Considering we’ve got Facebook, Twitter, RSS feeds, iGoogle and about million other ways to communicate with companies and people, I still feel email is very personal. Actually with all the notifications and nonsense around, I think it’s probably even more personal now than before. (A recent study I just performed on myself confirms this, so listen carefully.)

Despite of this I have agreed to receive few newsletters and because of this I’m very careful with which newsletters I choose to receive. While I don’t always have the time to read them, I enjoy the few I’ve subscribed to when I have the time. But when I start getting newsletters I never asked for I feel violated. I trusted my email address to someone and they obviously didn’t respect my privacy. Some companies handle these situations better than others and some unsubscribe links actually work. But when unsubscribing sucks, things really suck!

I did not ask for this

Once upon a time I placed an order with Bridge Nine, a hardcore record label from MA, USA. Pretty soon after my order I started getting their newsletter. I thought it was odd, but because I loved the CDs I had bought from them, I figured I’d see if the newsletter turned out to be worth my time. Note: I liked the company/product so much that I was actually OK with a newsletter I never subscribed to.

About a month went by and I kept on getting their newsletters. I never had the time to read them as they were insanely long and seeing they mostly dealt with label and tour news, I figured I could catch up with them on Twitter, Facebook, their site or some other means if/when I wanted. I did not need their news feed cluttering my inbox. So I decided to unsubscribe. At this point I was still a happy customer.

Months and months later I suddenly started getting their newsletter again. “This is odd…” I thought to myself as I clicked the unsubscribe link for the second time. What was even more odd was that it just took me to their site with no message telling me whether I had successfully unsubscribed or not. A big mistake, if you ask me. I hoped it had worked, but my gut was telling me otherwise.

Not surprisingly I kept on getting their newsletters and every time I kept on clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom, hoping it would work. It never did. So I went to their site and tried to find an email address to write to. Once I did, I kindly wrote them that I never subscribed in the first place and now months after unsubscribing I was getting their newsletter again. No reply. I figured it was due to holidays (this was around Christmas), but then couple of days later I got yet another newsletter. I wrote a rather angry email to the label owner telling him he really should look into fixing this as it was no way to treat customers. I got a reply the same day apologizing and explaining they had had issues with unsubscribing on their system and he promised to forward the message to their developers.

What can we learn from this?

• Never add a customer to your mailing list automatically
• Make sure they can unsubscribe with one click
• Make sure it works
• Once your system gets an unsubscribe request make sure the user gets a message saying they’ve been unsubscribed (or an error message with an apology and a promise the staff will take a look at the issue asap)

This should all be pretty standard stuff, but if I didn’t like the label and some of their artists so much, I would’ve probably resorted to some nasty stuff after the problems.  Now I was just really upset. And while I myself, as a web developer, can tell when there might be technical issues (no OK/error message after clicking unsubscribe link) I also know that I’m far from your average user.

I specifically did not ask for this!

A while back I heard Iron Maiden was giving a brand new track from their upcoming album as a free download. Wow! As I was looking for the download link I found the catch – they wanted my name, email address and country of residence. Luckily they (or more likely their tech/legal/label guys) had enough sense to make the newsletter subscription optional.

Now I grew up listening to Maiden and during recent years I’ve rediscovered my love for them. I’m curious to hear this album and I like the fact that one of the biggest bands in the world actually gives out a new track for free. Of course there was the newsletter catch (and that’s why I had to enter my first and last name to get personalized messages, but seriously, country? Isn’t that taking it a tad too far? Why don’t you let me sign in first and let me update my profile on your site or something…) but I’m glad it wasn’t forced upon me.

So I give them my info. And I click No for the newsletter. I do get the download link and I get the song right away. Next time I check my email: Iron Maiden newsletter subscription confirmation is waiting for me! “Welcome to the Iron Maiden Newsletter! You will now get the latest news on Iron Maiden delivered to your mailbox. Stay tuned!”

I was not on drugs and found myself equally pissed off and curious. I know I’m like most users and don’t really read the instructions and sometimes I fill out forms without actually reading what they’re asking for. So maybe I made a mistake? I go ahead and do it again with another email address (I already unsubscribed with the first address, so I figured their system should block me) and sure enough, saying I do not want the newsletter gets me the newsletter. This comes from Iron Maiden. It comes from EMI. You’d think they would’ve tested their software, but I guess not.

(To top it all, the new song was a disappointment. If I wouldn’t have grown up listening to this band and if I didn’t like some of their recent albums so much, again, I would’ve gotten nastier.)

I would not like to receive anymore of… ummm…

Years and years ago I ordered from Tower Records a couple of times. Then they went bankrupt in 2006 but the web store came back in mid-2007. Guess whose email address was still in their database? I’ve gotten few newsletters from them this year and as I never read them, I can’t remember if I got any the year before. Note: Funny behavior, instead of unsubscribing I just delete them thinking I might one day have the reason to read the next one. Right…

Today I stopped for a split second and realized I would never read their newsletters. I don’t really care for their sales. When I want something, I find the best place to get it (and about 10 other things, because I’m weak and wealthy enough[?] like that) and place my order. Yes, I’m more loyal towards some stores, but I’m just fine without these general newsletters.

What do I do? Click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of course. And I’m taken to a page that doesn’t tell me I’ve been unsubscribed, but to a page that lists the mailing lists I’m part of, asking which ones I want to unsubscribe from. (By default all of them are checked, so at least they did something right.) Again, I’m no average internet users and of course I know I want to unsubscribe from everything, but seriously, how an earth am I supposed to make sense out of these list names that I’m apparently part of:

• Tower Orders
• Jun_2010_99000-282834
• Jun_2010_99001-190000
• ALL_June 19_2010
• ALL_PART B_Jun 23 2010
• TOWER MASTER (no Sacramento) (ORDERS, etc.)

Apparently because I’ve ordered in the past, I’m part of “Tower Orders” and “Master (no Sacramento) (ORDERS, etc.)” and as a result, I’ve been added to some cryptic sounding lists lately, but seriously, is this what the customer is supposed to see? Writing for web is one thing, displaying relevant error messages is one thing… And talking to your users is always different from talking to your team. Are you guys being serious here? What if I unsubscribe from “Tower Orders” – will I never get order confirmations? Never get orders? Give me a break…

And what about the “Do Not Contact” list that stops all emails from Tower Records? Now that surely should stop email confirmations, customer support emails and whatnot. Yep. Good. Online business. Newsletters. Wow!

Update 2010/9/9: In the last two weeks I’ve gotten six new emails from Tower.com. Appears I’m still part of their “Tower Orders” list… (Ironically managing my Tower email newsletter profile happens at bmdeda7.com and at least today that site simply says “It Works !!” Right.)