Jananas

The simple answer to this is: don’t have a provider specific e-mail address. Nice advice, but a lot of us still have e-mail addresses that we got 5 or 10 years ago when having an independant web based e-mail address wasn’t as commonplace. Realistically, people already have ISP-specific e-mail addresses and will likely change ISPs over time – either because they are switching providers or because they are moving out of a service area – which means the frustration and hassle of having to update information. I admit that I’m a little nervous about potentially changing providers because even if I notify people that I’m switching, not everyone will get the message.

From a business perspective, I can understand that a company wants to create as many barriers to exit as they can for customers. This can make sense when customers are switching to another local provider (oh no, not the competition!), because you’d rather have the full $60 or $100 a month to yourself. However, I have to wonder if this is a shortsighted view of profitability. When the real question is would you like nothing or $20 annually, isn’t the $20 better?

Understanding that this is a customer-centric idea and view of product development/design, why don’t ISPs introduce an e-mail only service? For $20 a year you could keep your e-mail address and have unlimited space on the web servers for your e-mail. If customers are adamant about switching to another provider, you can use this as a down sell option/retention tool and still retain some revenue. The option creates customer goodwill, which I believe is vital to long term success and is often ignored, and additionally continues to provide brand awareness for your company. For customers moving out of your service area (either domestically or internationally), it also begins to build awareness of you as an international or global player/brand.

Really, think of it as the web version of number portability.