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You might be an exception. If you leave a service, you probably will never return. It might still be more profitable to just make sure the customer stay as long

You might be an exception. If you leave a service, you probably will never return. It might still be more profitable to just make sure the customer stay as long as possible by creating barriers to leaving.

ok_coo 8y ago
I understand business people having this kind of mentality, but don't they realize that it can create resentment? I've gone out of my way to cancel (and permanently ignore) certain services in the past when I discovered how difficult it was to cancel (and port my data).
- gpderetta 8y ago
  most importantly, it creates regulations.
jellicle 8y ago
But for the rest of my life, if someone asks me about X, I'll remember the experience and give my opinions about it. And our remembrance of a thing is heavily weighted by the last or most recent part of the experience. Businesses will go to any lengths to get a good review on Yelp or whatever, but are happy to permanently contaminate the experiences of every single one of their experienced customers by making it really hard and painful to leave. This is crazy.
joekrill 8y ago
But that's so short-sighted. There are other things to consider. Word of mouth is powerful, and if you make it difficult people are going to remember that and tell their peers/friends/coworkers/whoever. And what's going to happen if you decide to pivot, create another product, or add additional value? If you made it so difficult the first time around why would I give it a second chance?
michaelt 8y ago
People leave services then return to them later all the time. I've lived one place and needed an internet connection, moved in with someone so I didn't need an internet connection, moved again and I needed a connection again. I've used Trello, closed my account in preference for Jira, then later in a different job with different needs used Trello again. Hell, for a lot of products I'd say that former customers - who have a proven need for the thing the product does, and a proven willingness to pay for a product that does it - are probably the single demographic most likely to be future customers.

ok_coo 8y ago

I understand business people having this kind of mentality, but don't they realize that it can create resentment? I've gone out of my way to cancel (and permanently ignore) certain services in the past when I discovered how difficult it was to cancel (and port my data).

gpderetta 8y ago
most importantly, it creates regulations.

jellicle 8y ago

But for the rest of my life, if someone asks me about X, I'll remember the experience and give my opinions about it. And our remembrance of a thing is heavily weighted by the last or most recent part of the experience. Businesses will go to any lengths to get a good review on Yelp or whatever, but are happy to permanently contaminate the experiences of every single one of their experienced customers by making it really hard and painful to leave. This is crazy.

joekrill 8y ago

But that's so short-sighted. There are other things to consider. Word of mouth is powerful, and if you make it difficult people are going to remember that and tell their peers/friends/coworkers/whoever. And what's going to happen if you decide to pivot, create another product, or add additional value? If you made it so difficult the first time around why would I give it a second chance?

michaelt 8y ago

People leave services then return to them later all the time. I've lived one place and needed an internet connection, moved in with someone so I didn't need an internet connection, moved again and I needed a connection again. I've used Trello, closed my account in preference for Jira, then later in a different job with different needs used Trello again. Hell, for a lot of products I'd say that former customers - who have a proven need for the thing the product does, and a proven willingness to pay for a product that does it - are probably the single demographic most likely to be future customers.