Ok so my last post was all about best practices for the unsubscribe function, well not long after I posted that, I recieved a forwarded email from a friend with a really bad example for unsubscribing, and the culprit is Chapters/Indigo!

First of all, after the email, there were four pretty lengthy paragraphs of “fine print” and buried at the bottom was the instructions to unsubscribe:

This email was sent to: …. If you no longer wish to receive our promotional emails, click here to log into your Online Account, select “Your 1)Settings”, deselect the email checkbox in the “Email Extras” section and click “Submit” to update your settings. If you are an irewards member and do not have a Chapters Indigo Account, you can unsubscribe by emailing your irewards number to iRunsubscribe@indigo.ca.

Please allow up to 7 business days for your request to be processed.

So let’s look at this closely, in order to unsubcribe, you must:

1. Click the link
2. Log in to your account (what are the chances you even remember your username/password?
3. Select “Your settings”
4. Deselect “Email Extras”
5. Allow up to 7 days to take effect.

That seems a little ridiculous to me! Oh wait - you can also unsubscribe via an email to a seperate email address, but you must include your iRewards member number (which is not included in the original email) so that means you have to go digging around in your wallet to find the card then type out the long number.

This is very unacceptable, especially when it’s so easy to make a quick, and instant, unsubscribe feature. Your subscribers should not be “punished” for not wanting to receive your emails anymore!

PS- I may be a little cranky today due to my horrible cold… I will say that aside from the lousy “unsubscribe” instructions, the email was very, very good.

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