Kudos to Feedburner for making it easy to leave Feedburner 28 Jun 2005

6 comments Latest by Tony Morgan

This is the sign of a good company: They’ve taken the time to make it really easy to cancel their service. There’s lots of talk about Web 2.0 and technology and AJAX and all that jazz, but to me, the companies that really get it are the ones that treat people with respect. Kill the buzz words, kill the marketing duckspeak, kill the crap and treat people fairly — and that includes being absolutely clear on how to cancel the service if someone wants to leave. No hoops, just help. Kudos, Feedburner.

6 comments so far (Jump to latest)

Dan Boland 28 Jun 05

I agree completely, there are so many benefits to this kind of policy.

  1. Word of mouth is essential for an Internet product. So never give your customers anything negative to say.
  2. People often times won’t sign up for an Internet product because of the potential for a messy divorce. No messy divorce, no reason to avoid signing up.
  3. Having a clear, problem-free “escape plan” means less time dealing with problems that could arise from customers leaving, and more time making the product better (or some other productive use of time).

Dan Boland 28 Jun 05

Dah! That list is huge! =)

misuba 28 Jun 05

I don’t see why they don’t make their step 3 perpetual, instead of expiring it after 30 days.

In fact, lately I notice that a lot of feed-related services are built around the assumption that feeds are only used by habitual junkies (like me), when feeds are just as good at serving the opposite case: keeping tabs on things that only happen now and then - and only checking on them now and then.

kmilden 28 Jun 05

when you don’t make it easy to do over the web they just call and then all the over head to convince customers to stay over the phone, 10% do stay on a average but was it really worth it to piss off the other 90% who were going to cancel regardless. I think not. Be cool, let them go.

Tony Morgan 28 Jun 05

Wow! Shouldn’t be surprised though. Got a personal message from Feedburner CEO Dick Costolo the other day (it’s posted on my site) when I was facing issues with Bloglines picking up my feed. Never heard from Bloglines. Customer service is a big deal.