How to return to the iPad view on WSJ app?

Yeah- I really liked the “Off Duty” as well. Such a shame.

I’m not going to write them a letter. They are aware that we’re not happy. The first guy I spoke to told me that most of the calls they are getting are now complaints and cancellations. They know. The power of the purse hits harder than the power of the pen.

I just wrote them telling them I was canceling when my subscription expires in a few weeks. I also included a link to this discussion.

As an aside, I tried using the chat function, and it is about as useless as the new app.

I just got a response to an email I sent to their VP Customer Service. Lots of words that indicate that they received the correspondence but don’t really say anything.

Thank you for your correspondence to Mr. San Filippo. We are the Customer Care Solutions Team for Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal. Your inquiry has been escalated to our attention and we are happy to assist.

We are always taking subscribers' feedback and concerns to escalate to the appropriate team as we see fit. Your insight and opinion are valued by us as we try to make The Wall Street Journal pleasurable to all subscribers. We have created a Voice of the Customer on your behalf to forward along. We are privileged to be a part of our subscribers' daily routine and will continue to bring the news, views, resources, and services that people count on to stay ahead.

I cancelled yesterday. I told them a premium price ($469/year) deserves a premium experience. I can get a "twitter" feed of news stories from anywhere.

Today I enabled my FT subscription and the interface is really good for browsing news keeping up on current events. Time to "turn the page." Thanks for the push WSJ.

See what I did there? :)

Wow, I can't believe all these people are also canceling WSJ. Me do. What a terrible experience for something I pay for, AND has a terrible ad experience too.

It's like the people raising up "against the man".

The WSJ app was what I wished other apps were until the change. I hope some other news outlet will take up the challenge. I was great READING (not watching videos) the news in such a pleasant, readable, intuitive format. It was coffee, WSJ, and quiet every morning before work. It was one of my favorite parts of the day.

Here is my non-response from WSJ customer service:

Thank you for your correspondence to Mr. San Filippo. We are the Customer Care Solutions Team for Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal. Your inquiry has been escalated to our attention and we are happy to assist.

We are always taking subscribers' feedback and concerns to escalate to the appropriate team as we see fit. Your insight and opinion are valued by us as we try to make The Wall Street Journal pleasurable to all subscribers. We have created a Voice of the Customer on your behalf to forward along. We are privileged to be a part of our subscribers' daily routine and will continue to bring the news, views, resources, and services that people count on to stay ahead.

Cordially,

Jason

I doubt the WSJ is reading this.

I encourage you to share your thought w/VP Customer Service.

t.sanfilippo@dowjones.com

You will get a scripted response from Jason.... that really doesn't address the problem, sounds a lot like the on-hold message that tells you how important your call is. I copy those and send them back to Mr. San Filippo with comments.

TH

I followed up on the canned response I got from WSJ Customer Service; here is the personal response:

Thank you for your reply. I am happy to answer those for you. 

1. A Voice of Customer is when we take our members insights and opinions regarding our products and forward them to the appropriate team so they may review them and act accordingly. This is similar to how most companies have a complaint form or escalation path. 

2. All of our teams are aware of the ongoing conversation regarding our recent change. 

Cordially,

Jason

E: ***

P: 87***

Twitter: ***

[Edited by Moderator]

Is there another venue we can take this discussion for broader distribution, like Reddit or Twitter? I am not a member of either, but it seems like if the topic gets into one of the mainstream discussion boards it could become something WSJ couldn't ignore.

Can someone post a link to one of these discussions or start one? Would love to see NYT get ahold of this one!

Interesting take on what VOC is. VOC is typically done prior to a change to make sure they don't damage their business with the change. I noticed that they say all team members are aware of the ongoing conversation regarding the recent changes, but they haven't spoken to the market.

Jason must be the only guy in Customer Service, since his name is on all the correspondence I've had. Might be a CS BOT.

Finally, someone at the WSJ should read the WSJ and the many articles they've written on Twitter's change to X. Still have the "Twitter" address in the address line.

I have been a subscriber for 50+ years. I was very confused when this change hit and was fortunate to find this discussion thread. I can’t believe WSJ made a change like this without any communication to its subscribers. This is a very expensive subscription but we are being treated like this is some freeby app. I am very dissatisfied but have not cancelled yet. I am hoping WSJ comes to their senses.

Great advice. In addition, when I cancelled they wanted to pro-rate my subscription fee. I said no and am refusing to pay the bill since the took away what I had purchased without notifying me that they were taking it.

Had to open a case with my credit card company to not pay my bill. CC company has made multiple attempts to get in touch with them and they have not responded.

This is a great point. We paid WSJ $$$ for the content and our user experience of accessing that content.. WSJ has degraded the user experience- not what we paid $$$ for and this change can be considered fraud. No different from the car dealer popping in at 3 am to swap out your car for a Yugo. We would have to explain the Yugo analogy to these people.

I've been searching online everyday to see if WSJ has made a statement about whether they will revert back to the previous version and if so, an estimated time when that may happen. So far no success.

I'd much prefer to know some concrete action has been taken, whether it be "we have decided to go forward with this app that no one likes" or "we are reverting back to the old app and we expect this to happen in x days". Keeping silent or telling us our concerns have been escalated just seem insincere and arrogant.

This experience has made me appreciate the importance of user experience design. I did some searches and emailed a prominent figure in the field. Hopefully that person will make a case study out of this and teach future UX designers what not to do.