[Dorian-Marie]

Soon, retention hackers:

    - Prevent people from unsubscribing
    - Prevent people from canceling their orders
    - Discounts if buy every day/week/month
    - Sending tons of emails with fake site activity ("somebody sent you a message"-style)

[duggan]

No "soon" about it, this is already how companies behave.

If you have a Spotify subscription, try to cancel it.

As I've been trying out various companies for different (B2B) services over the last few months, I've noticed the wonderful "sign up in a few seconds with your credit card!" onboarding paired with "contact our customer service team if you want to cancel," which inevitably leads to a protracted discussion with a retentions team.

If there was any chance I'd have recommended them (or at least not actively recommended against them), that ship sails when I have to invest more time into offboarding than onboarding.

[icebraining]

The show Reply All had a section on that, trying to see why they couldn't cancel their subscription to Handy over the site. They actually got a fairly honest reply:

SHARMA: Thank you for holding sir I do apologize for that wait. But it’s just what I was advised is that the system is not set up for customer’s to cancel the recurring bookings because when you want to cancel, they’re wanting the customers to call in to see if we can help the situation out on actually why they’re wanting to cancel the bookings and offer promotions and discounts and things like that.

https://gimletmedia.com/episode/33-isis/

[probably_wrong]

> No "soon" about it, this is already how companies behave. If you have a Spotify subscription, try to cancel it.

I remember closing my account for a certain online dating site. I was presented with three different screens asking me whether I was really sure about canceling, and after that I was greeted with a message that read (more or less) "We've closed your account. Sometimes things in life take a bit of effort, you know?", which was the first time ever a website called me lazy.

The fact that it played like a bitter breakup was not lost on me.

[TeMPOraL]

A certain dating website was featured in an article which ended up on HN some time ago. I vividly recall a comment[0] that encouraged to make an account there and see what tactics they use to keep you there. It was a most enlightening experience for me (and an expensive one).

[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3274218

[jacquesm]

Retention by being a good provider of products / services => great. Retention by force => bad.

[TeMPOraL]

Doesn't stop "growth hacking" from being a thing, unfortunately.

[jacquesm]

Growth hacking -> where bad SEO'ers go next after they've scorched the earth.

[gspetr]

Nothing is new under the sun.

Most of this is widely known as "Dark Patterns".

[TeMPOraL]

And they're widely used. What could happen though is them to be renamed to "retention hacking" and thus legitimized.

[hopeless]

Founders who treat their SaaS customers as prisoners will quickly find their company gains a very bad reputation and struggles with customer acquisition.

The only way to retain customers is to continue to provide them with value

[phodo]

sounds like efax