Extricating Subscribers

Members of the ISP-Marketing list discuss getting subscribers on to your ISP even though they're in the middle of a lengthy contract with a major national provider.

[September 11, 2002]

On the ISP-Marketing list in August, BH asked,

"Does anyone have a secret for getting customers out of those two-year contracts with MSN from a PC purchase deal? We deal with tons of people who want to sign up with us but are locked into one of those contracts."

Some respondents recommended offering free service in exchange for making the switch:

[BH offered] "If you are looking to get them converted—without regard for revenue—you could offer them free service for the remaining time on their commitment. Just be sure to have a verifiable way of determining how much free service they would be entitled to. At least that way you have them, and hopefully you can get some referrals from them as well."

[DM added] "Give them their first month free, and then a free month for each additional person they refer to your service. Be sure that you have them on a 30-day written out clause. That way, if they cannot get a person for a couple of months and decide to go back to MSN, you get your first month's revenue back and you're out nothing-and likely to be up a few customers. You will need to limit that sort of referral deal to a few special cases, but it could work well for you."

Others looked at ways to stretch the truth in order to appease MSN:

[PF noted] "They could say they moved out of a local service area, but the 'toll charges may apply' disclaimer would probably cover that."

[BH added] "MSN is pretty much everywhere, so I don't think that will work."

Still others suggested that encouraging users to break their contracts might not be a great idea:

[JG warned] "You must be very careful when counseling anyone on what to do with their existing contract relationship with a third party-especially when you have something to gain. It's known as interruption of contract: ask your attorney to explain it to you. Microsoft may not go after unhappy MSN customers who cancel their service early, but they will probably go after an ISP that counsels people on how to dump MSN's contracts. And that would not be fun or profitable for the ISP."

[EA added] "This site may be helpful in understanding the concept of inducing breach of contract."

Others pointed out that MSN's rules are very clear regarding early cancellation penalties:

[MS observed] "MSN requires users to pay by credit card. If a user calls up and wants to cancel, MSN has no problem with that: they just charge the user's credit card for the penalty that the user agreed to when committing to two years of service. It's the same that any of us would do if a user committed to a year and left early. The customer really has no recourse for getting out of the contract early except to pay up. Anything else would be unethical."

[PF agreed] "Tell them to cancel and pay the penalty."

—End