Quickflix

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Kookoo

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#150384 20-Jul-2014 22:23

Probably more of a legal question, but still wondering. Having finally figured out that I have absolutely no need for Quickflix, I decided to cancel. So I went to their Contact Us page, only to see

"Cancellation by email will not be accepted. To cancel your account please click here."

The "Click here" URL took me to My Subscription page (behind login) where I saw the following.

"Cancel My Subscription

To cancel your subscription, please contact Member Care on 0800 002 098 between Mon-Fri 11am to 8pm and Sat 2pm to 10pm."

"11 am to 8pm" says to me this is their Australian call centre. That aside, is this policy of not accepting cancellations over email even legal?
They sure accept online signups, they use the email address as the primary account ID, so why the heck would they not accept cancellations online/over email?

Hello, Ground!

NonprayingMantis

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#1092734 20-Jul-2014 22:27

don't see why it wouldn't be legal.

It's a pain sure, but it's hardly a huge issue to require you to phone up to cancel.

Consider how hard it is to cancel sky. you can sign up online and they bring the set top box to you, but to cancel, you have to phone them up and then you have to deliver the set top box back to their office.

Glassboy

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#1092735 20-Jul-2014 22:27

I signed up for trial and then couldn't end the trial which i considered pretty unethical. So I changed the billing to a paypal account with no payment options on it and used their contact form. They cancelled it after a week or so.

I suspect you're right they all are Australian based. The whole business seems very Mikey Mouse.

mattwnz

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#1092738 20-Jul-2014 22:47

I thought you could cancel via their account page. Maybe they have removed this option? I can't see why they wouldn't make it easy. Maybe they want you to call them so they can get their retention team to try to offer you a deal to stay. Hope it isn't as difficult to cancel as the Comcast example :) Maybe you could phone them and record your call.

bmoff

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#1092754 20-Jul-2014 23:16

Glassboy: The whole business seems very Mikey Mouse.

I think the mouse's name was Mickey.

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Quickflix

#1092937 21-Jul-2014 12:07

Hey everyone

Some good feedback and comments, much appreciated!

We are currently working on an online cancellation funnel which should be available soon.

We understand the question of "how hard can it be?" and the truth is, we want to ensure that we want to ensure that, even though someone is leaving us, we still get the important data from them so that we can immediately put it to use for overall service improvement.

I can't say much more on that but we hear the concerns and queries, and we're working on it.

Nathan Brunning

Quickflix - Customer Relations Executive

nigelj

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#1093182 21-Jul-2014 17:30

Even when Quickflix was an Australian-only DVD-by-mail-only operation they had the "cancel by phone"-only policy.

When I left Australia I was in such a rush I ended up by putting my account 'on hold' and forgetting about it until the e-mail came through "the hold is about to expire, you should check your queue" and I had the "oh $%#@" moment finding that the only number listed was a '13' number (at the time I was convinced that 13 numbers only worked within Australia - i.e. you couldn't prefix with +61). Despite the 'you can't cancel via e-mail' I actually sent them an e-mail saying basically: "Either: Cancel my account by e-mail, or reply back with a non-13 number I can call from NZ so I can cancel my account" magically an hour later I got an e-mail confirming my account was closed. So technically it is possible to cancel by e-mail if you put up a good argument ;)

Of course it's annoying, I now have two canceled Quickflix accounts, and all the promos I get are from the Australian site promoting their content/promos (which leaves me with the impression that they are getting desperate).

Also to note: Fatso used to always accept online cancellations but for the last 2-3 years, the form vanishes from time-to-time (i.e. one day it's possible to cancel online, the next you are forced to call them) more often than not lately they've forced down the by-phone-only option. For the DVD-by-mail services it seems to be for the guilt/upsell/downsell factor.

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mattwnz

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#1093183 21-Jul-2014 17:38

You do have to wonder how hard it is to create a simple cancellation form on their website for people to fill in any developer could whip one up in a few hours. I did think that they did have a form already. I personally have never signed up to a free trial, because they want your credit card details, and if you forget to cancel they start charging you after the free trial period, so it really has to be a simple cancellation process. If you can signup online, you should be able to cancel online too.

JimmyH

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#1093231 21-Jul-2014 19:34

It's not hard, and I suspect it's deliberate.

I was following the comments on the Comcast termination thread over on Ars Technica last night, which was quite illuminating on how companies deal with people who want to cancel. Basically, they don't want to make it too easy to painlessly cancel. They want to put some roadblocks in your path, and make you phone them so that you have to go through sales reps trained in retention - who will try and offer you something to remain. It might be a soft sell or a hard sell, but basically they want to have a shot at persuading you to stay.

Q: "Why are you cancelling?"
A: "It's too expensive"
Q: "How about if I offer you 25% off for the next six months"?

That sort of thing.

Edit: Spelling

graemeh

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#1093650 22-Jul-2014 12:56

JimmyH: It's not hard, and I suspect it's deliberate.

