4 ms·

Agreed. While this is better than many services, which make it easy to upgrade on the web but impossible to cancel without a phone call, it is still user hostil

Agreed. While this is better than many services, which make it easy to upgrade on the web but impossible to cancel without a phone call, it is still user hostile.

badwolf 9y ago
I ended up having to make a similar flow for subscription cancellation. We've been spending lots of time removing obstacles to subscribe. CEO got a brilliant idea to hire a call center and require call-to-cancel. After weeks of "debate" we settled on a 5 page "are you sure?" "are you super duper sure?" "Everyone loves you and will miss you. are you sure?" with confusing buttons "Cancel" cancels your subscription deactivation process (subscription is still active) you have to choose "I want to deactivate my subscription" on each page. I feel a bit dead inside.
- paulie_a 9y ago
  I will attempt to cancel with a company through the normal flow, but sometimes a simple email works just as well to get things done. If there are too many hoops to jump through, I will contact my credit card company instead, they are more than happy to resolve the situation and just not process the payments anymore.
Spooky23 9y ago
Sometimes the phone call is a hassle, but not evil. People don’t always understand the impact on their data and talking can help. Other companies make that a black hole as well. Back in the day Vonage would put you on hold for >30 minutes. I ended up cancelling via AMEX disputed.
- jessriedel 9y ago
  To be clear, the reason they make you call is to try and stop you from downgrading. The fact that there are some cases where the customer doesn't understand the impact on their data is the justification (fig leaf). You know this because if the latter risk were the same but the company couldn't stop the downgrade (e.g., the company is discontinuing the service and the customer needs to be helped on how to transfer their data to a similar competing service), the company would never offer to talk about it over the phone.

Agreed. While this is better than many services, which make it easy to upgrade on the web but impossible to cancel without a phone call, it is still user hostile.

badwolf 9y ago

I ended up having to make a similar flow for subscription cancellation. We've been spending lots of time removing obstacles to subscribe. CEO got a brilliant idea to hire a call center and require call-to-cancel. After weeks of "debate" we settled on a 5 page "are you sure?" "are you super duper sure?" "Everyone loves you and will miss you. are you sure?" with confusing buttons "Cancel" cancels your subscription deactivation process (subscription is still active) you have to choose "I want to deactivate my subscription" on each page. I feel a bit dead inside.

paulie_a 9y ago
I will attempt to cancel with a company through the normal flow, but sometimes a simple email works just as well to get things done. If there are too many hoops to jump through, I will contact my credit card company instead, they are more than happy to resolve the situation and just not process the payments anymore.

Spooky23 9y ago

Sometimes the phone call is a hassle, but not evil. People don’t always understand the impact on their data and talking can help. Other companies make that a black hole as well. Back in the day Vonage would put you on hold for >30 minutes. I ended up cancelling via AMEX disputed.

jessriedel 9y ago
To be clear, the reason they make you call is to try and stop you from downgrading. The fact that there are some cases where the customer doesn't understand the impact on their data is the justification (fig leaf). You know this because if the latter risk were the same but the company couldn't stop the downgrade (e.g., the company is discontinuing the service and the customer needs to be helped on how to transfer their data to a similar competing service), the company would never offer to talk about it over the phone.