It has happened to most of us at one time or another - we sign up for monthly service (a subscription or a membership) and then keep it active far longer than we really need or want it.
According to a new survey from financial technology startup Hiatus (which just launched a 'personal' subscription manager that enables users to take control over their payments to recurring service), almost 62 percent of respondents paid for unwanted subscriptions or memberships simply because they failed to cancel an auto-renew feature.
Users kept paying for something they didn't want, because they couldn't figure out how to cancel? Just imagine how that's going to play out for the enterprise offering those products or services! Not only is there potential to aggravate and alienate consumers (which may impact referrals), but the risk of chargebacks could also increase. That's not a risk many sellers are willing to take.
"Consumers have rushed to embrace subscriptions like Netflix and Blue Apron because they're great services that can make life easier," said David Callis, co-founder of Hiatus. "Unfortunately though, hard-earned money is being wasted on unwanted subscriptions because they've been too difficult to monitor and cancel. $500 billion worth of subscriptions are being consumed each year; people are realizing a lot of this is waste and want a simple way to align their demand with service delivery."
