Cancellation?!? Maybe, but Not Really

Click to Marvel at Zoom’s cancellation workflow

• This (click if you haven’t seen the video above) is classic case of “Ya just can’t make this stuff up.”

Zoom’s Cancellation Process Model: Hotel California

Apparently, we are witnessing Zoom’s rapid descent into the race-to-the-bottom that most mature companies and industries experience.

They hit their growth rate ceiling, but their investors expect the numbers to keep growing.

Their market is saturated, so they have run out of places to find more growth. Desperate to improve the numbers, they devise ways to decrease the number of customers churning out (i.e., cancelling). They do this by making it as difficult as possible to cancel.

Customer Lesson Learned: Understand the Subscription Cancellation Process

This idea sounds obvious, but I still don’t know how to properly cancel my Zoom subscription.

At the end of my adventure (video above), I removed PayPal as a payment method for Zoom, but that was a workaround to Zoom’s obsfucation of how to actually cancel. I’ll update this article after they try to charge me again, but even if my hack works, it is not a proper solution for cancelling.

Other SaaS companies spell out cancellation policies in their impenetrable Terms of Service language, and Zoom probably does too, but policies are not the same as the mechanics–the cancellation process.

In fact, who even thinks about this stuff when signing up for subscriptions? I certainly haven’t–until now.

• In the future, I’m going to understand what will happen when I cancel before I sign up to a new subscription or service. I strongly suggest you do the same.

SaaS Team Lesson Learned: Set Clear Expectations

How cancellations work should be obvious–and easy. This should not be hidden in the UI or expressed as legalese buried in Terms of Service language that nobody ever reads.

If we want our customers to have a great experience (and we definitely want that for Mindery users), it is up to us to make stuff like this crystal clear.

Our No-Excuses/No-BS Cancellation Process

• If you cancel your Mindery subscription on or before your renewal date, your subscription will end on your renewal date.
• If you forget to cancel until after your renewal date, let us know, and we will work with you to make it right.

Clear Enough?

We certainly hope so. If not, feel free to jump into our Discord community to help us improve our clarity.

• Ready to start saving money by remembering (and cancelling) forgotten subscriptions–and maybe save your relationships by remembering important events? Get Mindery.