Cancelling should be as easy (or hard) as registration

If you can register online, you must be able to cancel online. If you can register without a call, you must be able to cancel without a call.

Enter one of my greatest pet peeves. I don’t mind if a subscription service has skippable cancelation questions. If you ask me why I’m leaving, and I can skip the question, then I’m likely to give you information that may help your product team in the future. But if you make it mandatory I’m going to do everything I can to throw off your data collection goals. I’ll happily make stuff up out of anger.

On a side note, this is the main reason I’ve refused to sign up for the New York Times. I won’t do it. Supposedly it’s easier now to cancel and doesn’t require calling their team whose job it is to keep you subscribed, but they’ve lost me forever as a customer because of their manipulative tactics that don’t give me the freedom to leave.

This reminds me of my last time at a normal gym. The theatrics you sometimes must go through—including actually moving away from your location (or finding a clever way to lie about it) are infuriating. I just won’t play that game. I won’t sign up for something that doesn’t allow me to leave (unless I’m pre-paying for a discount, but after the pay period let me go).

Shame on the companies that do this.

Via Rubenerd.