Yer Outta Here

"There are many things we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up."  Oscar Wilde

Like many I've been accumulating over the years.  Accumulating junk in my office, accumulating junk in my garage, accumulating "friends" on Facebook, accumulating junk emails.  Accumulating.  It's a human behavior where you're afraid of getting rid of stuff.  Afraid the minute you throw it out you'll discover you need it for some reason.

We intuitively know this isn't true.  Most times you end up eventually getting rid of the stuff anyway.

With junk email it's more laziness.  It's a pain to go hunting at the bottom of the email and find the unsubscribe button.  It's easier to mindlessly hit delete every day and clear them all out.  The problem is they accumulate at a dizzying pace.  Every time you order something online you get put on a mailing list.  Yes, even when you check (or uncheck) the "would you like to receive future notification" boxes.  Hell, anymore it seems if you even think about a product you get on a mailing list.  So it doesn't take long to have dozens of junk emails on a daily basis.

So, I've started to unsubscribe.  As I get one I take the extra minute or so to unsubscribe.  Then I took an hour and went through all the current ones and did the unsubscribe dance.  This has been a fascinating exercise.  Most, to be fair, are fairly straight-forward.  There's a clearly marked "unsubscribe" button.  You hit it and get a "thank you, you will no longer receive any emails from us" message and you don't see any more from that company.  Others?  Not so much.  From masking the unsubscribe button so it's difficult to locate to getting a laundry list of options to decide from to getting a "may take up to 10 days to take effect" message.  My favorite was the sports tickets site that made me watch a 30 second advertising video before I was allowed to unsubscribe.

What it's done is make me think about who I will and will not do business with in the future.  Yes it bothers me that none of them comply with the "don't put me on your mailing list" request I make sure I check/uncheck when completing my purchase.  But if they easily and simply allow me to unsubscribe afterwards then I'll buy from them again.  The others I'll just stay away from altogether.

It all falls under the Easy To Do Business With category.  Being consumer friendly is not just making it easy to buy.  It's your return policy.  It's your customer support.  And it's your "leave me alone" policy.

So when you're creating your customer atmosphere policies don't stop at your checkout.  Make sure you thoroughly examine the entire start-to-end process so your customers don't end up with a Hotel California experience.

So, now out to the garage where while I'm throwing out unneeded junk I need to think about what to do with Facebook.  I'll save that for a follow up post.