You’re on automatic renewal

Time is becoming a luxury. Companies ask you to sign up for packages that expire every 18 months. Your mobile, gas company, car insurance, bank and broadband contracts are set up to expire after a certain time, so we’re forced to reach the companies and ask for their next offer. And once we’re on the phone, of course, it’s understood that we’re giving consent to hear about their new products and services at least a couple of times.

The other day I spent 45 minutes on a call trying to cancel a payment that I did not agree to because they’d put me on automatic renewal, and somehow I’d missed that part of the information.

Not only did I spend 45 minutes on the phone, but they also tried to pitch their services to me several times.

It’s easy to justify automatic renewals as a great way of keeping our customers and making their lives easy, but when they become a way of unethically making sales you’re crossing a line that people can see from miles away.

At some point every single business should ask what is more important – making a sale or keeping a past or a current customer happy?

If answering this question requires you to start running numbers to find out how the percentage of unhappy customers affects your sales, then you’ll know what you’re prioritising.

What you value in your business should be independent of the results you achieve from it.

Results are the consequences, not the reason you do it.

#automaticrenewal #sales #time