Cancellation and Pause Surveys with Retention Offers (Essential Subscriptions app)

When a subscriber clicks Cancel subscription or Pause subscription in the customer portal, you can ask why, and answer with an offer before they confirm. Someone who says "too expensive" can get a discount. Someone with too much product can skip an order or slow down.

Both surveys are off by default. You set them up in the app under Customer portal, in the Retention card.

The customer portal must be set up first. See How to setup Customer Portal.

The two surveys

The Retention card has two rows. Each has an On or Off badge and a Customize button.

• Cancelation reason survey: shown when the customer clicks Cancel.
• Pause reason survey: shown when the customer clicks Pause.

Each survey has its own reasons and offers.

Step 1: Turn the survey on and write the pop-up text

Click Customize on a survey. At the top:

• Tick Show cancelation reason survey to your customers (or Show pause reason survey to your customers). The badge switches to On.
• Modal header: the pop-up title. Defaults: "Sorry to see you go!" for cancel, "Taking a break?" for pause. Up to 100 characters.
• Message: the line above the reasons. Default: "Your last delivery: {last_delivery}. Reason for canceling" (or "Reason for pausing"). {last_delivery} shows the date of the customer's last order. If they have no orders yet, the sentence with the date is left out. Up to 500 characters.

The preview on the right updates as you type.

Step 2: Set the reasons

Under Reasons you start with a default list. Edit the text, drag to reorder, delete, or click Add reason. You need at least one reason. Each reason can be up to 100 characters.

Default cancel reasons: "I don't need the product anymore", "This is too expensive", "Found a better price elsewhere", "I had trouble using the product", "I had problems with delivery".

Default pause reasons: "I have too many products right now", "I'm going away or traveling", "I'd like to receive deliveries less often", "Taking a break for budget reasons".

Step 3: Add an offer to a reason (optional)

Under each reason a line shows its offer, for example Offer: none. Click it to open the offer settings, then pick an offer:

• No offer: the customer confirms the cancel or pause.
• Discount: a percentage off. Enter a whole number from 1 to 100 (default 15). Then pick how long it lasts: All future orders in this subscription, Next order in this subscription, or Next 2 orders in this subscription up to Next 10 orders in this subscription.
• Skip: the next order is skipped and the subscription stays active.
• Change frequency: the customer picks another delivery frequency from the same campaign. It only shows when the campaign has another pay as you go frequency. It does not show on a prepaid plan that ends after 1 payment.
• Swap product: the customer swaps to another product. Set Different variant (another variant of the same product) or Different product (another product from the same campaign). It only shows when the campaign allows that change under Customer product changes on the Purchase options tab.
• Contact support: a way to reach you first. Pick Copy support email to clipboard, Open email app or Open contact form. Then fill in Support email (your store email is filled in) or Contact form URL.
• Pause: the subscription is paused instead of cancelled. Cancel survey only.

A discount applies to the products in the subscription the customer is trying to cancel or pause.

Every offer has four texts the customer sees: Offer headline, Offer message, Accept offer button and Decline offer button. They are filled in for you when you pick the offer, for example "Stay and save {discount}" and "Apply {discount} off". Headline up to 100 characters, message up to 500, buttons up to 50.

Tags you can use in the texts:

• {discount}: the discount, for example 15%.
• {duration}: how long it lasts, for example "the next 3 orders".
• {support_email}: your support email.
• {product}: the product being swapped.

Check the decline button in the pause survey. It is filled in as "No thanks, cancel" in both surveys. In the pause survey, change it to something like "No thanks, pause".

Step 4: Translate (optional)

If your store has other languages, the Translations card appears. Click Add translation, pick a language, and translate the header, the message and every reason. Offer texts (headline, message and buttons) cannot be translated. Customers see the version for the language they browse in.

Step 5: Save

Click Save in the save bar. You see "Survey saved".

What the customer sees

1. In the portal they click Cancel subscription or Pause subscription.
2. The pop-up shows your header, message and reasons. Submit stays disabled until they pick a reason.
3. If the reason has an offer, the offer step opens with your headline, message and two buttons. Accept applies the offer and closes the pop-up. Decline goes ahead with the cancel or pause.
4. If the reason has no offer, the cancel or pause goes through.

For a swap with more than one product on the subscription, the customer first picks which product to swap and clicks Continue.

When the offer is not shown, the customer goes straight to the cancel or pause:

• Offers only show on active subscriptions. A paused subscription being cancelled gets no offer.
• Skip is not shown if the next order is already skipped.
• Discount is not shown if a retention discount is already running. In that case the cancel pop-up warns "You'll lose your current discount" with the amount.
• Change frequency is not shown if there is no other frequency to pick, or the products on the subscription are on different plans.
• Swap product is not shown if there is nothing to swap to.

Where the answers show up

• Timeline on the subscription, for example "Customer cancelled subscription (Reason: This is too expensive)" or "Customer accepted cancellation offer" with the offer. See How to Manage Subscriptions.
• Analytics, Churn tab, in the Cancelation reasons and Pause reasons charts. See Subscription app Analytics.
• Upcoming orders: a retention discount shows as a badge, for example "15% off", on the orders it covers, in the app and in the portal.

Tips

• Turn on the pause survey even with no offers. The reasons alone tell you why people stop.
• Pair "too expensive" with a discount for the next 2 or 3 orders rather than all orders. You keep the subscriber without cutting the price for good.
• Pair "too many products" with Skip or Change frequency.
• Keep the decline button honest. "No thanks, cancel" tells the customer exactly what happens next.