
Better cancelation flows - jkbr
http://kylewritescode.com/post/26978112918/better-cancelation-flows
======
patio11
My favorite trick in this ever is step 2 of Seomoz's cancellation flow.

Step 1 (after clicking Cancel My Account): "We often find that people cancel
for one of the following three reasons. Here's our most persuasive microcopy
possible on why that wouldn't be a good idea, two sentences each, with links
to longer explanations. [Wow, That's Awesome] [No Thanks, Cancel My Account]

Step 2 (the genius bit): " _OK, your account is canceled._ Your service will
remain active until $DATE. We will happily extend this to $DATE + 7 days _and
then cancel your account with absolutely no funny business_ if you take this
brief exit survey."

~~~
tjr
_Step 2 (the genius bit): "OK, your account is canceled. Your service will
remain active until $DATE. We will happily extend this to $DATE + 7 days and
then cancel your account with absolutely no funny business if you take this
brief exit survey."_

Was the account really cancelled at the end of the first sentence? It sounds
like it won't actually be cancelled until either $DATE or $DATE + 7 days.

~~~
eli
I believe you pre-pay for a month, so your account is canceled in that you
won't be charged any more... but you also already paid for use through $DATE.

~~~
StavrosK
Ah, that was the missing link that prevented me from understanding what was so
ingenious about it. That does sound very clever, thanks for explaining.

------
bitdiffusion
I always find it a bit insulting when a company tries to offer me a discount
to stay; like I wasn't good enough to qualify for a discount when I was a
loyal customer.

This seems a lot like the situation where an employee threatens to leave and
the company offers more money to keep them for which I almost always give the
advice: "just say no".

I guess if price is really the only thing making someone leave, then lowering
the price might make a difference but price and value are intrinsically
linked: if they thought the price was too high, then they considered the value
to be too low and it's probably just a matter of time before they decide to
leave anyway.

~~~
the_bear
It also creates a mess if your other customers find out about it. In general,
offering different prices to different customers is playing with fire unless
you have a way to justify it when your non-discounted customers call.

Not to mention, shouldn't every Fancy Hands customer that reads this go in and
pretend to cancel to get the discount?

~~~
patio11
_offering different prices to different customers is playing with fire_

This is a falsehood believed by engineers for nebulous reasons largely founded
in naivety about business. Businesses routinely offer the same service at
multiple price points. Virtually every input in your business is offered at
multiple price points, from paper to telephone service to your Internet
connection to your VPSes to... you get the general drift. Variable pricing is
an observable and unremarkable fact of life. It causes virtually no drama.

 _Not to mention, shouldn't every Fancy Hands customer that reads this go in
and pretend to cancel to get the discount?_

Want to get a free shake from McDonalds? Buy a shake. Consume it. Take a
napkin from the napkins, put it in the shake cup, bring it up to the counter,
and say "I am dissatisfied with my shake, because it has napkins in it. I want
a new shake." _You will get a new shake._ Why does every customer at McDonalds
ever not scam McDonalds for free everything? Partially because they have
principles, partially because they fear social opprobrium, partially because
they are unaware of the opportunity, partially because they just can't even
conceive of why any sane person would scam McDonalds for free shakes, but it
is an _observable fact_ that McDonalds collects revenue for nearly all shakes
despite there being (numerous) pathways to stealing them.

~~~
tptacek
You laugh, but my friend Tom more than once got free ice cream by ordering
cookie dough ice cream, eating most of it, and then complaining to the staff
"this cookie dough is raw!".

------
eevilspock
> If it’s because of price, we’ll give them an instant, lifetime discount

