I've just stumbled across a truly stunning example of a 'special' introductory offer positioned as beneficial to customers but in reality designed from the organisations perspective to take advantage of each customer who responded. There have been numerous examples in the past of companies encouraging you to take a 'free' service for a period and then making it difficult for the customer to exit the service if they choose to cancel it before it becomes permanent. Those arrangements are 'sharp' but not as bad as the one I'm about to share with you....
The business in question is Perform Media Services Ltd on behalf of Football League Interactive. The company provides a service to the majority of football league clubs which enable supporters to see video content and also receive live match commentaries for their team. Keen to grow their list of subscribers, they have been promoting a free two week trial of the service. In truth I don't know whether this has been a promotion through all football league clubs or to a selected number - the example I've come across refers to the experience of a fan at one club in particular.
The story is that he decided to take advantage of the offer. He was aware that after the initial 14 day period he would have to pay. The small-print said ""When your 14 day free access period ends, you will roll onto a 3.99 monthly subscription unless cancelled". He says that after the trial period he wasn't impressed and therefore decided to cancel. I suspect by the way that he intended to cancel from day 1 and was simply taking advantage of the free period, but I don't think that's the point - read on.
Upon cancelling he was notified that he must give 10 working days notice - meaning that the first monthly premium would be taken. In essence it also means that in order to avoid the monthly payment he (and anyone else) would need to have given notice immediately after subscribing to the trial.
I question the legality of what they're doing because the wording of the clause doesn't indicate when cancellation has to be done in order to avoid the payment, but leaving that aside, what a truly amazing example of a business taking advantage of and misleading its paying customers. Do the marketing team there think it's likely that this person will EVER come back to the service in the future. His trust in the organisation is so badly damaged that it's just not going to happen. The broader damage is potentially huge too - the message board he posted his experience on has thousands of visitors each day.
It's also an interesting example of how the relationship with your customers can be damaged by a third party supplier. There's nothing the club can do to put right this injustice apparently but it doesn't appear that he's clear on the distinction between the club and the provider.
If your organisation is collaborating with others to provide a service to your customers, are you sure they're representing your brand in the way you'd want?
LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/timhadfield
Twitter: @accordengage
Telephone: 0044 07906650019
No comments:
Post a Comment