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The difficulty cancelling Economist one time put me off from subscribing to a paper ever since. I don't get it, their content is good, let me cancel easily and

The difficulty cancelling Economist one time put me off from subscribing to a paper ever since. I don't get it, their content is good, let me cancel easily and I'll come back easily. How desperate are those services that they implement measures like that, counting on people to not follow through the cancellation process, forgetting to cancel altogether, etc. And then doing the absolute minimum necessary, e.g. offering the easy cancel button for California residents only because they have to. It'll be the same with this piece of legislation. Sure they'll do it for US residents but they'll continue to pull the same crap for us here in Canada and elsewhere. They deserve to go out of business in my opinion and I hope they do.

jffry 5y ago
I don't know if this is the case, but these are exactly the sort of awful "customer retention" strategies I would expect from an organization where somebody is being judged/rewarded based on minimizing customer turnover metrics below some threshold.
d0gsg0w00f 5y ago
As a WSJ subscriber I'm so used to their blunt "to the point" editorial style that I find Economist articles too long winded and short-storyish. I always get 5 paragraphs in and still can't figure out what the article is getting at. Ain't nobody got time for that.
- heartbreak 5y ago
  Similar to OP, the WSJ was the newspaper whose cancellation process caused me to stop subscribing to newspapers.
scruti 5y ago
The Economist reached the point of calling me to ask if I knew someone who would be interested into a subscription. I love the magazine but their marketing is really invasive and annoying. Last time I cancelled they were a nightmare calling me every other day.
aurumpotest 5y ago
I had a different experience with the Economist. I forgot to cancel and was billed. I emailed saying I forgot to cancel, could I unsubscribe now? And got a quick reply saying they'd cancelled and also refunded me despite me not asking. I recently cancelled again after getting the 1-month renewal warning, and immediately got a 50% off offer, so I'll probably subscribe again. I had a similarly easy experience with the Guardian a few years ago, based in Europe.

jffry 5y ago

I don't know if this is the case, but these are exactly the sort of awful "customer retention" strategies I would expect from an organization where somebody is being judged/rewarded based on minimizing customer turnover metrics below some threshold.

d0gsg0w00f 5y ago

As a WSJ subscriber I'm so used to their blunt "to the point" editorial style that I find Economist articles too long winded and short-storyish. I always get 5 paragraphs in and still can't figure out what the article is getting at. Ain't nobody got time for that.

heartbreak 5y ago
Similar to OP, the WSJ was the newspaper whose cancellation process caused me to stop subscribing to newspapers.

scruti 5y ago

The Economist reached the point of calling me to ask if I knew someone who would be interested into a subscription. I love the magazine but their marketing is really invasive and annoying. Last time I cancelled they were a nightmare calling me every other day.

aurumpotest 5y ago

I had a different experience with the Economist. I forgot to cancel and was billed. I emailed saying I forgot to cancel, could I unsubscribe now? And got a quick reply saying they'd cancelled and also refunded me despite me not asking. I recently cancelled again after getting the 1-month renewal warning, and immediately got a 50% off offer, so I'll probably subscribe again. I had a similarly easy experience with the Guardian a few years ago, based in Europe.