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Comment by rlayton2 | Hacker News Reader

I cancelled Basecamp today, because it didn't fit with my workflow, and the whole thing was easy. So much so, I would probably be using it again in the future (I work mostly by myself, need a "master todo list" and with many different teams, Basecamp doesn't fit this working style, but nothing I've tried does). I'll recommend Basecamp to larger teams, and part of that is the exit.

Here's what Basecamp did:

* on their monthly receipt email, they have a link directly to the cancel option.

* They remind you to get your data on the way out, and give a link, right there, to go get it

* They give you your data

* They cancel straight away, and ask if it's ok to survey you (optional).

After reading the book It doesn't have to be crazy at work (https://basecamp.com/books/calm ) I understood the mentality perfectly. I wish them all the best for their product.

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Had the same experience with Basecamp, except after cancelling, circumstances changed and now we're paying customers. It's not common to encounter a company these days that thinks the customer experience is more important than the quarterly revenue numbers.

Todoist is another such company. I tried their premium plan a while back and it wasn't what I was looking for. It was remarkably easy to cancel. Work changed, and I didn't hesitate to buy a subscription.

I'll check todoist as well — thx for mentioning it! Hopefully yeah, it will become the standard to facilitate even the churn process

I like what Basecamp are about and the way they've sculpted their brand — voice, feeling, visuals etc.

> I wish them all the best for their product.

That's their win. And actually your whole post in itself. Wouldnt' be surprised if someone else starts buying their service thanks to a comment like this one or you mentioning it to a friend.

Thx for the example!

They also talk about this philosophy in their earlier book Getting Real (which I highly recommend, one of the best product books I've read): respect your customers by making it easy for them to cancel and take their data with them and avoid the dark patterns so many companies use with cancellation.

Wow, it's 2019 and there are people still using Basecamp...

You might be an exception. If you leave a service, you probably will never return. It might still be more profitable to just make sure the customer stay as long as possible by creating barriers to leaving.

I understand business people having this kind of mentality, but don't they realize that it can create resentment?

I've gone out of my way to cancel (and permanently ignore) certain services in the past when I discovered how difficult it was to cancel (and port my data).

most importantly, it creates regulations.

But for the rest of my life, if someone asks me about X, I'll remember the experience and give my opinions about it.

And our remembrance of a thing is heavily weighted by the last or most recent part of the experience.

Businesses will go to any lengths to get a good review on Yelp or whatever, but are happy to permanently contaminate the experiences of every single one of their experienced customers by making it really hard and painful to leave. This is crazy.

But that's so short-sighted. There are other things to consider. Word of mouth is powerful, and if you make it difficult people are going to remember that and tell their peers/friends/coworkers/whoever. And what's going to happen if you decide to pivot, create another product, or add additional value? If you made it so difficult the first time around why would I give it a second chance?

People leave services then return to them later all the time.

I've lived one place and needed an internet connection, moved in with someone so I didn't need an internet connection, moved again and I needed a connection again.

I've used Trello, closed my account in preference for Jira, then later in a different job with different needs used Trello again.

Hell, for a lot of products I'd say that former customers - who have a proven need for the thing the product does, and a proven willingness to pay for a product that does it - are probably the single demographic most likely to be future customers.

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