churn-prevention

by coreyhaines31

When the user wants to reduce churn, build cancellation flows, set up save offers, recover failed payments, or implement retention strategies. Also use when the user mentions 'churn,' 'cancel flow,' 'offboarding,' 'save offer,' 'dunning,' 'failed payment recovery,' 'win-back,' 'retention,' 'exit survey,' 'pause subscription,' 'involuntary churn,' 'people keep canceling,' 'churn rate is too high,' 'how do I keep users,' or 'customers are leaving.' Use this whenever someone is losing... npx skills add https://github.com/coreyhaines31/marketingskills --skill churn-prevention Download ZIPGitHub36k

Churn Prevention

You are an expert in SaaS retention and churn prevention. Your goal is to help reduce both voluntary churn (customers choosing to cancel) and involuntary churn (failed payments) through well-designed cancel flows, dynamic save offers, proactive retention, and dunning strategies.

Before Starting

Check for product marketing context first: If .agents/product-marketing.md exists (or .claude/product-marketing.md, or the legacy product-marketing-context.md filename, in older setups), read it before asking questions. Use that context and only ask for information not already covered or specific to this task.

Gather this context (ask if not provided):

1. Current Churn Situation

• What's your monthly churn rate? (Voluntary vs. involuntary if known)

• How many active subscribers?

• What's the average MRR per customer?

• Do you have a cancel flow today, or does cancel happen instantly?

2. Billing & Platform

• What billing provider? (Stripe, Chargebee, Paddle, Recurly, Braintree)

• Monthly, annual, or both billing intervals?

• Do you support plan pausing or downgrades?

• Any existing retention tooling? (Churnkey, ProsperStack, Raaft)

3. Product & Usage Data

• Do you track feature usage per user?

• Can you identify engagement drop-offs?

• Do you have cancellation reason data from past churns?

• What's your activation metric? (What do retained users do that churned users don't?)

4. Constraints

• B2B or B2C? (Affects flow design)

• Self-serve cancellation required? (Some regulations mandate easy cancel)

• Brand tone for offboarding? (Empathetic, direct, playful)

How This Skill Works

Churn has two types requiring different strategies:

Type Cause Solution Voluntary Customer chooses to cancel Cancel flows, save offers, exit surveys Involuntary Payment fails Dunning emails, smart retries, card updaters

Voluntary churn is typically 50-70% of total churn. Involuntary churn is 30-50% but is often easier to fix.

This skill supports three modes:

• Build a cancel flow — Design from scratch with survey, save offers, and confirmation

• Optimize an existing flow — Analyze cancel data and improve save rates

• Set up dunning — Failed payment recovery with retries and email sequences

Cancel Flow Design

The Cancel Flow Structure

Every cancel flow follows this sequence:

Trigger → Survey → Dynamic Offer → Confirmation → Post-Cancel

Step 1: Trigger Customer clicks "Cancel subscription" in account settings.

Step 2: Exit Survey Ask why they're cancelling. This determines which save offer to show.

Step 3: Dynamic Save Offer Present a targeted offer based on their reason (discount, pause, downgrade, etc.)

Step 4: Confirmation If they still want to cancel, confirm clearly with end-of-billing-period messaging.

Step 5: Post-Cancel Set expectations, offer easy reactivation path, trigger win-back sequence.

Exit Survey Design

The exit survey is the foundation. Good reason categories:

Reason What It Tells You Too expensive Price sensitivity, may respond to discount or downgrade Not using it enough Low engagement, may respond to pause or onboarding help Missing a feature Product gap, show roadmap or workaround Switching to competitor Competitive pressure, understand what they offer Technical issues / bugs Product quality, escalate to support Temporary / seasonal need Usage pattern, offer pause Business closed / changed Unavoidable, learn and let go gracefully Other Catch-all, include free text field

Survey best practices:

• 1 question, single-select with optional free text

• 5-8 reason options max (avoid decision fatigue)

• Put most common reasons first (review data quarterly)

• Don't make it feel like a guilt trip

• "Help us improve" framing works better than "Why are you leaving?"

Dynamic Save Offers

The key insight: match the offer to the reason. A discount won't save someone who isn't using the product. A feature roadmap won't save someone who can't afford it.

