Maybe it’s the fact that it’s the Monday after a holiday, maybe I’m just ornery this afternoon, or maybe this just sucks.
Either way, I had a minor brain aneurysm after attempting the unholy task of unsubscribing from Microsoft marketing spam and I thought I’d share to provide an example of what not to do.
My thought is, if you want me to have warm fuzzies, please at least try to make it easy for me to stop receiving email from you. I know we’ve had a few email issues ourselves, but come on. If they tried, they couldn’t have made it more unhelpful, tedious or mind-numbingly annoying to stop receiving unsolicited email.
From their unsubscribe page:
Three options!? Profile center!? Don’t make me choose. Along with the rest of the world, I have severe adult ADD and have no patience for choosing, menus, passwords or reading.
Just unsubscribe me. Please.
it would be out of character for Microsoft to make it simple and easy
It sorta makes you wonder, were they TRYING to piss you off? I mean, I just don’t get it.
Either:
a.) they really don’t want you to unsubscribe AND they’re fine with pissing you off and creating ill will because they’re Microsoft, or…
b.) they don’t hire UI designers at Microsoft. They apparently all work at Apple.
Bob, you took the words right out of my mouth.
So sterile, so unnecessary, so LAME.
Waaaaaaaa, I hate Microsoft, Microsoft is bad. Woe is me, I can’t read.
Give me a break. I’m sorry if you guys don’t like to read instructions, but welcome to big boy world. They do a decent job of spelling out what you’re supposed to do, thoroughly and clearly.
I don’t mean to be harsh, but c’mon. It’s not THAT bad.
why were you subscribed to a microsoft email list in the first place! ;-)
Note the unsolicited in italics.
Bill musta added me to the list when I wasn’t looking.
Ah, WinDOZE.
I agree with Royce. Quit yer bitchin.
Royce,
While I appreciate your tolerance for verbose directions and unnecessary tedium, I just don’t have it in me.
Next to VCR instructions, it’s not that bad. But a plain “unsubscribe” link would have sufficed. No need to drive a nail in with a sledgehammer.
I gotta go with Fitz on this one. You have to subscribe to the profile center just to unsubscribe?
How hard is it to have a simple link?
I’m sure that they legally added your email address via the verbage in some TOS you didn’t read and clicked the “I Accept” button for. When you have your first son, they’ll come for him, too. They’ll teach him how to play pinball at the MS corporate offices and to use C# as his first language (“Mother.requestAction(new GiveObject(‘milk’));”).
They also get to increase their Passport (to mind-numbing conformity and assimilation) membership. There’s definitely something unethical about forcing you to register on a website just to unsubscribe. But then again, there’s something unethical about buying your friend’s OS for a paltry sum, knowing that IBM has made you a large offer for it.
They word it beautifully to make you feel “warm fuzzies” because they’re only protecting you from evil hackers who want to cruelly unsubscribe you from their spam. I sit at the feet of my loving Microsoft Father.
Ok, Lucas, that’s my favorite comment…ever.