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“Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

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Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#771

Post by somethingwitty1 »

Joeri wrote: post #759
idworks1 wrote: post #756

Anecdata (only because I don't have access to the data anymore). Customer satisfaction is so much higher when they get a one click unsubscribe. In fact, when the friction is so low, the customer is likely to start the subscription back. I say this as someone who worked in customer service automation. The worst customer satisfaction score with lowest rate of re-subscription is from companies that make it hell to unsub…

There is this common perception of companies as if they are entirely rational organizations, and every policy that we don’t like exists because it is profitable and benefits the company at the expense of the customer. But sometimes bad policies are just bad, they benefit no one, and they exist for dumb reasons. Maybe call to unsubscribe is one of those policies.

An opposite statement can be said with the same amount of authority though: There is a common perception that companies only create policies we don't like through accidents and unforeseeable outcomes, not by specifically crafting policies to benefit the company. But sometimes bad policies are malicious and designed to maximize profits, even at the expense of long-term profits and customer retention. Maybe call to unsubscribe is one of those policies.

As someone that has worked (briefly) for a company that operated in this fashion (and being a partial owner of one that the CEO tried to shift to this model...we got the board together and fired him), it is not an accidentally bad policy. It is actively discussed as a way to squeeze out an extra pay cycle (and often more) of payments. In recorded meetings or audited channels (such as email) or even PR releases, you are guided to discuss it as a "personal touch with the customer" and to help "lost customers" resolve the issues rather than cancel. You even try to convince your employees/engineers that is the reason. But when it is face-to-face conversations, the discussions are around the dollars and squeezing out as many pay cycles as you can. I know I was being a bit cheeky with my first paragraph, but this is definitely not one of those "whoops, we didn't think this through" kind of policies. If it were, the policy would have changed without the FTC or laws being needed.

Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#772

Post by csee »

MAGZine wrote: post #742
jonahhorowitz wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that HN is really the place for this discussion, but the _news_ section of the WSJ is pretty neutral and well written. The _opinion_ page is very slanted towards "corporatist/capitalist views".

That's an easy thing to say because it's more difficult to disprove. You could say that about the NYT, Al Jazeera, NPR, CNN, etc etc. Of course the topics that an institution choose to talk about also biases it. If you spend all of your front page space complaining about unions and talking about business, that is a different bias than one who dedicates column inches to stories about the environment. Or different from…

  "but certainly not what I would call neutral. The topic pits UAW versus Nonunion automakers."
How is that not neutral? It's an unambiguous statement of fact that the tax credit is favoring unionized automakers over non-unionized automakers, and that this particular distortion/difference in tax credit has no environmental justification and is designed purely to help out unions.

Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#773

Post by MathMonkeyMan »

somethingwitty1 wrote: post #771
Joeri wrote: post #759

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is this common perception of companies as if they are entirely rational organizations, and every policy that we don’t like exists because it is profitable and benefits the company at the expense of the customer. But sometimes bad policies are just bad, they benefit no one, and they exist for dumb reasons. Maybe call to unsubscribe is one of those policies.

An opposite statement can be said with the same amount of authority though: There is a common perception that companies only create policies we don't like through accidents and unforeseeable outcomes, not by specifically crafting policies to benefit the company. But sometimes bad policies are malicious and designed to maximize profits, even at the expense of long-term profits and customer retention. Maybe call to uns…

There is a third option.

1. "Whoops, we didn't think this through."

2. This makes us more money in the end, that's why it's so pervasive.

3. It's difficult to correlate "making more money in the end" with our cancellation policy, so we make a measurement or otherwise tell ourselves a story consistent with (2), even though (2)'s conclusion doesn't truly follow.

This reminds me of topics in government policy, psychology, etc.

Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#774

Post by Cederfjard »

somethingwitty1 wrote: post #771
Joeri wrote: post #759

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is this common perception of companies as if they are entirely rational organizations, and every policy that we don’t like exists because it is profitable and benefits the company at the expense of the customer. But sometimes bad policies are just bad, they benefit no one, and they exist for dumb reasons. Maybe call to unsubscribe is one of those policies.

