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I wish businesses would realize this actually hurts their sales. I’ve put off joining a gym for years because I don’t want the hassle of I want to cancel. Als

I wish businesses would realize this actually hurts their sales. I’ve put off joining a gym for years because I don’t want the hassle of I want to cancel. Also I never do free trials assuming they’ll be hard to cancel.

yoyohello13 1y ago
It doesn’t though. They’ve done the math and the profit gained by adding friction to cancel outweighs the loss of business
- gizzlon 1y ago
  How do you measure those you never see? Qualitative? I'm definitely in the newer-touch-something-if-it-seems-hard-to-cancel camp. How do you measure that I didn't sign up?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
vasusen 1y ago
I have seen the results of these A/B tests closely on a major consumer site and I can tell you it definitely hurts the business to make cancelation really easy.
- TheCoelacanth 1y ago
  How do you A/B test your company's reputation as being difficult to cancel? You can't exactly serve up different word-of-mouth to different users.
  - mrguyorama 1y ago
    Believing that "reputation" actually matters for American businesses is laughable. Craftsman tools are STILL riding the reputation they had half a century ago, despite being made out of the cheapest chinesium and losing their impressive warranty stance. The American consumer has demonstrated an absurd inability to consider past events as useful information to predict future results. Things continue to enshittify because the 3 consumers who recognize that quality is going down are vastly outweighed by the increase in consumption by the rest of your market. Kitchenaid still sells plenty of mixers that die after a year. Hell, American car brands are still successful businesses even though they have made only a few reasonably competitive vehicles since the 50s. Disney and Netflix are still making plenty of money despite making it difficult to share accounts.
    - frollogaston 1y ago
      The "Toyota tax" is entirely based on reputation, and Amazon and Costco both benefit a lot from customer trust.
    - gosub100 1y ago
      Comcast
  - const_cast 1y ago
    This is the danger of data-driven decision making. You can only gather a very, very small subset of all data. So now you're basing your decisions off of a tiny picture, so you end up with sometimes strange conclusions. Conclusions that, intuitively, make no sense. But the data says so, so I guess that's what we do.
    - reverendsteveii 1y ago
      I mean, doing it wrong is a danger in any process. Data driven decision making should do every meaningful thing it can to ensure that its small subset of data is representative of the whole picture. If you're careful about being random you can do that pretty accurately with a shockingly small subset of data.
      - const_cast 1y ago
        In my experience, data-driven decision making is typically a reverse engineered process. Typically the decision is already made, usually based on a combination of experience, ego, and emotions. Then you have to find and structure data to justify it to other people. You can find data to justify almost any decision.
        reverendsteveii 1y ago
        How are you sure this isn't a data-driven opinion?
- porridgeraisin 1y ago
  Yep... I've been in a meeting where we were shown the result of moving a cancel button's position on the page to a more crowded place so it would be noticed less. It actually works people click on it less. I couldn't believe it. Thankfully, the feature got vetoed and cancelled (the end result was really visually horrendous).
- lostlogin 1y ago
  How do you A/B test the OP when they won’t sign up due to a perception that they can’t cancel?
uselesswords 1y ago
What’s with this rising trend of authoritative comments on HN thinking their individual rationale/experience generalizes. It wasn’t this bad just a few years ago, but now I’m seeing just outright absurd generalizations like this.
- lostlogin 1y ago
  Ironically, this is quite the generalisation of HN users.
  - uselesswords 1y ago
    I’m my own villain
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
sirbutters 1y ago
Reminds me of that one time I ordered a super shuttle to the airport, and the website had an offer to get 15% off if I subscribed to that random thing (first month free, cancel anytime). I’m good at immediately marking my calendar to cancel as soon as I got what I want, so I thought this would be a walk in the park. And surely enough, as soon as I was out of the shuttle and got my discount, I immediately cancelled that subscription. Fast forward to 18 months later when I notice a $16.99 charge I do not recognize. I look at my previous statement, it’s there too, the one before, it’s there. I go back 18 months and I see I have been charged $16.99 per month ever since. Bonkers. I try to look up the merchant but I don’t find anything in my emails that match. I forgot how I made the connection but at some point I find that subscription. I call the guys and I ask what’s going on since I cancelled 18 months ago. They say “oh, but actually when you accepted the terms, you also agreed to sign up to that completely unrelated subscription, so yes, you cancelled with us, but you did not cancel that other business”. I call that second business and tell them I’ve never used whatever service they offer, and that sneaky scheme is unacceptable. They say “ok, we can refund the last 3 months”, I say “no, you refund me the entire 18 months”, they say “no”, I say “let me talk to a manager”. Manager picks up, I say “refund the entire 18 months or I report you to the FTC”. And finally they refunded the whole thing. Would not recommend.
- thrance 1y ago
  You should have reported them to the FTC anyway, if you didn't. I don't think this is even legal.
reverendsteveii 1y ago
I picked my gym based on their cancellation procedure. 200 pounds is 200 pounds, customer service is pretty much where gyms differentiate themselves afaic
1123581321 1y ago
Don’t shut yourself in with a less healthy body because you’re worried about one of the Internet’s meme topics. It would take less than an hour to google/call/visit a few local gyms to learn which have better customer service. I recommend the local YMCA if you’re in the US. Your membership is reciprocal nationwide now, too.

yoyohello13 1y ago

It doesn’t though. They’ve done the math and the profit gained by adding friction to cancel outweighs the loss of business

gizzlon 1y ago
How do you measure those you never see? Qualitative? I'm definitely in the newer-touch-something-if-it-seems-hard-to-cancel camp. How do you measure that I didn't sign up?