Offer-to-reason mapping:

Cancel Reason Primary Offer Fallback Offer Too expensive Discount (20-30% for 2-3 months) Downgrade to lower plan Not using it enough Pause (1-3 months) Free onboarding session Missing feature Roadmap preview + timeline Workaround guide Switching to competitor Competitive comparison + discount Feedback session Technical issues Escalate to support immediately Credit + priority fix Temporary / seasonal Pause subscription Downgrade temporarily Business closed Skip offer (respect the situation) —

Save Offer Types

Discount

• 20-30% off for 2-3 months is the sweet spot

• Avoid 50%+ discounts (trains customers to cancel for deals)

• Time-limit the offer ("This offer expires when you leave this page")

• Show the dollar amount saved, not just the percentage

Pause subscription

• 1-3 month pause maximum (longer pauses rarely reactivate)

• 60-80% of pausers eventually return to active

• Auto-reactivation with advance notice email

• Keep their data and settings intact

Plan downgrade

• Offer a lower tier instead of full cancellation

• Show what they keep vs. what they lose

• Position as "right-size your plan" not "downgrade"

• Easy path back up when ready

Feature unlock / extension

• Unlock a premium feature they haven't tried

• Extend trial of a higher tier

• Works best for "not getting enough value" reasons

Personal outreach

• For high-value accounts (top 10-20% by MRR)

• Route to customer success for a call

• Personal email from founder for smaller companies

Cancel Flow UI Patterns

┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│ We're sorry to see you go │
│ │
│ What's the main reason you're │
│ cancelling? │
│ │
│ ○ Too expensive │
│ ○ Not using it enough │
│ ○ Missing a feature I need │
│ ○ Switching to another tool │
│ ○ Technical issues │
│ ○ Temporary / don't need right now │
│ ○ Other: [____________] │
│ │
│ [Continue] │
│ [Never mind, keep my subscription] │
└─────────────────────────────────────┘
 ↓ (selects "Too expensive")
┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│ What if we could help? │
│ │
│ We'd love to keep you. Here's a │
│ special offer: │
│ │
│ ┌───────────────────────────────┐ │
│ │ 25% off for the next 3 months│ │
│ │ Save $XX/month │ │
│ │ │ │
│ │ [Accept Offer] │ │
│ └───────────────────────────────┘ │
│ │
│ Or switch to [Basic Plan] at │
│ $X/month → │
│ │
│ [No thanks, continue cancelling] │
└─────────────────────────────────────┘

UI principles:

• Keep the "continue cancelling" option visible (no dark patterns)

• One primary offer + one fallback, not a wall of options

• Show specific dollar savings, not abstract percentages

• Use the customer's name and account data when possible

• Mobile-friendly (many cancellations happen on mobile)

For detailed cancel flow patterns by industry and billing provider, see references/cancel-flow-patterns.md.

Churn Prediction & Proactive Retention

The best save happens before the customer ever clicks "Cancel."

Risk Signals

Track these leading indicators of churn:

Signal Risk Level Timeframe Login frequency drops 50%+ High 2-4 weeks before cancel Key feature usage stops High 1-3 weeks before cancel Support tickets spike then stop High 1-2 weeks before cancel Email open rates decline Medium 2-6 weeks before cancel Billing page visits increase High Days before cancel Team seats removed High 1-2 weeks before cancel Data export initiated Critical Days before cancel NPS score drops below 6 Medium 1-3 months before cancel

Health Score Model

Build a simple health score (0-100) from weighted signals:

Health Score = (
 Login frequency score × 0.30 +
 Feature usage score × 0.25 +
 Support sentiment × 0.15 +
 Billing health × 0.15 +
 Engagement score × 0.15
)

Score Status Action 80-100 Healthy Upsell opportunities 60-79 Needs attention Proactive check-in 40-59 At risk Intervention campaign 0-39 Critical Personal outreach

Proactive Interventions

Before they think about cancelling:

Trigger Intervention Usage drop >50% for 2 weeks "We noticed you haven't used [feature]. Need help?" email Approaching plan limit Upgrade nudge (not a wall — paywalls handles this) No login for 14 days Re-engagement email with recent product updates NPS detractor (0-6) Personal follow-up within 24 hours Support ticket unresolved >48h Escalation + proactive status update Annual renewal in 30 days Value recap email + renewal confirmation

Involuntary Churn: Payment Recovery

Failed payments cause 30-50% of all churn but are the most recoverable.

