After death deletion.
One of the very early starting points of my journey on the endings road was hearing a story from a friend about the impossibility of leaving a service when a person dies. The friends father had died. Who was also the account holder of the service. That service was now ringing, almost daily, the grieving family to pay the bills on the service. The family couldn’t pay, as the account was linked to another account that they also couldn’t take control of.
Although the family said the account holder had past away, it was like the service provider had encountered a parallel universe where no-one dies. There was no procedures, no empathy, and clearly no service script. It was like the company had never imagined people dying. Which on one hand isn’t surprising, seeing as there is such blindness in many industries about ending a consumer experience. After all, it took Facebook and Google seven years to recognised people died. On the other hand it is the most common user case on earth which binds us all – if you were born, you are going to die.
So it is great to see a business like Closure, taking on the promise of end of life meaning a smooth end of service as well. The co-founder and CEO Graciëlla van Vliet describes the service goals as, “to support heirs by handling the digital legacy of a loved one. This way, families can focus on what is most important at this moment in life: mourning.” I think this is the perfect approach to this complicated tech issue – remove the tech and return to well established human emotions.
Closure are not just dealing with grieving family side of the digital death issue. They also help businesses manage the issue. Closure CTO Bart Verhaegh says, “By applying numerous machine learning technologies, a single employee can now handle hundreds of requests a day. We not only unburden heirs but also help organisations process a death notification in a care-free and less laborious manner, as typically customer service desks do not grow proportional to the company’s customer base.”
Another good, in fact I think critical thing, with Closure is they seemed to have done their research on the user base. Who are often unfamiliar with digital services because they are elderly. They have put human contact, via a phone call, as a the primary communication method, and promised no passwords. This is refreshing, I have seen way to many companies attempting to get in to the digital death area by throwing more digital in to a situation that requires less.
It is reassuring to see a company like Closure enter the end of product/person issue with such a sensitive proposition.
