Nicollet.Net

A marketing mailing list serves two main purposes. The commonly recognized but secondary purpose of such a list is communicating information about your products and services to the people on that list.

The lesser known but primary purpose of a marketing mailing list is to act as a high-performance foot-into-mouth insertion technology. It’s pretty obvious, really: you have this huge list of people that you cannot possibly treat in an individual fashion, so you split segment them along whatever axis your data allows, and you hope that the resulting segments don’t contain people who should not receive what you’re going to send.

Prisma Presse is a French company that publishes monthly magazines such as Management (for managers) or Capital (for investors). A while ago, I bought a one-year subscription to Management, online.

The first mistake – SPAM

Prisma Presse requested my e-mail address as part of the subscription process, agreed not to send me any promotional e-mail, then started sending me promotional e-mail.

The second mistake – gouging

The time to renew the subscription came, and I have a strong philosophy of not giving money to people who send me e-mail I do not want to receive, so my credit card remained quietly in my wallet.

Renewal offers started pouring in through snail mail. They were basically reminders that I should buy another one-year subscription to Management at the same price as before. I ignored them.

One month after my subscription ended, I received an unusual piece of snail mail. Instead of offering the same one-year subscription at the same price, it offered subscriptions to Management and Capital, at a lower price, with an additional promotional code for 10% for the first year, and a complimentary set of cheap-looking luggage. All I had to do is go online and type in my credit card number. They also mentioned “Act Now!” in big bold letters, except that it was written in french instead of english.

They tried to make it sound like «You’re a respected customer, we want you to stay at all costs, so we’ll make you an offer that’s even better!» and leave me with warm, fuzzy friendly feelings; but to me it sounded more like «we ask for a high price first to get more money out of those who agree»

As much as I would love to feel special and believe that you’re making an exception to your pricing model for me alone, the logistical requirements of sending out those promotions and that luggage don’t make any sense if you’re not treating thousands of customers exactly like you’re treating me.

Besides, sending me a special offer «reserved only to our most loyal customers» is, by definition, a blatant lie. When I buy the shortest subscription available and do not renew it, I’m basically the least loyal customer you could get.

I would expect a lot of people who read Management to reach the same conclusion.

The third mistake – artificial lock-in

I suspect a lot of people don’t work with money or online payment methods often enough to be as familiar with it as I am. So, most of them wouldn’t notice the catch (of course there was a catch!)

The original subscription had a limited one-year duration. You paid for one year, received your magazines, and renewing the subscription for another year was effectively an opt-in situation. Hence, all the efforts to get people to opt-in again.

The promotional offer had no duration limit. You were asked to provide your credit card number and they would pull out €3.30 every month until you asked them to stop. Of course, how you were expected to ask them to stop was not explained. Nor do I expect it to be a simple one-minute-over-the-phone process.

This is a clean example of artificial lock-in: Prisma Presse made it artificially difficult for me to opt out of their service, so I would keep paying.

From a strategic point of view, all of this makes perfect sense. Ask people to renew their subscription, and then :

• Those who usually renew subscriptions agree, and pay a higher price.
• The people who don’t usually renew subscriptions are funneled into an opt-out process, so that you won’t have to ask them to renew.

This is a win-win situation. And yet, from a human point of view, this makes me feel like I’m a statistic, and it’s a feeling I do not relish.

The fourth mistake – mishandling credit card numbers

Still, I decided to subscribe, because I expect to be able to unsubscribe my way out of a wet paper bag after only one month (earning two magazines and a set of luggage for €3.30). I logged in on their web site, typed in my credit card number and promotional code, checked that the price was indeed €3.30, and confirmed my purchase.

At no point did their web site complain about any of my inputs. I received an e-mail telling me that the luggage would be delivered within four weeks. I received the two magazines.

Yet, no money left my account. I started to get nervous.

And then, I received a letter telling me that I need to pay for my new subscription. As a courtesy, they’re allowing me to pay through direct debit, and they included a form to set it up easily.

I cannot understand how they could lose the credit card I entered on their website.

The fifth mistake – bait and switch

Actually, I can. In France (and, I suspect, most first-world countries) there are big differences between paying by credit card and paying by direct debit.

With a credit card, the payment ceases when the credit card expires (every two years on my card) or when you invalidate the card and ask for a new one. Declaring the card as stolen or lost costs a bit more than those €3.30, but it’s a quick and sure-fire way of preventing Prisma Presse from taking additional money out of your account. Last but not least, with a credit card, you can ask the bank to get your money back, so it’s up to Prisma Presse to take you to court for the money.

With direct debit, the money just leaves your account and you can’t get it back. Canceling direct debit agreements is orders of magnitude harder than losing your credit card. Moreover, most sign-up forms for direct debit include a clause that forbids you from involving the bank in any related problems. Your contractor took too much money? You can’t ask the bank for help, because your contract forbids you from doing so. You have to take Prisma Presse to court for the money.

What they are doing is telling me I can buy an unlimited subscription using a safe, easily controlled means of payment, then ask me to switch to an unsafe and uncontrollable one. Smart and sneaky, but not friendly.

The sixth mistake – bad customer support

Just in case this was a consequence of an actual mistake, as opposed to a devious plan to make me use direct debit, I tried to contact them to ask them about the status of my credit card number. Their web site has an entire section dedicated to dealing with customers. It is shaped as an FAQ section where every question has an associated form that lets you send a question. I found a question related subscriptions, and asked about why mine was still in a processing state and no fee had been charged yet.

I shortly received a canned response (from a human operator, apparently) telling me that any information about my order was available on their web site. The only information available on the web site was that the order was still in a processing state. This was the entire point of my question.

Current status

I received for free two magazines worth €3.30. Prisma Presse never charged me for them despite having my credit card number for that specific purpose, being aware that I received them for free, and having a direct contact with me through my e-mail address (initiated by me, no less!)

Also, I regularly receive promotional e-mails from them, reminding me that I am one of their most loyal customers. Their definition of loyalty is… disturbing.

And yet, I have an unnerving feeling that despite letting some people (like me) fall through the net, their strategy manages to lure enough people to earn a decent living while spending less effort on every individual customer than a company with honest business practices and stellar customer support.

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