You know you’ve done it, too. In a moment of whatever, you’ve clicked on that “subscribe” button on some site, be it to get points or a free report or any number of things. And before you know it, you have 500 emails in your inbox every morning. Well, I have six or seven email boxes so when you do the math. . . let’s just say it was starting to get to me. And I hardly even looked at half of them.
I decided to clean up my act, so to speak. I started with ones I don’t even look at, just hit the delete key as I’m scanning down the list. Then I figured I’d move on to those I look at occasionally, bookmarking the home site in case I really do want to see something. Then I figured would come the hard part, culling through the ones I do read and seeing which ones needed to be in my inbox.
But lo and behold. . . before I even got close to Curtain No. 2 above, I was hit with all kinds of. . . errr. . . stuff. You usually scan to the bottom of the email and see something like, “For easy unsubscribe, click here.” Easy, my arse! I was assaulted with forms, for the most part. Put in your email address, scan down to make sure you still receive any emails you do want, tell us why you want to go. . . WHOA! What happened to easy unsubscribe?
To be perfectly honest, there were a few. . . a very few that you clicked a button and you got an unsubscribe notice along with a thank you. There were also a few that you just had to put in your email address and then you got the same thing. These were okay.
But some of the others were just way over the top! On one, they asked me for all my personal information and it said that I couldn’t be unsubscribed without it. Guess who I’ll keep deleting? Another one wanted to know exactly what I didn’t like about their email in very specific terms. And the best one yet wanted my phone number so they could call me and “discuss my unsubscribe request.” Discuss this!
On many of them, I was furious. I figured I could just go on deleting them, but for some of the really “out there” ones, I found a contact address and gave ‘em what for. Suffice it to say I have now been unsubscribed.
The point, though, is that I shouldn’t have had to do any of that that. I changed my mind. I know you don’t want to lose a subscriber, but don’t ask me my entire life’s history or cry about my leaving. This is the internet, folks. Online business means people come and people go. If you say “unsubscribe by clicking here,” that’s exactly what I want to happen when I “click here.” Please don’t give me an argument.
In the future, there will be no more subscribing on a whim. I will at least peruse the offering and the web site to see if it’s a subject I want for the rest of my life. Why? Because it may turn into the damn “Hotel California,” ya know. . . you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. UGH!
