It's getting harder to say goodbye to some retailers. A review of the 100 top online retailers find that a growing number are making it tougher for customers to unsubscribe from email lists and are less gracious when someone opts to not receive emails.
According to the Retail Email Unsubscribe Benchmark Study by Responsys, 39 percent of retailers studied required three or more clicks for consumers to opt-out of mailings, up from seven percent in 2008. Retailers were also sending more emails after a shopper opted-out with 30 percent sending one or more emails following an unsubscribe request versus 26 percent in 2008. Only 16 percent send a "Goodbye" or "Thank you" message for those opting-out.
"When you're competing against the ruthless efficiency and trustworthiness of the 'report spam' button, your email opt-out process needs to be friction-free and provide options ISPs can't give their users," said Chad White, research director at Responsys and author of the study, in a press release.
"Savvy marketers respect their email subscribers and provide relevant content to drive engagement -- and they also let subscribers go when they're not engaged," said Ed Henrich, vice president of professional services at Responsys. "Marketers need to make it easy to unsubscribe and to re-subscribe when the time is right."
Discussion Questions: Are the findings of the Responsys research worrying to you? What are your best practices for retailers handling email communications with shoppers?