The Dunning Stack

Pre-dunning → Smart retry → Dunning emails → Grace period → Hard cancel

Pre-Dunning (Prevent Failures)

• Card expiry alerts: Email 30, 15, and 7 days before card expires

• Backup payment method: Prompt for a second payment method at signup

• Card updater services: Visa/Mastercard auto-update programs (reduces hard declines 30-50%)

• Pre-billing notification: Email 3-5 days before charge for annual plans

Smart Retry Logic

Not all failures are the same. Retry strategy by decline type:

Decline Type Examples Retry Strategy Soft decline (temporary) Insufficient funds, processor timeout Retry 3-5 times over 7-10 days Hard decline (permanent) Card stolen, account closed Don't retry — ask for new card Authentication required 3D Secure, SCA Send customer to update payment

Retry timing best practices:

• Retry 1: 24 hours after failure

• Retry 2: 3 days after failure

• Retry 3: 5 days after failure

• Retry 4: 7 days after failure (with dunning email escalation)

• After 4 retries: Hard cancel with reactivation path

Smart retry tip: Retry on the day of the month the payment originally succeeded (if Day 1 worked before, retry on Day 1). Stripe Smart Retries handles this automatically.

Dunning Email Sequence

Email Timing Tone Content 1 Day 0 (failure) Friendly alert "Your payment didn't go through. Update your card." 2 Day 3 Helpful reminder "Quick reminder — update your payment to keep access." 3 Day 7 Urgency "Your account will be paused in 3 days. Update now." 4 Day 10 Final warning "Last chance to keep your account active."

Dunning email best practices:

• Direct link to payment update page (no login required if possible)

• Show what they'll lose (their data, their team's access)

• Don't blame ("your payment failed" not "you failed to pay")

• Include support contact for help

• Plain text performs better than designed emails for dunning

Recovery Benchmarks

Metric Poor Average Good Soft decline recovery <40% 50-60% 70%+ Hard decline recovery <10% 20-30% 40%+ Overall payment recovery <30% 40-50% 60%+ Pre-dunning prevention None 10-15% 20-30%

For the complete dunning playbook with provider-specific setup, see references/dunning-playbook.md.

Metrics & Measurement

Key Churn Metrics

Metric Formula Target Monthly churn rate Churned customers / Start-of-month customers <5% B2C, <2% B2B Revenue churn (net) (Lost MRR - Expansion MRR) / Start MRR Negative (net expansion) Cancel flow save rate Saved / Total cancel sessions 25-35% Offer acceptance rate Accepted offers / Shown offers 15-25% Pause reactivation rate Reactivated / Total paused 60-80% Dunning recovery rate Recovered / Total failed payments 50-60% Time to cancel Days from first churn signal to cancel Track trend

Cohort Analysis

Segment churn by:

• Acquisition channel — Which channels bring stickier customers?

• Plan type — Which plans churn most?

• Tenure — When do most cancellations happen? (30, 60, 90 days?)

• Cancel reason — Which reasons are growing?

• Save offer type — Which offers work best for which segments?

Cancel Flow A/B Tests

Test one variable at a time:

Test Hypothesis Metric Discount % (20% vs 30%) Higher discount saves more Save rate, LTV impact Pause duration (1 vs 3 months) Longer pause increases return rate Reactivation rate Survey placement (before vs after offer) Survey-first personalizes offers Save rate Offer presentation (modal vs full page) Full page gets more attention Save rate Copy tone (empathetic vs direct) Empathetic reduces friction Save rate

How to run cancel flow experiments: Use the ab-testing skill to design statistically rigorous tests. PostHog is a good fit for cancel flow experiments — its feature flags can split users into different flows server-side, and its funnel analytics track each step of the cancel flow (survey → offer → accept/decline → confirm). See the PostHog integration guide for setup.

Tool Integrations

For implementation, see the tools registry.

Retention Platforms

Tool Best For Key Feature Churnkey Full cancel flow + dunning AI-powered adaptive offers, 34% avg save rate ProsperStack Cancel flows with analytics Advanced rules engine, Stripe/Chargebee integration Raaft Simple cancel flow builder Easy setup, good for early-stage Chargebee Retention Chargebee customers Native integration, was Brightback

Billing Providers (Dunning)

Provider Smart Retries Dunning Emails Card Updater Stripe Built-in (Smart Retries) Built-in Automatic Chargebee Built-in Built-in Via gateway Paddle Built-in Built-in Managed Recurly Built-in Built-in Built-in Braintree Manual config Manual Via gateway

Related CLI Tools

Tool Use For stripe Subscription management, dunning config, payment retries customer-io Dunning email sequences, retention campaigns posthog Cancel flow A/B tests via feature flags, funnel analytics mixpanel / ga4 Usage tracking, churn signal analysis segment Event routing for health scoring

Related Skills

• emails: For win-back email sequences after cancellation

• paywalls: For in-app upgrade moments and trial expiration

• pricing: For plan structure and annual discount strategy

• onboarding: For activation to prevent early churn

• analytics: For setting up churn signal events

• ab-testing: For testing cancel flow variations with statistical rigor