How's your business going with this approach? I actually suspect your reasoning here is correct, but I'm always curious to find out how a business is faring using this customer-friendly approach.
Almost all the refunds I process are due to people getting busy, no longer using my service [1], and forgetting to cancel their subscription. When somebody sends me a cancellation request right after they've been billed, I volunteer to refund the payment. Perhaps half of them take me up on it.
Even with this proactive approach, my refund rate is only about 1%. It's not affecting my profitability in any significant way.
The benefit is harder to measure. I typically get a warm thank you from offering and, as I said, about half decide to stay subscribed for the remaining month. I've also had people tell me how much they appreciate my "no DRM" policy. So I'd say that my general attitude of trusting and respecting my customers pays off, but it's impossible to say how much.
Even with this proactive approach, my refund rate is only about 1%. It's not affecting my profitability in any significant way.
The benefit is harder to measure. I typically get a warm thank you from offering and, as I said, about half decide to stay subscribed for the remaining month. I've also had people tell me how much they appreciate my "no DRM" policy. So I'd say that my general attitude of trusting and respecting my customers pays off, but it's impossible to say how much.
[1] I sell a subscription-based programming screencast called Let's Code: Test-Driven JavaScript, http://www.letscodejavascript.com