Sirius Radio’s Department of Web Prevention

Your web site is a place for your customers to do things. This is useful for them and cost-effective for you.

I am cancelling my Sirius satellite radio service. There’s nothing wrong with it; I just don’t listen to it. I used to listen at home, but with so many options like internet radio and podcasts and music stations on the cable TV, I just don’t anymore. It’s not a bad service, and if I spent more time in the car I’d probably find it much more useful. But it doesn’t meet my particular listening needs just now, so I’m not inclined to pay twelve dollars and change a month for it.

And while Sirius has put all kinds of account management features onto their site, they don’t let you cancel service without calling them. And when you call them, you get a chirpy automated attendant that wants to help you with all kinds of things, but doesn’t understand the word “cancel.”

This is a common thing; there seems to be some fear that if you make it convenient to cancel service, people will do it. I think that’s crazy; if someone is happy with your service, they’ll keep it. If they’re not, causing them some annoyance by making it harder to cancel is likely to just confirm their decision.

You can’t keep customers with handcuffs. Not for long, anyway, and if you you make it hard to leave, you’re also making it harder to lure them back, because you’re establishing in their mind that you are a difficult organization to do business with.

Your web site is a place for customers to do things, including things you wish they wouldn’t do. Make that stuff as pleasant as possible and when they are interested in you again, they will come back. Make it difficult, and their last thought of you will be, “Good riddance.”

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