Terms, Privacy Policy, and Your Customers

I talked about Stan Craigie and his GIMP training videos in my last blog post. Today I want to talk about the terms of service on your website, your privacy policy, and whether they truly reflect your concern for your customers. And then I’ll tie the two together — I promise!

Are your privacy policy and terms of service driving away customers? In some cases, they are, especially if I visit your site. I can name at least two instances off the top of my head where I’ve literally had my credit card pulled out of my wallet and was ready to purchase — but stopped when I read what those marketers wanted to do with my personal data. I can also name two other instances (including one that involves Mr. Craigie) where the website owner positively responded by changing the terms to better protect my data, which led to a sale (and in the case of Mr. Craigie, lots of sales — if a few of you reading this will purchase his inexpensive graphics training course).

First off, if you are going to have a website — be it commercial or personal — you need to have a standard set of policies. There are many free ones out there for the budget conscious among us, but I recommend that you invest a few dollars to get a good set. Check out my legal page to read my terms, then follow the link at the bottom of that page to see the solution that I purchased. I think that it represents a good value.

Next: it’s easy to get carried away and to write your terms so that they protect you, and only you. There’s at least one person on the Internet (who is, or was at one time, a lawyer), who seems to have some excellent products — but his terms of service are so one-sided that I won’t purchase any of his products. And the sad thing is that he must be selling a solution so that others can basically use the same terms because I see them popping up on other web sites. I’m certain that they would say, “Hey, don’t worry about it, it’s there ‘just in case’ and I’m sure I won’t have a problem with you” — but am I supposed to give up every single legal right I have — plus $47? — just to get your product? And you can bet your donkey that if a problem does arise, they’ll whip out those terms and use them to severely cut down any claim that I want to make.

Once burned, twice careful. Sorry, but those terms show a lack of consideration for me, your potential customer, so I’m not buying.

And what about privacy policies? I learned the hard way to read them when I started getting spammed by hundreds of wanna-be marketers. Turns out that one product I purchased gave the product and website owner my implied consent to sell my contact details to whomever he wanted to sell them to. I’ve even met this person face to face at a conference; he’s a really nice and smart guy, but he routinely sells your contact information as often as he can.

Of course, the flip side of this is that people who purchase and use his lists get spam complaints, and since they don’t have proof of opt-in, they get to deal with the complaints (and CAN-SPAM allows for fines of up to $11,000 PER COMPLAINT). Think Mr. Nice Guy, But I’m Going To Sell Your Email Address To Anybody and Everybody Marketer is going to help them get out of that pickle? I doubt it. So stay away from those lists unless you have some way of confirming their opt-in status first.

So my advice is this: Read those terms of service and privacy policies before you pull out your credit card and hit the “Order” link. In fact, read the things as soon as you first visit a website (my terms state that simply using my website implies consent to the terms). And if you don’t like the terms, contact the person (unless they are one of these people that says that they can use anything you send to them in any manner they want to, in which case I would not contact them. Do you want your complaint letter posted on Page 1 of their blog?) and simply tell them that you have concerns with their policies and that those concerns are preventing you from purchasing. Some people will listen (and I’ll tell you about two of them in a moment).

Even better: Read the terms on your websites. Is this how you would want to be treated if you were a customer? If not, change them. Now. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is a good rule to follow. Strike a balance between leaving yourself wide open and demanding that web site visitors give up every right they possess just to read your blog.

And now, about those two marketers who listened: As I already (unintentionally) mentioned, the first is Stan Craigie. He made some changes to his policies to make them a bit fairer. As a result, I not only purchased his course, I also promote it.

The other is Dr. Andy Williams, the content site guru and all-around helpful guy. I can’t say enough about his graceful response when I, as an ignoramus, posted complaints about his policies on a forum (instead of contacting him directly). He changed his policies and gained a customer (and I learned a lesson that I’ll try not to forget). I’m glad to see this because his materials really do rock (and if you haven’t already, I recommend his free newsletter; just click on his name to learn how to sign up. Just don’t forget to READ the darn thing when it arrives, OK?).

So here are some takeaways for you:

* Read your own terms of service and your privacy policy. If you would not want to be treated that way on a website, consider changing them.

* Your terms may be driving away customers.

* Read the terms and privacy policy before using a website or purchasing something from it.

* Don’t use a list of emails given to you by somebody else unless you really know what you are doing.

And by all means, if my policies and terms give you heartburn, contact me and tell me about it. I will listen to what you have to say.