Customer cancellation and retention strategies

Present customers with a list of customized cancellation options when they attempt to cancel their subscription. Include incentives to encourage customers to remain subscribed, and prevent customer churn.

This guide provides an overview of the Customer Retention Strategy feature, how to create and manage cancellation reasons, and how to create incentive options for your customers.

Demystifying Customer Churn

Before you start

• Stores created after October 23, 2023, do not have these customer cancellation and retention strategy settings. You can create a Cancellation Prevention Subscription Experience in place of these settings.
  • For stores created before October 23, 2023, a banner displays in your customer portal settings so that you can convert your current retention strategies to a new Cancellation Prevention Subscription Experience.
• Customer cancellation and retention strategy settings are removed after you activate a Cancellation Prevention experience. It is not possible to revert your settings. After activating a Cancellation Prevention experience, you can manage all cancellation reasons and retention strategies within the Subscription Experience.
   

Enable Customer Retention Strategies for your customers

1. In the merchant portal, select Storefront, then select Customer Portal.
2. Under Cancellation and retention, enable the option Allow subscriber to cancel in their customer portal.
3. In the Cancellation and customer retention section, add cancellation reasons using the Add reason for cancellation button. You can modify existing cancellation reasons by clicking the name of any reason listed. The default for customer retention strategies is that they are optional to choose one.
4. Click Save to save your changes.

Pause subscriptions

The pause subscription option enables customers to temporarily pause their subscription when attempting to cancel it in the customer portal. This feature also gives you control over the pause interval options.

This feature lives within the cancellation flow. When enabled, if a customer chooses Cancel Subscription in the customer portal, a prompt appears offering the option to Pause Subscription instead. From the prompt, the customer has the option to either pause or cancel their subscription.

Refer to Pause, cancel, or delete a subscription for more information.

Manage Customer Retention Strategies

By default, customers are only given the option to provide a cancellation reason, but it is not mandatory. You can toggle this feature on or off. 

• When toggled on - Customers are given the option to provide a cancellation reason.
• When toggled off - Customers must provide a cancellation reason.  

Once you have toggled on the feature, you can begin creating cancellation reasons and incentives.

1. Click the Add reason for cancellation button. 
2. Enter your cancellation reason. You can choose to provide a customized response and add an incentive for the customer to continue the subscription. 
3. Click Save.

Once your cancellation reason is created, you can modify cancellation reasons at any time by clicking on them. To delete a cancellation reason, click the trash bin icon.

Offer incentives

When setting up a cancellation reason, you can select the radio button to Offer an incentive for customer to continue subscription to create a call-to-action. Customers are presented with an incentive option when they attempt to cancel their subscription.

Apply discount

If a customer selects a cancellation with a discount option, a discount code is provided. If they choose to apply the discount code, Recharge applies it to their next order.

To set up an Apply discount call to action: 

1. Create a discount code in Recharge. 
2. In your merchant portal, click on Storefront and select Customer portal. Access the Cancellation and retention section.
3. Click any of the existing cancellation reasons, or click Add reason for cancellation to create a new one. 
4. Click the radio button to Offer an incentive and click Apply discount. Enter the discount code in the Discount code field.
5. Click Save.

Once the customer accepts the discount and it’s applied to their account, the discount code will override any existing subscription discount. Additionally, the incentive discount code will be visible to the customer in the customer portal. You can create a specific incentive discount code and configure this code to only apply to the next charge.

Skip Next Charge

The Skip Next Charge incentive is useful when customers are cancelling because they have too many products. This incentive works like the skip option on the Delivery Schedule page by allowing customers to skip their next order date.

To create a Skip next charge call-to-action:

1. In your merchant portal, click on Storefront and select Customer portal. Access the Cancellation and retention section.
2. Click any of the existing cancellation reasons, or click Add reason for cancellation to create a new one. 
3. Select the Skip next charge radio button.
4. Click Save.

Delay subscription

Another option for when a customer has too much product or will be away is to set up a subscription delay. This incentive uses the frequency from the product's subscription rule to offer delay options to the customer.

To create a Delay subscription call-to-action:

1. In your merchant portal, click on Storefront and select Customer portal. Access the Cancellation and retention section.
2. Click any of the existing cancellation reasons, or click Add reason for cancellation to create a new one. 
3. Select the Delay subscription radio button.
4. Click Save.

Swap product

The Swap product incentive works the same as the Swap link in the customer portal. It allows customers to choose a new product and stay subscribed instead of cancelling.

To set up a Swap product call-to-action:

1. In your merchant portal, click on Storefront and select Customer portal. Access the Cancellation and retention section.
2. Click any of the existing cancellation reasons, or click Add reason for cancellation to create a new one. 
3. Select the Swap product radio button.
4. Click Save.

View the cancellation reasons

Customers are presented with cancellation reasons after selecting Cancel subscription. To require cancellation reasons from your subscriber, toggle off Make cancellation reasons optional.

Customize the Cancellation Reasons

You can customize the cancellation reasons prompted to your customers when managing their subscriptions, as well as adjust the cancellation button verbiage. 

To change the cancellation reasons:

1. In the merchant portal, click Storefront and select Customer portal.
2. Click the pencil icon to edit the reason listed under Reasons for cancellation to make individual changes. Additionally, you can click the trash icon to delete a cancellation reason. 

To change the button text:

1. In the merchant portal, click Storefront and select Copy & translations.
2. Depending on the portal you use, select one of the following:
   • Click the Customer Portal - Affinity tab and then Cancellation if you use the Affinity Customer Portal.
   • Click the Customer Portal - Themes tab and select the Cancellation with retention strategy dropdown if  you are using a legacy theme.
3. Edit the button text
4. Click Save when finished.

Analyze your data

Download the Subscription - Cancelled report to view customer cancellation reasons.

1. In your merchant portal, click Tools & apps and select Exports. 
2. Select Create export.
3. Choose Subscription - Cancelled from the dropdown menu.
4. Name your export and add the email address for where you want to receive the export. 
5. Select Create export.

The export will be emailed to you when created. You can also go back to the Export page to download a copy of the export you created. Select the download icon under Actions.

Resources

See Cancellation Prevention FAQs for additional information. To learn more about managing customer support for subscribers, check out this video.