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Comment by vacanti | Hacker News Reader

Our virtual admin sends this email:

Hello:

My name is [], and I'm part of the Yipit team. I want to confirm that you've been unsubscribed and will no longer receive emails from us.

However, as you may know, we're in the very early stages of our New York based start-up and feedback at this stage is extremely valuable. If you'd be willing to hop on a 10 minute call with one of our team members, we'd gladly offer you a free $10 Amazon.com Gift Card.

We're really just trying to learn what we may be doing wrong, and how we can improve our experience for users like you in the future.

We’d like to know if you’re available for a 10 minute call any time this week between 1pm – 2:30pm ET? If so, please respond with the best number to call.

Thanks!

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Have you ever gotten a bad reaction from these emails? Presumably the user had just expressed that they don't want anymore emails and they're getting another one :)

Not really. Some people don't respond, others just respond to the email with the reason and the remaning take us up on the offer and give us great feedback.

When unsubscribing from an email service most people would expect to get an email saying that you have successfully unsubscribed.

I actually tend to mark that SPAM if I get an email after I've unsubscribed.

Hm... I wonder if this would work as well if someone unsubscribes from a paid service and you give them another month for free. Say $20 of value to them and $0 for you.

The only issue here is if the process of subscribing had them to delete their account, which it typically does. Then if you offer them a free month... it gets tricky, because they'd have to start with scratch. Therefore, you've got to catch/offer them something midway through the delete process.

We can actually revive a deleted account.

that's great stuff. quick suggestion: if you're collecting the first names of your users, you should make sure to include their name when addressing that email. it does wonders to make it seem more personalized.

smaller suggestion: considering the tone in the email, i think the ask could be a bit more informal than "please respond..." <-- sounds very robot-like. i would say "if so, let us know the best number to reach you :) "

hope that helps. thanks for sharing!

-adam

We don't grab the first names on signup, but sometimes it's readily apparent from the address. In those cases we try to personalize.

Agree about the 'please respond' totally robotic. Will fix.

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