Initially, I was super-impressed with the vast capability of the Zoho system, and we moved quickly with trialling a variety of Zoho tools and applications. Within a few months, it became apparent that the breath-taking complexity of the system meant that we could not convince team members to use tools efficiently, and we dropped it – but that is not what this post is about…
During our Zoho experience, we decided to try them out as a lead capture and auto-responder system for a new client – something similar to MailChimp. The client organized a paid subscription, last August. Due to the difficulty of using the Zoho system, the account was never used, and the client neglected to cancel it. About two weeks ago, Zoho emailed my client and asked them to update their credit card details. The client asked us to assist with cancelling the account.
Initially, I assigned this task to a junior staff member. It seemed simple enough – cancel a Zoho subscription. Nothing could have been further from the truth. I ended up personally wasting over two hours, running around in circles to try and figure out how to cancel the subscription and terminate the account. It turns out I wasn’t the only one having trouble. Zoho’s forums are FULL of pissed off people, who also can’t figure out how to do this. The answers provided by Zoho support on their forums are misleading at best, and downright deceitful at worst.
I eventually emailed support. Three times. I also made two (completely pointless) phone calls. In my final email to Zoho, I threatened legal action if they didn’t respond. That seemed to do the trick. Here is their response:
Hello Tony,
My sincere apologies for the delayed response.
We see that there is a Zoho Campaigns account under ‘[clients email]’. Since a paid service is active, you cannot close the organisation online.
To update card information or to downgrade the Campaigns account, you need to log in as Super admin ‘[clients email]’.
Kindly follow the below steps to change your credit card details online,
- Login to Zoho Campaigns account as Super Admin.
- Click on the Upgrade link (at the right top of the page)/ Settings module –> Subscription.
- In Subscription page, you will find Change Credit Card Details below Current Plan Details.
- Click on the link to change the credit card details.
- Enter the required details and click Save button to confirm.
We are updating our user interface so that you will have all advantages as the other Zoho Products.
For downloading the invoices:
As of now, we do not have a Link where you can download the Invoices relating to the Zoho Campaigns service. But If you would like to get all the invoices, I will provide you all the invoice copies in a separate e-mail.
Before closing the account, you will have to downgrade the account to a free plan.
Please follow the steps to downgrade your Zoho Campaigns subscription details,
- Login to Zoho Campaigns account as Super Admin.
- Click on the Upgrade link (at the right top of the page)/ Settings module –> Subscription.
- In Subscription page, you will find Cancel Your Subscription below Current Plan Details.
- Click on that link to cancel the subscription.
- Click Cancel Subscription button to confirm.
Once your account is downgraded, Please send us an e-mail, so that we shall delete the account form our end.
We are extremely sorry for the inconvenience caused and will certainly look forward in assisting you regarding this.
Thanks & Regards,
[nameless support idiot]
Zoho payments | Zoho Corp
As ridiculous and convoluted as their procedure for payment deactivation and account closure is, they do in fact have one. You just can’t find it online – and that appears to be a very deliberate omission on their part. Others and myself are wasting hundreds of hours attempting to find this information, which they make as difficult as possible to obtain.
My advice to anyone considering dealing with Zoho is – well – don’t. I hate to say it, but it’s clear that this organization sets out to make the task of closing an account as difficult as possible. As if that isn’t bad enough, they clearly withhold that information from their website, and their support team only responds to serious threats of legal action. That’s not a great deal however you look at it.
In a later blog, I’ll detail my experience of using Zoho. It’s something that seemed great at first blush, but which failed to live up to expectation.
This article was originally published on tonygavin.com
