The fact you can cancel online is a good thing though. Some places have you send an email which is terrible. Honestly a unified API endpoint for all this would be a godsend.
Turkey has you covered.
Amazon named its “labyrinthine” Prime cancellation process after Homer’s Iliad
21–30 of 30 posts
Re: Amazon named its “labyrinthine” Prime cancellation process after Homer’s Iliad
#22This is why I no longer use my own credit card to sign up for anything if I can avoid doing so. Instead, I use Privacy.com to generate cards for each service, and if a service decides to be a pain in the ass in terms of letting me cancel, I simply shut off its card so I can't be charged.
Some services (for eg: https://www.immobilienscout24.de/)
continue to bill you even after you cancel your payment. Apparently you have to cancel the contract (which they hide away under several menu options) or they will continue to bill you and you are legally required to pay it or they send debt collectors after you.
Re: Amazon named its “labyrinthine” Prime cancellation process after Homer’s Iliad
#23If they can sell stuff in one click, why would being able to not buy stuff be anything harder?
Actually maybe mandating that any buying process must be as hard or harder than cancelation process would be good start.
Re: Amazon named its “labyrinthine” Prime cancellation process after Homer’s Iliad
#24This is why I no longer use my own credit card to sign up for anything if I can avoid doing so. Instead, I use Privacy.com to generate cards for each service, and if a service decides to be a pain in the ass in terms of letting me cancel, I simply shut off its card so I can't be charged.
Same. Also Apple payments are great for subscriptions, as like PayPal, they provide a control center to cancel subscriptions. For things like streaming services where I know I only need it for a month, I cancel them within seconds of signing up.
Re: Amazon named its “labyrinthine” Prime cancellation process after Homer’s Iliad
#25Not going to mention the Odyssey would have been the more appropriate reference? The Iliad isn't really that long.
The action of the Iliad covers a few days, but the siege of Troy is said to have lasted ten years. That matches up well with the Odyssey, which covers the last few days of another ten years. So I guess the question is whether the cancellation feels more like repeated shipwreck and stranding, or like being struck with edged weapons.
Re: Amazon named its “labyrinthine” Prime cancellation process after Homer’s Iliad
#26I worked for a SMB startup years ago that had a “call us” cancellation model, mostly out of a need for several manual steps as part of offboarding and yes, probably some recognition that cancelation friction helped metrics. Eventually the support burden was too great and we built a fully automated no-BS cancellation flow. Our retention metrics immediately tanked to a greater extent than anyone had thought possible an…
Curious, was the improve after the redesign huge?
Re: Amazon named its “labyrinthine” Prime cancellation process after Homer’s Iliad
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, no one believes this sort of thing except perhaps a tiny minority of halfwits. Don't confuse enforced "company spirit" with reality.
That's my point. You need to really drink the koolaid to believe that for either Amazon or Google.
What does it mean to “believe“ in the logic of your employer? To my mind, it does not really matter whether you “believe“ the logic itself; only that you continue to labor under it.
Re: Amazon named its “labyrinthine” Prime cancellation process after Homer’s Iliad
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's my point. You need to really drink the koolaid to believe that for either Amazon or Google.
What does it mean to “believe“ in the logic of your employer? To my mind, it does not really matter whether you “believe“ the logic itself; only that you continue to labor under it.
A lot of people, especially younger ones fresh out of college, automatically believe in the "mission" and culture of their employer. They focus on what their employer does well in and has positive impact, and systematically turn a blind eye to where their employer fails.
I suppose it's a matter of experience.
Re: Amazon named its “labyrinthine” Prime cancellation process after Homer’s Iliad
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
What does it mean to “believe“ in the logic of your employer? To my mind, it does not really matter whether you “believe“ the logic itself; only that you continue to labor under it.
A lot of people, especially younger ones fresh out of college, automatically believe in the "mission" and culture of their employer. They focus on what their employer does well in and has positive impact, and systematically turn a blind eye to where their employer fails. I suppose it's a matter of experience.
That makes sense. I guess I never thought anyone actually believed these things, any more than they “believed” in the logic of a video game. To me, it was always just something you learned, the way you learn a language or a national culture. It’s a means to achieve a certain end (directly: the role, indirectly: $), not a thing to be taken any more seriously than that.
Re: Amazon named its “labyrinthine” Prime cancellation process after Homer’s Iliad
#30I worked for a SMB startup years ago that had a “call us” cancellation model, mostly out of a need for several manual steps as part of offboarding and yes, probably some recognition that cancelation friction helped metrics. Eventually the support burden was too great and we built a fully automated no-BS cancellation flow. Our retention metrics immediately tanked to a greater extent than anyone had thought possible an…
Curious, was the improve after the redesign huge?
It’s been a while but I believe we recovered something like 40% of the churn.