How does Subaio cancel subscriptions and can it work in my country?
So first off, we’ll define how a subscription even works. We’re going to start with a really short example. We’re going to use Peter as an example. Peter has a subscription on a newspaper and to get that newspaper he’s of course paying on a regular basis, but he also has a contract with the newspaper as well.
So there are these two streams and if Peter is to get out of this subscription he needs to cancel both: the payment and also the contract. It’s not enough just cancelling the payment side of things, so how it is established is very important in understanding how Subaio’s subscription management platform also works. Because we’ve built this system on two different European directives, and these two directives are protecting Peter and other European consumers against ways of not getting out of these different subscriptions.
This means that, for instance, the newspaper can’t dictate Peter that he has to go into a certain form on the website and use that to get out of the subscription. They can’t dictate that he is to go into a special physical place and knock on the door, and be there at a certain time to get out of that subscription. No, Peter can choose a way to get out of these different subscriptions, and this is where the European Union directives are helping both Peter and the service from Subaio.
Let’s turn towards how Peter is then interacting with the product. So what Peter does is that he will go into his mobile phone, or he’ll go into his desktop, and he’ll log into his banking environment, because that’s where Subaio’s white label format is living, which means that it’s within the banking environment and here he will find an overview of his different recurring payments.
He’s going to find one that he finds “well I don’t need this anymore, I don’t need this newspaper anymore, I’ll just click on it” – and then he’ll start the cancellation process. The next step will be that we will ask him to sign a power of attorney, and once that is done then he just presses the button, and then we take over.
Then it’s Subaio that’s doing all the hard work from there on. So we like to see ourselves as the helpers of these different consumers and what we do is that, instead of Peter being the one calling and waiting in line forever, then we’re the ones doing that to get out of a subscription. We’re the ones sending emails back and forth with these different subscription companies to get Peter out of that subscription. So we’re the ones really doing everything in our power to get out of these different subscriptions.
And on average it takes us two days to get out of a subscription and that means that when Peter is pressing the cancel button it takes two days before he’s out of the subscription as well. And this number can be much lower. For some of these subscriptions, it can be minutes, while for others it can take several days. It’s very dependent on the subscription company, as well in this sense because we’re not just asking about when is Peter getting out of the subscription. No, we also know that Peter wants to know when is the last time I can use the subscription and also when is the last payment I’m going to make for this subscription as well. So we’re asking these questions and we’re getting that info and giving that to Peter and the other consumers.
