Will's Web Watch: Online break-ups are hard to do

Ever have trouble unsubscribing from an online service? Ecommerce sites may believe this is a good way to hold on to customers but, says Will Sturgeon, that couldn't be farther from the truth.

Perhaps because I write this column - or perhaps I write this column because - I shop, spend and transact regularly online. Sometimes I'll sign up for new services, sometimes I'll unsubscribe from old ones. Sometimes I go back, sometimes I don't.

The nature of ecommerce is that it's easy to switch between stores and very easy to be a far more fickle customer than you'll ever encounter on the high street. So websites have to do what they can to build loyalty. However, it seems a few think loyalty is the same as making it difficult to unsubscribe.

Keeping customers simply because they can't bear to go through your convoluted unsubscribe process is not a success and e-tailers need to realise it should be even easier to unsubscribe (as you've no new details to register) than it is to subscribe. Because all they will achieve by being a pain is reducing the likelihood of the customer ever returning.

Back in October 2003 I wrote a fairly glowing write-up of a then-new DVD rental service called ScreenSelect.co.uk (now owned by LoveFilm).

This week I cancelled my subscription.

In the meantime the company had 40 months loyal custom from me - worth just shy of £600. In that time I rented 147 DVDs - of which I probably watched close to 120 or so, which works out at exactly £5 per movie.

I didn't always get the movies I wanted - though I did get one from a shortlist of my making - and while you might argue that for £5 per movie I could have had more say in what films I watched by visiting Blockbuster, all things told I was happy with the service... until I tried to unsubscribe.

Until recently the unsubscribe process required you to call a telephone number. It seemed to me a deliberate obstacle intended to trip up anybody attempting to cancel who might be disinclined to bother with the phone call at the time.

I know this because they got another month out of me as a result.

I also kept a subscription to Experian's Credit Expert service running far longer than I intended because of this phone to cancel necessity. I eventually got around to cancelling that service recently too - enduring a long wait on the phone, which in a cynical mood I might even suggest was a further ploy to discourage unsubscribing.

This is, of course, ridiculous. It should be possible to unsubscribe online.

When I returned to LoveFilm.com this week I noticed the process had been changed - now you can unsubscribe online, which is nice and easy, right?

Wrong.

First of all there are the obligatory 'why are you leaving us' questions to answer - complete with drop down lists of further questions.

Then on the next page you get your first encouragement to stay subscribed (why not leave it until the end of the month?).

Then on the next page, if you persist, you get offered a choice of other subscription packages, lest it was your current package you didn't like.

Then on the next page you get offered 14 days free if you promise to remain a customer - and by this stage you start to wonder whether they will ever let you go. Simply cancelling your debit card begins to look like the best option.

On each page you have to seek out the 'no, seriously, I do want to cancel, stop being so bloody obstructive and let me cancel' button (or words to that effect) which is hidden down the page beyond more entreaties to stay subscribed.

Eventually, I reached a screen telling me my account was pending cancellation.

That was nice of them. Before this process (which I went through twice - as they apparently didn't get the message the first time I went all the way through and tried to unsubscribe, and billed me for the coming month anyway) I had actually, during my first voyage through their unsubscribe process, ticked the box saying I would recommend them to a friend.

Frankly now I wouldn't recommend them to an enemy, or his dog, or his dog's enemy to be honest.

In fact, previously I'd thought I'd probably even return as a customer at some point in the future, once I'd built up a suitably long list of DVDs I wanted to rent.

Not so any more.

Companies running subscription services need to realise that if somebody has started down the unsubscribe process then they are a lost customer. However, making it as easy as possible to unsubscribe is the best chance of getting that customer to return because how the company runs the process will create the lasting memory of its service.

The internet should make this easy not more difficult.