Won't most of your other users catch wind of this and fake cancel just to get
the discount? And for those that don't or don't feel good about faking a
cancel, you're essentially charging your happy or loyal users more. Backwards
from a business practice perspective and wrong from an ethical one.

~~~
patio11
_Won't most of your other users catch wind of this and fake cancel just to get
the discount?_

Ask a simple question, get a simple answer: no.

More elaboration:

This misconception comes from a few places.

Many HNers passionately care about money. Many customers don't. In particular,
the best customers (largely businesses) perceive _not even the smallest
scintilla of pain_ from software bills ranging from $20 to $20k per month and
the person who'd actually be pushing that button at the business perceives _no
difference in their personal lives_ based on what the price is.

Additionally, we live in our software, are familiar with all the intricacies,
and assume that they matter. Our customers deal with our software only
sporadically, and generally only allow it to distract them from things that
matter to the extent it is required to accomplish their goal. They don't
typically go spelunking for hidden options. They (largely) don't go to
CustomersOfFooApp.com to swap hidden secrets about FooApp because _customers
of FooApp care about FooApp about 1/10000000th as much as the developers of
FooApp do_.

Finally, most people have what you might describe as either a moral compass or
a fear of embarrassment which will counsel them that attempting to scam
businesses for discounts is not something they want to be doing. (This assumes
you're not dealing with a customer population which is toxic by nature. Charge
more.)

------
babarock
In my humble (user) opinion, cancelation flow is extremely crucial for your
image. I cannot begin to tell you how infuriating the Facebook cancellation
process was.

If you've never been through it, here's what it boils down to:

\- "Cancel my account" link was hidden and relatively hard to find. (I guess
this one's normal)

\- You __have to __give a reason why you're quitting, out of a major radio-
button list that felt more like a survey.

\- No matter which choice you pick, you get some bogus argumentation on why
you shouldn't close your account. I bet some manager in the company is so
happy about how much this would reduce the number of possible cancelations.
I'm sure she even has some bogus data to back her claims up. To me, it felt
like an uber annoying phone sales representative who won't let you hang up the
phone even though you're clearly not interested in the product.

\- If you pick the field 'Other', you __have to __fill the text field
explaining why.

\- After all this, you have to enter your password and/or read a captcha (I
don't remember exactly)

\- It ends with Facebook telling you that your data is still there, ready and
waiting for _when you'll be back_. I don't remember the exact wording, but to
me, it came off as extremely smug.

My point is, canceling has to be easy. It has to be so seamless I could do it
in a few seconds. It's a matter of respect. I felt that Facebook didn't care
about making me hop through their hoops. Their final message, that I'll be
back, added to the insult.

It's a great thing to survey cancelling customers, and yes, you could probably
learn a lot and mayve save a few of them. But for the love of God, let your
surveys be as non-intrusive as can be.

~~~
Scriptor
I think you went through Facebook's _deactivation_ process, which is meant to
be a temporary break from using facebook. To actually permanently delete your
account so you can never log in again you have to go to
<https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account>

------
frankdenbow
This is an area I am thinking about on my subscription site as well, and your
thoughts about the main cancelation reasons jive with mine as well. In my
experience over the past few months, the main reason why people cancel is
either because of price (need to cut back on expenses and they see startup
tshirts as a luxury) or they weren't fans of the particular shirts they were
getting (in which case we can let them know about whats upcoming).

Either way I handled this all through email, which made it easier to fully
understand their problems, and in many cases turn it around (since every month
is different, it may just take one cycle to get them happy again).

Most of the people canceling relayed that they were still passionate about
what they were receiving, so what I've been doing recently is giving them free
subscriptions and having them on as brand ambassadors, helping me spread the
word about Startup Threads Monthly. Too early to tell if this is a good idea
but its what I'm working on now.

~~~
kylebragger
> since every month is different, it may just take one cycle to get them happy
> again

That's one thing I'm also interested in exploring: What can we do to buy us
one more month to help them find real value in the service.

~~~
frankdenbow
I've also been previewing what is coming up in the next month's bag, so they
have an idea of whats in the pipeline. At first I wanted to preserve the
surprise of what shirt is actually coming, but decided we might as well show
the main item and surprise subscribers in other ways.

------
richardv
Is this sustainable?

> Now, when a user wants to cancel, we give them two buttons front and
> center... If it’s because of price, we’ll give them an instant, lifetime
> discount;

~~~
kylebragger
We'll see! I have a hunch we'll have to tune this offering quite a bit based
on the user's usage history, account age, and anything else we feel can help
make things better for them and keep them around. There's also a good amount
we're measuring that would alert us to an unusual number of cancels that
involve that discount, etc.

------
snorkel
Sometimes cancellation is intentionally difficult. It's typical dark pattern:
Make signup easy, and cancellation difficult.

------
rokhayakebe
Want to decrease cancellations? Add a "PAUSE PLAN" button.

~~~
undone
I think this is definately useful for businesses that need to use a service
sporadically and have a "project based" model.

I might need a LOT of help for 3 months, then no help for 2 months and then
again for another 3 months.

I had to cancel my LegalZoom account because I didn't need it for awhile, but
then opted to not sign up again even when I did need it again a few months
down the road.

------
maxaf
PSA: "cancelation" has two ells in it.

~~~
patio11
If one subscribes to linguistic proscriptivism, which means "The right way to
spell it is the way which experts, such as dictionary writers, have annointed
as being correct", the one-L variant is a correct way to spell it for an
American. It will appear as a variant in most modern US dictionaries.

If one subscribes to linguistic descriptionism, which means "The right way to
spell it is the way that people spell it and expect to read it", people do
indeed frequently spell it with one L.

~~~
drostie
Of course, "annointed" is unjustifiable by either standard and is Simply
Wrong. :P

Firefox shows "cancelation" as a typo in both their UK and US dictionaries,
although it appears in /usr/share/dict for both american-english and british-
english on Ubuntu. Curious. I would have indeed natively spelled it with two
L's.

~~~
gwillen
As an american I spell cancellation with two L's; but I tend to use british
spellings for a lot of these (travelling etc.)

