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Boolean Field Unsubscribing Existing Customers

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Anonymous
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Boolean Field Unsubscribing Existing Customers

Hello,

     I wanted to find out if someone has a solution / workaround for an issue we're experiencing.

For our customer contact forms, we have a Boolean field that allows customers to subscribe to our marketing communications. Due to laws in some countries we market to, we never have this field auto checked.

However, we are experiencing an issue in the following scenario:

  • An existing customer fills out contact form
  • Existing customer is already subscribed to marketing communications, so they do not check the "Subscribe to Marketing Communications" check box every time they fill out a form
    • Note: We do not activate form prefill on this subscription box because we do not want to give the appearance of auto filling this for the customer, even though they are already subscribed
  • The form changes their True value in the Boolean field to False, effectively unsubscribing the customer, when this was not the desired outcome from the customer

There are only two ways I can think of to fix this, but I want to find out if there is a better way (e.g. have a boolean not submit a value, rather than always submitting a FALSE value when unchecked)

1. Instead of check boxes, use a select box with "Null / True / False" value options

2. Have a smart campaign that recognizes this behavior, then turns the value from False back to True, if the unsubscribe field is False.

Thanks

Jason

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SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Re: Boolean Field Unsubscribing Existing Customers

Empty stored value won't overwrite.

The actual string "NULL" will overwrite.

See here, perhaps, for more: http://blog.teknkl.com/clearing-lead-fields-when-no-value-submitted/

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4 REPLIES 4
SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Re: Boolean Field Unsubscribing Existing Customers

The problem is if they check and uncheck the checkbox, you will not know if the checkbox state at form submission was the original untouched state, or if they deliberately changed it.

If you continue to use a checkbox, and If applicable laws require you to not reflect earlier consent -- even when the consent was expressly given in the past and you can show them the timestamp -- then there's no solution to this problem. You'll never be able to distinguish "do not change stored value" from "change stored value to 'no'" with just a checkbox.

You can switch to radio buttons Subscribe/Unsubcribe/Do Not Change instead.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Boolean Field Unsubscribing Existing Customers

Hi Sanford,

     Thanks for the response. That was exactly what I was thinking regarding the smart campaign approach with the checkbox.

Okay, I can add the radio buttons as an option for us to consider. One follow up question I have for you regarding the select boxes. When we create a select box, we have the following options with the displayed versus stored values:

  • Select... |
  • Yes | TRUE
  • No | FALSE

Just so I understand this properly, if the customer leaves the select field set to "Select..." which is matched to a NULL stored value, this should not overwrite an existing value of "TRUE" with "NULL" correct?

Thanks!

Jason

SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Re: Boolean Field Unsubscribing Existing Customers

Empty stored value won't overwrite.

The actual string "NULL" will overwrite.

See here, perhaps, for more: http://blog.teknkl.com/clearing-lead-fields-when-no-value-submitted/

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Boolean Field Unsubscribing Existing Customers

Fantastic, thanks as always for the help Sanford!

Jason