The real effect of abandoning subscriber after sign-up

No one wants to feel rejected, as rejection causes a wide range of emotional responses – from anger and resentment, to anxiety and sadness. OTT brands are probably unaware that due to undervaluing loyal subscribers and failing to communicate after they’ve signed up, consumers can feel rejected by their service providers. Brands tend to create one-way loyalty, where they want loyalty from the subscriber, but in turn make that subscriber feel like nothing but a number.

From Rejection to Negativity

The problem with rejection, is that it is linked to a person’s self-esteem, and these negative experiences are remembered much more keenly that positive ones. The brain gives four to five times more though to negativity than positivity, so for ever one negative experience a subscriber has with an OTT service, there needs to be four or five positive ones to make up for it.

For a relationship to stay positive and last, there needs to be a lot of effort and positive input from both sides, but brands tend not to be so committed after the acquisition stage.

Positivity Matters

Whether a subscriber is planning to stay signed up to a service, or leave for whatever reason, it’s important they have as many positive memories as possible. Leaving on a negative makes it highly unlikely they will ever be ‘won back’. It’s easier to a keep a relationship great by constantly working on it and investing into it, that in is to find another and start the process all over again, and brands need to put as much effort into their current subscribers as they do to finding new ones.

Find out more about why customers leave OTT services and how to encourage a pain-free winback by downloading our ‘Psychology of a Subscriber: Part 3 – Churn’ research.