I had some trouble with the Wall Street Journal today. I used to have a print subscription, which I cancelled one month ago. Then, three weeks later, I decided that I would like to get the paper in print, as well as online, so I subscribed for that.
It turns out that I can’t just add the new subscription to my existing wsj.com account, which is a pain in the ass. So I called them, and they told me that I would have to create a new account with a different email address, and that they:
- cannot delete any existing accounts (“they stay on our system forever”)
- cannot add my new print+online subscription to my old account
Now, that’s stupid. Even though I asked to speak to the supervisor, and magically, after three minutes on hold, my problem would be fixed by 8 AM the next day.
There are two simple lessons to be learnt from this: 1) Don’t make stupid systems that frustrate your customers. 2) If you end up making them anyways, at least be courteous enough to acknowledge your customer’s problems and solve them. Lying to your customers that you are not able to do anything is one of the easiest ways to destroy trust in a relationship that might have been built over years.
