How easy is it to unsubscribe from email lists?

Posted by Jackie Ewing on December 12, 2009

I spent a good 45 minutes this morning going through my inbox and making instant decisions on which email lists to stay on and which ones to unsubscribe from.  Frankly, my inbox was just getting too crowded with stuff that I either never open or intend to open and read but never do.  C’mon, who else doesn’t have this particular problem?!

Well, what started out to be a relatively quick and simple task turned into a bloody customer service nightmare – hence today’s blogpost!  Thankfully, not ALL of the companies I was unsubscribing from made me jump through hoops, but many of them did.  Being an email and direct marketer myself, I do understand the reasons behind it, but anything more than 2 steps is just downright stupid.  One particular company had me take 4 steps and then had the audacity to tell me that they would email me to confirm my changes – for crying out loud people, I just told you I didn’t want any more bloody emails from you – get with the program and service the customer, don’t drive them away forever!!

Something I noticed about the really good ones was that their system put my email address on the screen where I had to click the unsubscribe button, confirming to me that I was unsubscribing that particular email address.  It was quick and painless, with no more than 2 clicks to finish the process with a confirm page on my screen before I closed it out.  Unfortunately, they were very few and far between.  Most companies made me type in the email address I wanted to unsubscribe.  As a customer, I much preferred the former.

My least favorite of all, Build A Bear, made me go to their website – which took way too long to load – and then go through no less than 5 choices  to find the email unsubscribe function. Once I found it, and entered my email address to unsubscribe I got a pop-up message to tell me that if I unsubscribed from the email newsletter that I would also forfeit my Stuff Fur Stuff membership and any existing points  in the account (my daughter’s account).  Does anyone else find that completely incomprehensible? What the heck does an email newsletter have to do with a membership where you accumulate points for the things that you have already bought or plan to buy in the store?  With blood boiling, I hit the unsubscribe button, only to get yet another page asking me to confirm my changes…. again!  Why don’t you just call me stupid, stupid?!  I can tell you, this particular Mom will NOT be shopping at that store ever again.  I hope whoever designed their unsubscribe process gets a right butt-kicking at some point in their miserable lives.

On another note, while somewhat annoying, I did complete the couple of surveys that the very savvy companies used, trying to find out why exactly I unsubscribed and if there was anything they could do to improve the emails for me. My favorite was from Sur La Table. All of the good ones also gave me the option to immediately opt back in.  And the really, really good ones thanked me for being a customer and said they were sorry to see me go.  Even though I know it’s an automated process, it still did it’s job – gave me warm and fuzzies about those particular companies.  I will in all likelihood continue to patronize those businesses even if I don’t want their email newsletters.

Many of them I will probably also continue to interact with in different ways, such as Twitter or Facebook, because I can control that interaction myself.  The big majority of the companies that I unsubscribed from today, had their social media links prominently displayed close to the unsubscribe button.  These guys at least recognize that I am not the only one limiting emails and moving my interaction with them to new mediums.  Kudos to them and I’m happy to remain a customer of this savvy set – Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, Sur La Table, PacSun and Macy’s.

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