Canceling your ESPN Magazine/Digital Subscription
28 Jun2011
I’m a huge fan of the NBA … in fact one of my projects for winter (once I’ve moved) is to build an automated predictor of NBA results and see if I can use it to beat the spread. Something fun to do, but for another day 
I just spent 15 minutes trying to figure out how to cancel my ESPN subscription. Turns out you can’t do it online (you have to call them at 1-888-549-3776). The actual phone call etc was pretty easy, but it completely boggled my mind that for a subscription I began online, I had to go offline to cancel it.
Every time I start to think that companies have finally figured out that using the internet only makes life easier, something like this reminds me how asinine they can still be.
- In: Crap 2.0
5 Responses to Canceling your ESPN Magazine/Digital Subscription
Sean Brown
July 30th, 2011 at 8:04 am
Yeah, it’s stupid, however this is what they’re probably thinking:
1. If we force people to call in order to cancel, churn will be lower since it’s a pain in the ass (I have had the same experience with Virgin Mobile and Boingo). We care more about churn than about overall ease of use.
2. We care a lot about customer satisfaction. However, if a customer is going to churn anyway, we actually don’t need to worry about his satisfaction – he’s not going to be a customer for much longer therefore pissing him off is no big deal (i.e., not having an easy online unsubscribe is unlikely to CAUSE anyone to churn).
Luckily social media – blogs and to some extent Twitter, though less now since they limited Google’s crawler – is changing the equation. Companies need to be much more conscious about pissing off former clients: 10 years ago, you would’ve complained to 1-2 friends, who may not have subscribed to ESPN. Now this post is easy findable by anyone searching for ESPN subscription info.
Jack Morris
August 13th, 2011 at 12:28 pm
Cancel subscription
Gloria Isaacson
January 4th, 2012 at 2:30 pm
I have tried to cancel my subscription since last fall. I have sent a letter and tried calling
and nothing. I never renewed
my subscription.
What is next???????
John Sims
April 20th, 2012 at 4:45 pm
i have been trying to cancel a subscription i never subscribed for anyway for three months . somehow found this sight with this phone no . this is the 2nd time i have told them to cancel. i will never have anything to do with co again as long as i live.
Robert Patterson
June 20th, 2012 at 8:23 pm
I have received three issues of ESPN magazine. I never cared for sports, how do I get it cancelled? I didn’t order it, I don’t want the junk mail!!!! Is there some way to get it stopped?