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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

#781

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…

> Customer satisfaction is so much higher when they get a one click unsubscribe.

I mean, that's pretty tautological: unsatisfied customers who become not-customers, aren't part of your metric any more! The lower the barrier-to-exit is for your customers, the more survivorship bias there will be in any customer-satisfaction metrics you're trying to track.

When there's zero friction to quitting (incl. a high availability of alternatives to switch to), any time someone doesn't like your company, they'll just churn, and you'll never hear about it. So you'll think everything is great—despite the churn, customer numbers are growing, and all your non-churning customers love you!—even while there's this huge shadow-population of customers who resent your service for one reason or another, but who took that resentment right out the door with them, never bringing it to you to address.

(Not saying this is a bad way to do things, precisely; just that you have to be aware that it's the siutation you've put yourself in, especially when interpreting customer-success metrics.)

An interesting corollary to that effect, though, is that organizations that are effectively impossible to leave (e.g. utilities) will get a "true measure" of satisfaction, with no survivorship bias. If there's "marketing science" to be done on customer satisfaction, utilities are probably a great "spherical cow" simplified environment to study it in.

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

#782

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not outrageous at all. Your failure to pay doesn't invalidate your contract that you will pay for their services. It's definitely frustrating to cancel, and this is a good ruling that will help make it easier, but it's still your responsibility to do so.

How could it not invalidate the contract? Services are provided after payment is made. If no payment is made, no service is provided.

Those are not universal terms, and are actually defined in the contract which you seem to have not read. Grace periods, minimum commitments, subscription lengths, and/or post-paid terms are all common.

Ironically there are far more complaints about cloud providers shutting down entire business operations because of a late payment here on HN. Perhaps you should consider this more thoroughly instead of escalating a single unfortunate anecdote into a strawman argument against how business billing works.

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

#783

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 f…

Spectrum was the first company that came to my mind, too. Last week, my mom recently signed up for spectrum & she bought the traditional TV + Internet + Phone package, when she only needed Internet. I've been putting off calling them since I don't want to deal with talking to anyone.

& yep, it is very easy to upgrade your subscription on spectrum's website but there is no way at all to cancel/downgrade online.

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

#784
post #167

> including an option that’s “at least as easy” as the one to subscribe Weirdly enough this sounds like a loophole. I can already see some companies trying to bullshit their way through an investigation: "Oh sure, we don't provide online cancellation, because our way to cancel is even easier than online:" * presents a way to cancel that is in practice more difficult than online *. I think either mandating that cancel…

The bottom line is if I call up on the phone and tell a company to stop billing me or send them an email from the registered email on file THEY SHOULD BE LEGALLY LIABLE for every time they debit an account after that time. The fact this is not the case completely dumbfounds me.

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

#785
post #779

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Processing napkin cancellation requests requires just about as much work as any other form of "manual" request -- whether that's over email, phone, etc.

There is nothing special about processing a "napkin cancellation" or whatever other form, the process is the same: find the account, do whatever verification needs to be done, and cancel it on the backend. In the end, you still have to have a manual cancellation pipeline powered by customer service. Whether that's because a customer can't find the button, wants human confirmation that it's been cancelled, whathaveyou. An automated system will never cover 100% of your customer base.

There is no strawman. Manual cancellation requests, just like any other manual request, is a standard part of Customer Service. If you can't provide CS, then you shouldn't be operating a customer-facing service.

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

#786
post #18

Same thing with The Guardian. Subscribed online and was then told I can’t cancel via email and have to endure a pushy sales call if I want to cancel. Similar experience with The Economist except it was via live chat instead. These experiences honestly make me want to never subscribe to a newspaper again.

They must have changed recently since I subscribed and unsubscribed online earlier this year with no trouble (I unsubscribed because they signed me up to new email lists without my permission, something another newspaper I'm subscribed to (but will likely be canceling) just did as well :().

The one newspaper I've had no issues at all with is Indian Country Today. They use qgiv and while you can make an account with qgiv to edit payment details, they also send you an email every time they bill your card with a link that lets you unsubscribe in one click with no account (so it is easy to just cancel and resubscribe if you need to make changes rather than needing yet another account). All around excellent experience with ICT and qgiv.

https://indiancountrytoday.com/news

https://qgiv.com/

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

#789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with the UK subscription craft beer service, beer52.com [1]. Subscribe easily with a few clicks, but they make you call during office hours and endure 10+ minutes on hold to cancel. Sadly in the UK I guess we won't get the benefit of any new EU legislation to address this. [1] https://ibb.co/r4LfK5F

Sometimes I wonder what little things differ between countries. But this is new to me. Is it true that you find that hold time to be annoying/out of place in the UK? I once was on hold with an insurance company for ten hours... I began to wonder if 1. something happened that got me stuck in the queue, or 2. if they even had a single person working the lines.

Not OP but also from the UK. Whilst a 10 minute hold time isn't too unusual for large companies, especially if you call at a busy time like midday when everyone takes a lunch break, anything over 20 minutes would certainly warrant complaining about to anyone unfortunate enough to ask how your day is going.

A big selling point for companies for a while was quick answering of calls. My bank has genuinely answered faster than 999 (our 911 equivalent) on occasion. Although during COVID hold times have gone up dramatically for some reason.

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

#790

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…

Speaking to this myself - I was blown away by Masterclass letting me do this, after I forgot it would renew. I responded to their "hey you've been charged" email with something like "I forgot about this and didn't mean to renew". In perhaps ten minutes I had a cancelation notice and refund.

Way more likely to get their stuff again. Bonus points for not sending the bill from some faceless "no reply" address.

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