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

vasusen 1y ago

I have seen the results of these A/B tests closely on a major consumer site and I can tell you it definitely hurts the business to make cancelation really easy.

TheCoelacanth 1y ago
How do you A/B test your company's reputation as being difficult to cancel? You can't exactly serve up different word-of-mouth to different users.
- mrguyorama 1y ago
  Believing that "reputation" actually matters for American businesses is laughable. Craftsman tools are STILL riding the reputation they had half a century ago, despite being made out of the cheapest chinesium and losing their impressive warranty stance. The American consumer has demonstrated an absurd inability to consider past events as useful information to predict future results. Things continue to enshittify because the 3 consumers who recognize that quality is going down are vastly outweighed by the increase in consumption by the rest of your market. Kitchenaid still sells plenty of mixers that die after a year. Hell, American car brands are still successful businesses even though they have made only a few reasonably competitive vehicles since the 50s. Disney and Netflix are still making plenty of money despite making it difficult to share accounts.
  - frollogaston 1y ago
    The "Toyota tax" is entirely based on reputation, and Amazon and Costco both benefit a lot from customer trust.
  - gosub100 1y ago
    Comcast
- const_cast 1y ago
  This is the danger of data-driven decision making. You can only gather a very, very small subset of all data. So now you're basing your decisions off of a tiny picture, so you end up with sometimes strange conclusions. Conclusions that, intuitively, make no sense. But the data says so, so I guess that's what we do.
  - reverendsteveii 1y ago
    I mean, doing it wrong is a danger in any process. Data driven decision making should do every meaningful thing it can to ensure that its small subset of data is representative of the whole picture. If you're careful about being random you can do that pretty accurately with a shockingly small subset of data.
    - const_cast 1y ago
      In my experience, data-driven decision making is typically a reverse engineered process. Typically the decision is already made, usually based on a combination of experience, ego, and emotions. Then you have to find and structure data to justify it to other people. You can find data to justify almost any decision.
      - reverendsteveii 1y ago
        How are you sure this isn't a data-driven opinion?
porridgeraisin 1y ago
Yep... I've been in a meeting where we were shown the result of moving a cancel button's position on the page to a more crowded place so it would be noticed less. It actually works people click on it less. I couldn't believe it. Thankfully, the feature got vetoed and cancelled (the end result was really visually horrendous).
lostlogin 1y ago
How do you A/B test the OP when they won’t sign up due to a perception that they can’t cancel?

uselesswords 1y ago

What’s with this rising trend of authoritative comments on HN thinking their individual rationale/experience generalizes. It wasn’t this bad just a few years ago, but now I’m seeing just outright absurd generalizations like this.

lostlogin 1y ago
Ironically, this is quite the generalisation of HN users.
- uselesswords 1y ago
  I’m my own villain

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

sirbutters 1y ago

Reminds me of that one time I ordered a super shuttle to the airport, and the website had an offer to get 15% off if I subscribed to that random thing (first month free, cancel anytime). I’m good at immediately marking my calendar to cancel as soon as I got what I want, so I thought this would be a walk in the park. And surely enough, as soon as I was out of the shuttle and got my discount, I immediately cancelled that subscription. Fast forward to 18 months later when I notice a $16.99 charge I do not recognize. I look at my previous statement, it’s there too, the one before, it’s there. I go back 18 months and I see I have been charged $16.99 per month ever since. Bonkers. I try to look up the merchant but I don’t find anything in my emails that match. I forgot how I made the connection but at some point I find that subscription. I call the guys and I ask what’s going on since I cancelled 18 months ago. They say “oh, but actually when you accepted the terms, you also agreed to sign up to that completely unrelated subscription, so yes, you cancelled with us, but you did not cancel that other business”. I call that second business and tell them I’ve never used whatever service they offer, and that sneaky scheme is unacceptable. They say “ok, we can refund the last 3 months”, I say “no, you refund me the entire 18 months”, they say “no”, I say “let me talk to a manager”. Manager picks up, I say “refund the entire 18 months or I report you to the FTC”. And finally they refunded the whole thing. Would not recommend.

thrance 1y ago
You should have reported them to the FTC anyway, if you didn't. I don't think this is even legal.

reverendsteveii 1y ago

I picked my gym based on their cancellation procedure. 200 pounds is 200 pounds, customer service is pretty much where gyms differentiate themselves afaic

1123581321 1y ago

Don’t shut yourself in with a less healthy body because you’re worried about one of the Internet’s meme topics. It would take less than an hour to google/call/visit a few local gyms to learn which have better customer service. I recommend the local YMCA if you’re in the US. Your membership is reciprocal nationwide now, too.