There was a time, not so long ago, when all you had was a phone plan. And maybe a subscription to a magazine. Maybe. Everything else you paid in one go, and only when you really needed it.
Nowadays everything is gradually only available in subscription formulas: Netflix, Spotify, Photoshop, access to cloud services, your meals via HelloFresh, you name it and soon you will probably even need a subscription to be able to use the driver assistance systems of your car.
It is therefore not unusual that a certain fatigue occurs with all those subscription formulas, especially if you also get the feeling that you can activate such subscriptions very easily, but that it is very difficult to cancel them again.
Unfortunately, there are far too many examples of subscription services that want to bind customers for a longer period of time at all costs. Either by working with tacit annual renewals, or by imposing an administrative cost for termination within a certain period, other services require that a contract can only be terminated by telephone, which is already a barrier for many and once you have come to call, they will of course try to convince you in all sorts of ways to remain a customer after all…
And despite everything described above, isn't PostMyBeer also primarily a subscription service? Yes that's right. And because I am convinced that a subscription service, if it is offered and implemented correctly, can indeed offer added value to the product that is being offered.
By correct offer and implementation I mean that no obstacles are thrown at your feet when you would like to pause or even cancel your subscription. Of course I also think it's a shame if you were to leave as a customer, but I'd rather have a satisfied ex-customer than a dissatisfied forced customer. I have therefore tried to make pausing and canceling your subscription as simple and straightforward as possible:
- Would you rather not receive the next monthly box? No problem: you can simply skip the payment for that monthly box. You will not receive a box for that month, but the payment for the next monthly box will remain programmed, so you don't have to worry about this.
How are you doing this? You log in* to your account on the PostMyBeer website. Then choose subsciptions:
Once on the subscription page, you can see your scheduled payments. It is sufficient to click on 'skip payment' to ensure that the payment is skipped.
Of course you won't receive a new box for that month, but that was the intention, wasn't it?
- Do you not want to receive a box for a longer period of time (for example because of a long journey or whatever)? You can of course also skip several payments, or you can also just pause your subscription. The method for pausing your subscription is almost the same as described above, except that you now choose the orange button 'Pause my subscription'.
You still have to confirm this, but that is more to prevent 'mis-clicks' than anything else. Your subscription is now paused, meaning no payments will be made until you reactivate your subscription. Of course you can't forget the latter!
- As an alternative to pausing, you can also adjust the frequency of deliveries (and therefore payments) . Again the same method, but now choose 'edit' next to the Items.
You can now choose a different box frequency, for example every 3 months instead of monthly. Just confirm, and you're done.
- And finally, do you still want to cancel your subscription completely ? The method is also almost the same for this, except that you do not choose the orange button, but the red button.
Here too you will have to confirm again, and we may also ask for a reason why you want to cancel. However, this is not to convince you to stay (I assume that if you would like to stay, but there is something that disturbs you immensely about our service, please contact me so that I can check this and hopefully even fix it), but only to further improve PostMyBeer's service . After all, every feedback is valuable, even if it comes from a cancellation reason.
- And if a subscription really isn't for you, then there are the prepaid packages, where you pay a fixed price in advance for a fixed number of guaranteed deliveries.
Anyone who has read the 'About Us' page on the PostMyBeer website knows that one of the core values I want to convey with PostMyBeer is transparency. And with the above methods, I hope to counteract the subscription fatigue somewhat with PostMyBeer and to offer such a formula in a correct, simple and transparent manner.
And I hope that gradually all other services will follow this example.
Schol!
Koen Dalman
* We have also tried to make logging in as easy as possible. If you still have an issue with the login and password, and you are unable to reset the password? Then you can have an email sent to yourself via this link (this must be to the same email address as the one you used to create an account). direct access to your subscriptions.