You can't blame retailers for overusing the direct email process. I mean, I did subscribe, at some point in the past. But making it HARDER to UNSUBSCRIBE is bad faith and bad business. It puts companies like Guitar Center in the same category with Spammers. Of course, I did give you permission, but when I click the UNSUBSCRIBE link you should respect my wishes and not make me jump through additional hoops to GET OFF THE LIST. Let's look at my Guitar Center on Christmas Day experience.
It was a nicely formatted email from Guitar Center. A "Just Today" coupon. [Okay, but I'd asked to be unsubscribed weeks ago. Let's try again.]
Here's the burb at the botton of the email.
And this little tidbit didn't make me too happy. 30 BUSINESS DAYS, for an unsubscribe? That is crap. That is Guitar Center's way of telling me, we're gonna keep spamming you for 30 days, even after you've asked to be removed.
BUT, that was not the worst part.
You should be able to click the "remove me from future mailings" and hit the OKAY button. However, when you do that, you get an error message. And Guitar Center wants you to fill out your Name, Email, and Shipping Address (complete) AGAIN.
Why in the world do I need to give you my email address again (you have it, I just clicked on the unsubscribe link)? And why do you want my MAILING ADDRESS to unsubscribe from your EMAIL list.
So what happened a few weeks ago, is I clicked on the "remove me from future mailings" and hit the OKAY button. But instead of unsubscribing me, Guitar Center error-ed out my form and asked for the additional information BEFORE unsubscribing me. WRONG!
Now, Guitar Center is not unique in this adverse practice, but they will lose me as a subscriber EVER AGAIN. And that's too bad. I do like Guitar Center, but I HATE their email practices. In terms of trust and reputation, making your email services hard to unsubscribe from, and asking for even more information to get off your mailing list, well, it's BAD FORM.
@jmacofearth (also seen on Google+: jmacofearth) permalink: http://uber.la/2012/12/unsubscribe-bad-practices/
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