An opposite statement can be said with the same amount of authority though: There is a common perception that companies only create policies we don't like through accidents and unforeseeable outcomes, not by specifically crafting policies to benefit the company. But sometimes bad policies are malicious and designed to maximize profits, even at the expense of long-term profits and customer retention. Maybe call to uns…

You’ve only really stated though that these policies are deliberate, which I think few people would have thought otherwise, not that they’re necessarily the best policies there can be. The question is if they’re actually better for the bottom line than the alternative (given the timeframe that the people who make and influence these decisions care about). Is ”squeezing out an extra pay cycle” or two possible missing the forest for the trees, if customers who were happy with the cancellation process are more likely to return, proselytize for you and so on? Not saying that’s the case, very open to being influenced either way if anyone has data to share.

Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#775

Post by mfrye0 »

dinvlad wrote: post #752

Can we also make it illegal to send unsolicited marketing mail (not email, which can be easily filtered/unsubscribed from) please? It’s a pain to have to “opt out” from those annoying paper-wasting weekly Xfinity mails, when I clearly don’t want to use their service and never signed up for their ads using my new address anyways (I wonder how they learned about it, huh). But no, I have to find a special link to unsubs…

I believe I read somewhere that mail is trickier. Being that the spam mail essentially subsidizes USPS.

Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#777

Post by mynameisvlad »

_2d30 wrote: post #770
mynameisvlad wrote: post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No it shouldn't and that should be obvious. Explain why that should be obvious. If you’re building a service for a customer, said customer should be your top priority.

The number of things that could increase the costs of providing a service beyond willingness to pay for the service is essentially unbounded.

Providing customer service, including cancellation requests, is a fundamental part of running any customer-facing service.

If you can't manage that within the "willingness to pay for the service" then perhaps you shouldn't be running said service in the first place. Because soon enough your customers will have issues and nowhere to turn to, and then they won't be customers anymore (unless, you know, you make it a pain in their asses to leave).

Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#778

Post by max-ibel »

I hate to be that contrarian guy, but I repeatedly put off calling spectrum to cancel our TV subscription (we never ever used it) because it involved talking to an actual salesperson who clearly used all sort of tricks to get me to upgrade to stuff I don't need.

Note: I can upgrade plans on spectrum just fine, but cancellation or downgrades means talking on the phone.

Based on my anecdata, this technique works just fine for companies - either they can charge longer for things that are not used, and/or they get a chance to personally talk to a customer to upsell them.

I'd very much like to believe these technique does work against companies, but I don't see it.

Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#779

Post by _2d30 »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #777
_2d30 wrote: post #770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of things that could increase the costs of providing a service beyond willingness to pay for the service is essentially unbounded.

Providing customer service, including cancellation requests, is a fundamental part of running any customer-facing service. If you can't manage that within the "willingness to pay for the service" then perhaps you shouldn't be running said service in the first place. Because soon enough your customers will have issues and nowhere to turn to, and then they won't be customers anymore (unless, you know, you make it a pai…

Weird straw man. No one said that there shouldn’t be customer service on offer. The statement I originally made was that a company shouldn’t be legally bound to provide customer service in every single possible channel of communication (eg handwritten napkins).

I said that it’s actually good to be required to provide cancellation through the same channel that the service was initiated from. I’m pro customer service, anti absurdist requirements.

Feel free to build your straw men, though!

Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#780

Post by robbmorganf »

Joeri wrote: post #759
idworks1 wrote: post #756

Anecdata (only because I don't have access to the data anymore). Customer satisfaction is so much higher when they get a one click unsubscribe. In fact, when the friction is so low, the customer is likely to start the subscription back. I say this as someone who worked in customer service automation. The worst customer satisfaction score with lowest rate of re-subscription is from companies that make it hell to unsub…

There is this common perception of companies as if they are entirely rational organizations, and every policy that we don’t like exists because it is profitable and benefits the company at the expense of the customer. But sometimes bad policies are just bad, they benefit no one, and they exist for dumb reasons. Maybe call to unsubscribe is one of those policies.

I think they often benefit one specific person in the company, who happens to be the decision maker, and don't hurt the overall company obviously enough that anyone stops them.
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