If You Check In, Can You Still Check Out?

Two unrelated, but weirdly related, articles in the New York Times caught my eye yesterday:

"Online Banking Keeps Patrons Tangled in Fees" wrote Nelson Schwartz in the first. In the second, "The Haggler" (columnist David Segal) investigated the questionable practices of Synapse Group, a magazine subscription firm that "is skilled at signing up subscribers but miserable at alerting them later that their subscriptions are being renewed. So bad that a plaintiff’s lawyer, Gary Graifman, filed a class-action lawsuit against it, contending that it purposely tries to make its renewal notices look like junk mail."

At first glance, these don't seem related, do they? But consider one example from Schwartz's story:

Tedd Speck, a 49-year-old market researcher in Kent, Conn., was furious about Bank of America’s planned $5 monthly fee for debit card use.

But he is staying put after being overwhelmed by the inconvenience of moving dozens of online bill paying arrangements to another bank.

“I’m really annoyed,” he said, “but someone at Bank of America made that calculation and they made it right.”

In other words, the bank has made it as difficult as possible to "unsubscribe". Meanwhile, what did the plaintiff's lawyer say about Synapse's practices?

“You subscribe to, say, Sports Illustrated, but you get a notice from a company called Synapse, which no one has ever heard of,” says Mr. Graifman, of the New York law firm Kantrowitz, Goldhamer & Graifman. “The whole game is to discourage as many people as possible from canceling, and these guys are very sophisticated about how they do that.”

He sent a copy of the renewal notice that Synapse sends to customers. The front reads: “Less time at the newsstand means more time enjoying your favorite magazines.” Next to that is: “Subscriber rate enclosed. Up to 40 percent off newsstand prices.”

If that doesn’t say “Toss me, I’m junk mail,” what does?

If you do toss that piece of "junk mail", you will shortly discover that by not replying, you have "permitted" Synapse to bill your credit card automatically for renewals. In other words, they've made it as difficult as possible to unsubscribe. The original complainer to The Haggler had forwarded the company phone number that had been listed on her credit-card bill; if you do call the number, what you get is "only an automated voice routine, not a human being."

In neither of these cases does the company care about customer satisfaction. They define loyalty as "gotcha".

Meanwhile, on Synapse's website, the home page extols the company's "values" and "social responsibility". Synapse, of course, doesn't really care about you, the magazine reader who can't get out of your subscription. It cares about the magazine, which has hired it to keep you on the hook (Synapse is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Time Inc.). Synapse is particularly proud of its patented "magazine subscription model, Continuous Service." And what is Continuous Service? It's a model that

eliminates the inefficiencies and inconveniences of the traditional model, and replaces it with a solution that meets the needs of today's harried consumer. Today, tens of millions of subscribers enjoy the simplicity and superior experience of continuous service.

Sounds exactly like what the plaintiff's attorney was describing, doesn't it?

The banks, meanwhile, will trill away about how much easier it is for you to have all your accounts at one bank, and to pay your bills online. They will not tell you that "using the Internet to pay bills, do automatic deductions and send electronic checks reduced customer turnover for banks by up to 95 percent in some cases." Even if you're deeply dissatisfied, the thought of having to change all those accounts is daunting.

Every business wants to hold onto its customers, of course. The question is, Are you being truthful and transparent about how you're holding on to them?