Termination of Subscription (DE)

Context

As part of the new Fair Consumer Contracts Act,[1] Germany requires specific cancellation/termination mechanisms for consumer subscriptions. These mechanisms come on top of the updated EU-wide consumer contract rules under the EU Directives on Contracts for Digital Services and Content and on Contracts for the Consumer Sale of Goods and have taken effect on July 1, 2022.

Businesses offering subscriptions to German consumers will have to provide a specifically labeled button for their online retail channels that leads to a contact form through which consumers must be enabled to cancel existing subscriptions with the click of only one further button. If sufficient data to identify the subscription to be canceled is entered by the consumer, the submission of the form will itself be a valid cancellation, the effect of which cannot be made subject to further steps such as logins or second factor (e.g., email, app) confirmations.

The solution, therefore, requires the following;

Certain online channels through which consumers can enter into subscriptions will have to prominently feature an omnipresent button labeled “Terminate contracts here” (Verträge hier kündigen).
Operating the “Terminate contracts here” button must lead directly to a form where the consumer can enter (i) identifying information on the person of the consumer and the contract that they intend to terminate (e.g., consumer name, contract/customer number etc.), (ii) information as to the type of termination that is sought (i.e., for cause or for convenience), (iii) an intended subscription end date, as well as (iv) an address for the provider to send an electronic submission receipt to.
The page with the aforementioned form must contain a second button labeled “terminate now” (jetzt kündigen). Operating this button must directly submit the form content.
Provided that sufficient data was entered, the submission will be a valid termination, which cannot be made dependent on further steps such as logins or second factor (e.g., email, app) confirmations.
The provider will also have to immediately confirm the submission electronically to the address provided for such confirmation in the form.

(https://www.mofo.com/, May 2022)

User's journey

Users' and operators' journeys are described in the table below.

1

2

3

4

5

Institution landing page
(User will click on a link "Verträge hier kündigen")

Managed by SecuTix client or by client's digital agency

Click on the link opens a custom form in a new tab chosen and created by an institution.

The user will fill in the form with relevant data.

The forms can be set by different tools including; CRM forms, WordPress forms, 3rd party tools for surveys, etc.

The form needs to allow renaming the submission button to "Terminate now" at the end.

The form needs to send an email to the internet user with confirmation that the submission of the request has been successfully received.

The form functionality will record the request and the SecuTix Operator should be informed.

The SecuTix operator will open the SecuTix backoffice and find the contact in the Contacts CRM based on the information provided from the form application.

The Operator will then set the criteria for "Stop renewal season ticket" to "yes".

Click on the image below to see the user flow on how to set the criteria.

With this action, the contact's subscription will not be part of the renewal batch.

Ticketshop landing page
(User will click on a footer link "Verträge hier kündigen")

Managed by SecuTix operator

Another possibility is to immediately terminate the season tickets (or memberships) by cancelling the file from the back office. With this action, the season ticket validity is disabled immediately. In such a scenario, the renewal for that particular contact will not happen when running the batch for the membership/season ticket subscription renewal.

The form

The client needs to use the type of form that enables the following functionality;

Customization of the fields (type of data entered, e.g. text input, checkboxes, ...)
Provides the ability to not make fields mandatory to fill
Provides the ability to (re)name the submissions button to “Jetzt kündigen”
Automatically sends the email to the “submitter” as a confirmation that the termination request was received
The listed information must be in the confirmation message
Collects the submitted requests

The recommended form fields

Name and Address
Electronic contact address
Description of a contract to be terminated
Type of termination and justification
Date of termination

In case the clients don't have a preferred way of setting the form, we suggest using the following form builder tool: https://forms.app/
The tool will have to be purchased by the client.