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Prevent churn with cancellation flows

The cancellation flow is a churn prevention tool designed to retain customers who attempt to cancel their subscriptions.

  • If no cancellation flow is enabled, a customer who decides to cancel a subscription will see a simple "yes/no" confirmation modal.
    Cancellation flow: No configured flow
  • If there is a cancellation flow, you can offer the customer additional benefits to encourage them to keep their subscription and ask them to complete an exit survey. This way, you can:
    • Reduce churn by giving customers alternatives (discounts, plan changes, help options) that make staying attractive.
    • Learn why customers leave through survey responses and optional free-text comments.
    • End on good terms with a clear, respectful process that makes it easy to return later.

This feature is available for clients using Subscription Management 2.0.

  • Managers configure the flow in SCM at Configure → Churn Prevention → Add cancellation flow.
  • Customers experience the flow in the Subscription Management Portal.

What customers see

The cancellation flow is fully customizable and can be tailored in detail through SCM. To make the following explanations easier to follow, we'll walk through a generalized example of what a customer would see during the process.

  1. The customer decides to turn off Automatic renewal.
    Cancellation flow: Step 1

  2. A customizable pop-up appears that can be used to:

    • Highlight what the customer will lose if they cancel (you control the title, subtitle, and list of benefits).
      Cancellation flow: Step 2
    • Present a short exit survey to the customer.
      Cancellation flow: Step 3
  3. Based on the survey response, you can present different incentives. The following are examples:

    • If they say that the product is too expensive, you can offer a discount.
      Coupon offer modal
      If the offer is accepted, the next renewal is processed with the promotional discount and automatic renewal remains enabled.
      Renewal with discount
    • If the customer says they want to control payments, you can reinforce the advantages of automatic renewal and let them choose whether to keep or disable it.
      Highlight benefits modal
    • If the product wasn't the right fit, suggest changing the plan (for example, product version, term, quantity).
      Change plan screen
      note

      If no alternatives are configured for your portal, this option won't be shown.

    • If the customer says they are having technical difficulties, you can provide a direct link to your support.
      Contact support modal
  4. If the customer proceeds with the cancellation, they receive a clear confirmation that automatic renewal is disabled. This is also a good time to remind them that they can enable it again at any time.
    Cancellation flow: Step 4

Optional comments in the exit survey

Customers can add free-text comments as part of the exit survey if you enable the Allow customer comment toggle for a specific survey option when configuring the survey. When enabled, customers see a small, optional text field after choosing a reason.

This provides richer qualitative insights to complement survey counts and trends, helps support teams triage specific errors and environments faster, and gives you clearer product feedback.

Configure the flow

To create a cancellation flow, go to Configure → Churn Prevention and click Add cancellation flow.
SCM: Configure → Churn Prevention → Add cancellation flow

You can:

  1. Define the basic details of the cancellation flow.
  2. Configure the initial pop-up message and the list of subscription benefits.
  3. Add and refine the survey options and reactions to the selection.

1. Basic details of the cancellation flow

After you click Add cancellation flow, the configuration window opens. The first tab is General Settings:

  • Enter a name for your cancellation flow. It will be used in SCM to refer to this flow.
  • Optionally, select the regions to target; by default each flow is applied globally.
    Configure: General settings
  • Move on to the next tab or click Save and Close at any time to persist your progress.

2. Configure the initial message

In the Automatic Renewal Benefits tab, define what customers see the moment they try to turn off auto-renewal. You can add:

  • Title and Subtitle (shown at the top of the modal).
  • Benefits list: add 3–7 concise bullets describing what customers would lose after cancellation.
  • Preview updates in real time so you can validate copy length and layout.
    Configure: Pop-up content and preview

3. Configure the survey

In the Survey Options tab, create one or more survey options. For each option, define the following:

  • Survey Option: Enter the text displayed in the survey, such as "It's too expensive" or "I'm having technical issues."
  • Allow customer comment: Enable this toggle to add a free-text field.
    • Enable for reasons that benefit from context, such as technical issues, product didn't fit needs, billing problems, or missing features.
    • Consider disabling for straightforward reasons where qualitative detail is rarely actionable (for example, price is too high), to keep the flow short.
  • Response type: Decide what happens after the customer selects an option. The available response types are described below.
  • Reporting Key: Enter a key for analytics.
    note

    Reporting keys identify each survey option in the cancellation flow report. Use a unique key per option to keep analytics clear (the key is not language-specific).


Configure: Survey Options - basic configuration

Response types and their settings

The following response types are available:

  • Coupon Code: Offer a discount to stay. To set up a code:

    • Provide the promotion coupon: Click the + icon and select a coupon from the grid in the Cart-level Promotions screen.
    • Customize Title, Header, and Description.
      Configure: Coupon code response
  • Highlight Benefits: Remind customers why auto-renewal helps. While you can adjust the title and header, the list of benefits is not editable from here.
    Configure: Benefits reused in response preview.
    This modal reuses the benefits list configured in step 2. If needed, you can always return to the previous tab and update the section.
    Configure: Add 3–7 benefits

  • Contact Support: Offer help. Provide the text and your support destination (URL or email).
    Configure: Contact Support response

  • Change Plan: Redirect the customer to a screen where they can manually update the subscription details. You can customize the copy; the button sends customers to your manual renewal page with preconfigured upgrade/downgrade options.
    Configure: Change Plan response

  • None: Does not display an incentive modal. Automatic renewal is disabled immediately when the option is selected.

You can also direct customers straight into the cancellation flow by sending them to the cancellation steps URL:

  • Path: https://<your-portal-domain>/cancel-subscription/steps
note

The cancellation flow must be enabled in Subscription Commerce Manager. For details, see Configure the flow.

Finalize the set-up

Click Save and Close to publish your configuration. You can return at any time to edit benefits, survey options, response types, regions, or languages.


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