LinkedIn Makes It Difficult For Customers To Leave
By Anna Johnson on November 2nd, 2009Want to downgrade your LinkedIn membership after signing up for a premium account? Well, if you think you can simply cancel and be done with it, think again. LinkedIn won’t let you off that easily…
Here’s what happened when my business partner tried to cancel his premium membership.
Firstly, he found it difficult to find out how to cancel. There is certainly no obvious place on the LinkedIn website where you can press a button and downgrade your account.
Secondly, when my business partner found the instructions for downgrading, he discovered that there was no instant downgrade. Rather he had to lodge a ticket with LinkedIn’s help desk.
Did the help desk simply process his request? No, a LinkedIn rep sent him an email explaining that before LinkdIn would downgrade his account, he would have to call the rep via telephone so she could ‘review’ his account with him.
Somehow I doubt that, when calling up the LinkedIn rep, the company would simply process the
cancellation and/or ask for feedback about why he was leaving. Chances are he’d be confronted with an inbound telemarketer who’d try to sell him into retaining his premium membership.
Well, that’s the scenario my partner envisioned – and the scenario likely to be on a lot of people’s minds when told they can’t simply cancel their membership, but have to call LinkedIn first.
Now, don’t get me wrong – there’s absolutely nothing wrong with inbound (or outbound)
telemarketing. But making customers jump through hoops – even perceived hoops – to cancel a paid membership isn’t the kind of enlightened, customer-centric marketing I’d expect from a modern, social media company such as LinkedIn.
In any case, my business partner didn’t call LinkedIn and, after a few days delay, the LinkedIn rep emailed him again saying that she would process the cancellation after all. Of course, she also mentioned that the fees for a premium account were about to rise and that he had a day in which to stop the downgrade if he wanted to keep on paying the current premium fees!
No doubt, the argument in favor of adding some extra steps to the cancellation process – not to mention creating the opportunity to persuade customers not to cancel – translates into greater customer retention and revenues for LinkedIn. And maybe it works. Maybe LinkedIn’s approach causes a percentage of customers who would otherwise go, stay as paying members…
On the other hand, it may also persuade OTHER customers on their way out never to come back, and to tell their friends and colleagues about LinkedIn’s somewhat heavy-handed approach to customer retention…
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:18 am
I had a similar experience with GDI. The only way to cancel the membership was to call GDI. I expected the same sort of hard-sell retention scenario described, but to my surprise the rep simply said “Okay” and cancelled the membership.
It was still an annoying experience because A) I had to call and B) the phone number was not toll-free so it cost me a long distance call. There was no way to put in a ticket or otherwise handle the situation online.
So far, this is the only membership I’ve encountered that required a phone call to cancel, but then I haven’t upgraded my LinkedIn membership, either. Nor am I likely to.
November 3rd, 2009 at 9:26 pm
I had a similar experience with GDI. But the one that really pissed me of was with my Comerica Merchant account. I had to fax a signed letter of “request to close my account”. These companies will certainly let you sign up with them online easy enough. The ones that make you jump through hoops to get out are not very bright IMHO. I will never do business with any of them again.
If you want to feel like the scum of the earth, try leaving Wealth Masters International. Don’t do it if you’re sensitive though:)
November 4th, 2009 at 12:40 am
Global Domains International (GDI) does the same thing.
In the case of GDI, they add another wrinkle. It does not matter what time of the day you call, you get a recorded message that is something like “Due to unexpected call traffic, you will experience a long delay in being attended to”. This is despite the fact that the number you have to call is said to be devoted to dealing with cancellations. If that is so, they must have a lot of cancellations.
GDI kept sending me emails telling me that my credit card would not allow payment. I kept responding telling them to cancel my account. It got quite circular for a while. But after a month or so, they eventually sent me an email asking me my privacy questions. (why could they not have done that in the first place). I sent that information back and they canceled my account a couple of weeks later.
Would I ever use GDI again. Absolutely not.
Now, just as I was about to join LinkedIn, I am having second thoughts
November 5th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
I think this tactic is counter-intuitive and will hurt LinkedIn in the long run. There are plenty of SaaS providers out there that tout “no contract, upgrade or downgrade when you want”. I think that’s a great policy and it builds goodwill with customers, especially in a down economy. A couple of good examples of easy upgrade/downgrade policies are http://www.pixily.com and http://www.zoho.com.
- John
July 10th, 2010 at 3:26 pm
I’m still trying to figure out where I can request the cancellation.
Where is the link “Cancel my Premium Account”???
July 10th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
Oh gosh, don’t ask me!