I was following the comments on the Comcast termination thread over on Ars Technica last night, which was quite illuminating on how companies deal with people who want to cancel. Basically, they don't want to make it too easy to painlessly cancel. They want to put some roadblocks in your path, and make you phone them so that you have to go through sales reps trained in retention - who will try and offer you something to remain. It might be a soft sell or a hard sell, but basically they want to have a shot at persuading you to stay.

Q: "Why are you cancelling?"
A: "It's too expensive"
Q: "How about if I offer you 25% off for the next six months"?

That sort of thing.

I've had websites where the cancellation form does that. It is not too hard to do and sometimes I've been convinced to stay too.

Makoura

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#1093682 22-Jul-2014 13:14

I signed up for an account with a noel leaming gift card and after was able to cancel account via the account page. This was last month. Is the option not there anymore?

Thank you for being a valued Quickflix Subscriber, we're sorry to see you go. As requested your Subscription has been cancelled. If you'd like to reactivate your Subscription in the future we would be glad to have you back; just revisit the website and enter in your details and we can get your subscription reactivated straight away.

This was the response I got via email.

toyonut

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#1093688 22-Jul-2014 13:21

Maybe the site has different options depending on how you sign up? Doubt it would, but certainly on my account page, there is no option to cancel via web or email. Has not been since the start.

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Quickflix

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#1093690 22-Jul-2014 13:34

graemeh:
JimmyH: It's not hard, and I suspect it's deliberate.

I was following the comments on the Comcast termination thread over on Ars Technica last night, which was quite illuminating on how companies deal with people who want to cancel. Basically, they don't want to make it too easy to painlessly cancel. They want to put some roadblocks in your path, and make you phone them so that you have to go through sales reps trained in retention - who will try and offer you something to remain. It might be a soft sell or a hard sell, but basically they want to have a shot at persuading you to stay.

Q: "Why are you cancelling?"
A: "It's too expensive"
Q: "How about if I offer you 25% off for the next six months"?

That sort of thing.

I've had websites where the cancellation form does that. It is not too hard to do and sometimes I've been convinced to stay too.

We do have a retention team yes, it's not a secret. The reason for it is as to a. Hopefully retain members who wish to leave us and b. Find out why they wish to leave us, for improvements sake.

As mentioned, we are building an online cancellation funnel, this is a fact, it's happening. The reason it is not as easy as just popping it up there is because of the aforementioned data we wish to gain from it in order to improve the service as well as timing it with the launch of our brand new website, it made little sense to us to build the cancellation funnel then have to rebuild for the new site.

I understand it's a bit of a pain, that's why the business decision has been made to implement it, we just want to do it the right way.

Nathan Brunning

Quickflix - Customer Relations Executive

NonprayingMantis

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#1093693 22-Jul-2014 13:38

Maybe they are running an A/B test, where some proportion of customers have the ability to cancel online and some don't, and then seeing what the respective churn rates are.

dclegg

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#1093699 22-Jul-2014 13:44

Makoura: I signed up for an account with a noel leaming gift card and after was able to cancel account via the account page. This was last month. Is the option not there anymore?

Thank you for being a valued Quickflix Subscriber, we're sorry to see you go. As requested your Subscription has been cancelled. If you'd like to reactivate your Subscription in the future we would be glad to have you back; just revisit the website and enter in your details and we can get your subscription reactivated straight away.

This was the response I got via email.

That was my experience too, under the same circumstances. However this was quite a few months ago.

On this topic, here is an interesting read of how Spotify make it difficult to cancel a Premium subscription.

mattwnz

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#1093712 22-Jul-2014 14:03

Quickflix:
graemeh:
JimmyH: It's not hard, and I suspect it's deliberate.

I was following the comments on the Comcast termination thread over on Ars Technica last night, which was quite illuminating on how companies deal with people who want to cancel. Basically, they don't want to make it too easy to painlessly cancel. They want to put some roadblocks in your path, and make you phone them so that you have to go through sales reps trained in retention - who will try and offer you something to remain. It might be a soft sell or a hard sell, but basically they want to have a shot at persuading you to stay.

Q: "Why are you cancelling?"
A: "It's too expensive"
Q: "How about if I offer you 25% off for the next six months"?

That sort of thing.

I've had websites where the cancellation form does that. It is not too hard to do and sometimes I've been convinced to stay too.

We do have a retention team yes, it's not a secret. The reason for it is as to a. Hopefully retain members who wish to leave us and b. Find out why they wish to leave us, for improvements sake.

As mentioned, we are building an online cancellation funnel, this is a fact, it's happening. The reason it is not as easy as just popping it up there is because of the aforementioned data we wish to gain from it in order to improve the service as well as timing it with the launch of our brand new website, it made little sense to us to build the cancellation funnel then have to rebuild for the new site.

I understand it's a bit of a pain, that's why the business decision has been made to implement it, we just want to do it the right way.

Wasn't there already one there last month, as per a previous post?