly lead to indefinite loss of customers. To give a specific anecdote: Ooma offers a very interesting service, hassle-free "landline" (VoIP) turn-key phone service, the price is reasonable, and they have multiple offerin…
> The harder a service is to cancel, the more unlikely I am to ever re-subscribe.
Adobe’s subscriptions are hell to cancel. It’s easier to cancel the credit card via the bank.
Btw, some time ago I was kinda shocked when Digital Ocean was able to charge an expired card of mine, multiple times.
The card had expired, and I had renewed it, but I didn’t have access to the DO account anymore, so I couldn’t update the card info. Somehow DO was still able to charge the expired card, and since I couldn’t access my account (and support wasn’t super helpful either), I had to contest the charge via the bank, about 5 times, until they finally cancelled the subscription and account.
Re: Nearly a third of new subscribers to news publications cancel in the first 24hrs
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Growth hackers" imply they're doing this for the long term, which I don't believe at all. All these strategies do is give the organization a short term bump in exchange for a negative long term reputation and customer loss. I've literally been warned not to sub to the New York Times by random people without prompting when the newspaper was mentioned in passing. Is that "growth hacking?" They've made having a subscri…
I just cancelled my NYT subscription, took me 5 minutes. Trying to cancel my Wired subscription, non-US subscriber, means I have to wait for the next delivery to use a number on the envelope to identify myself in order to cancel the subscription. Well, be it I guess.
Wired is the worst. It's literally impossible to cancel online, and they still keep spamming me with "renewal notices" snail mail even after my subscription ended.
Re: Nearly a third of new subscribers to news publications cancel in the first 24hrs
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
What I really hate is that there doesn't seem to be some sort of Netflix-type subscription thing (or if there is I'm not aware of it and the subscribe now! banners blasted over everything never seem to suggest them). If there's an interesting story in, say, the Austin local newspaper and I live in Idaho or wherever I am not bothering to subscribe to Austin's local newspaper just to see if the rest of the article is a…
Apple News+ or whatever it is called does this. It has a good spread of papers across the country (Houston Chronical, LA Times, Kansas City Star, etc), but obviously doesn't include the bigger publications like the NYTimes or Washington Post.
I was seriously looking into Apple News+ a few months ago, but it turns out you have to use the app (from what I remember), which of course requires an Apple device.
I only have an iPhone, and like to read news on my computer or tablet which doesn't run iOS. So that's a no-go for me :/
Re: Nearly a third of new subscribers to news publications cancel in the first 24hrs
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just cancelled my NYT subscription, took me 5 minutes. Trying to cancel my Wired subscription, non-US subscriber, means I have to wait for the next delivery to use a number on the envelope to identify myself in order to cancel the subscription. Well, be it I guess.
Wired is the worst. It's literally impossible to cancel online, and they still keep spamming me with "renewal notices" snail mail even after my subscription ended.
I'm already looking forward to it!
Re: Nearly a third of new subscribers to news publications cancel in the first 24hrs
#69They signed up to read one interesting article. The experience of news subscriptions, and especially cancellations, is terrible. Where are the pay as you go plans? I'll give your site $20, then you can debit my account some fee per article that I actually read. And no auto-renew.
Blendle tried this, but it didn't really work out for them.
Hmm, never heard of it. I was thinking more of a per-publication offering, in the same way there are per-publication subscriptions, rather than a separate aggregation service that wants to be in my Inbox all the time. I think not every article has the same value either, not sure how one gauges the value of a given article exactly.
My point really is that I'm willing to pay a reasonable price, but I'm not willing to sign up in perpetuity and I'm not willing to go through an onerous cancellation process. Treat me like a valued customer and let me buy the pieces I want. I don't really care to support parts of the paper/news I don't consume - which is what a subscription does.
Re: Nearly a third of new subscribers to news publications cancel in the first 24hrs
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
The harder a service is to cancel, the more unlikely I am to ever re-subscribe. That's something they need to start studying in business/MBA school. That SOME customer churn reduction strategies directly lead to indefinite loss of customers. To give a specific anecdote: Ooma offers a very interesting service, hassle-free "landline" (VoIP) turn-key phone service, the price is reasonable, and they have multiple offerin…
> The harder a service is to cancel, the more unlikely I am to ever re-subscribe. Adobe’s subscriptions are hell to cancel. It’s easier to cancel the credit card via the bank. Btw, some time ago I was kinda shocked when Digital Ocean was able to charge an expired card of mine, multiple times. The card had expired, and I had renewed it, but I didn’t have access to the DO account anymore, so I couldn’t update the card…
This is a service provided by the card companies. For instance here's Visa's: https://developer.visa.com/capabilities/vau