Retention: Cancel Saves
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Improving Subscription Cancellation Flow
My team was tasked to pitch ideas to improve retention. Soon after, we rolled out an entirely new framework to improve the Cancel flow that resulted in a significant decrease in cancel click rate and cancel conversion on the cancel page.
Summer 2021 (2 mos)
Company
FabFitFun – a quarterly lifestyle subscription box company
Project Duration
App and Responsive Web
My Role
Research, pitch, ideate, design, prototyping, and testing
Platform
Shipped
Teams
Retention, Product, Engineering, Marketing, Data Science, CI, CX, and Legal
Status
Reduce the Number of Cancellations
THE PROBLEM AND CHALLENGE
With retention not meeting what’s forecasted, the team was tasked to pitch ideas on the Cancel testing roadmap. The parameters were limited to copy and simple UX changes with constraints of no feature or major flow changes.
Conducting User Research to Understand Our Customers
APPROACH AND METHODS
Our research included competitive analysis, utilizing the value proposition canvas, creating customer journey maps, and analyzing data from various sources such as analytics, CX, and CI reports. We gained valuable insights that identify our customers' pain points and informed our design decision making.
To overcome initial project constraints, I encouraged the team to go wide with our exploration and facilitated workshops and brainstorming sessions with my PM. To ensure a clear vision and gain stakeholder buy-in, we shared both short- and long-term strategies. This allowed our stakeholders to see the bigger picture and understand the value of our design efforts. By aligning everyone's expectations and goals, we were able to prioritize and narrow down what’s viable to put into our testing roadmap.
Case Analysis on Proposed Solution
IDEATION
Design Strategies
Inform Member Values
Seamless Experience
Spotlight Existing Features
Design Principles
These design principles ensure both Product and Design visions are aligned:
Simplify
• Simplify content and write thoughtful UX copy
• Update (legacy) design adhering to the design system
Personalization
• Provide relevant incentives or info based on users’ spending behavior
User’s Trust
• Improve the customer experience
• Any unethical and deceiving ux to the users is unacceptable
Featured Solutions
DESIGN
1. Entry point (Seamless experience, user’s trust)
On average, it takes about 3-4 clicks to find the "Cancel Subscription" link from home. We have removed "Cancel Subscription" from the footer and replaced it with "Account Details," which is a small update that adds a buffer for cancellation while still meeting industry standards.
Under Account Details, we created a Manage Membership section that has “Cancel Subscription” and “Swap for Credit” options. This information architecture aligned with our users' mental model, placing "Cancel Subscription" where they expect to find it.
2. Customize Reminder: Cancel save (Spotlight existing features, personalization)
Our data informed us the top reason for cancellation is financial. How might we fulfill customer's need that to treat themselves is worth it?
Every season, members customize their curated boxes within a two-day window called Customization. This is the bread and butter of our company’s products and services as members race to customize their box.
Spotlighting the Customization feature as an initial cancel save reminds users of the joy of customizing, reveals spoiler products, and creates urgency with a countdown timer for the Customization window.
3. Swap for Credit: Cancel save (Spotlight existing features, personalization)
The second top reason for cancellations is dissatisfaction with the products. If items are getting predictable in their subscription box, how might we provide greater flexibility for our members to manage their subscription?
Partnering with Marketing, we rebranded the “Skip My Box” feature to “Swap for Credit” where users can swap their box for shopping credit.
This frictionless alternative to swap their subscription box for shopping credit provides the same experience of mystery and control back to our members while participating in our members' sales.
4. Benefit Summary Page (Informing values, simplify)
The lack of explanation of benefits and irrelevant copy were main concerns we had to address on the Benefit Summary page.
We looked at our customer profile and determined what values resonate the most with our subscribers. What are the top things our customers are trying to get done with the subscription?
We crafted UX copy highlighting customer benefits, summarizing the themes of Unboxing, Customize, and Exclusive Sales, while enhancing it with compelling stats.
5. Cancel questionnaire (Simplify)
Since we were working on the cancellation flow, I took the initiative to update our questionnaire UI to align it more closely with our NorthStar design system.
Success Metrics
RESULTS
The success metrics include:
#1 Cancel Conversion
#2 AOV (Average Order Value) for Swapped Members
#3 Conversion Rate from Benefit Summary Page to Questionnaire
Due to a NDA, information on the project result is limited.
The New Framework Has Made a Meaningful Impact in the Cancellation Flow
LEARNINGS
This project was a lot of fun as I had the autonomy to go beyond what was asked and pitch my long-term framework to the team. The work doesn't stop here; this is what we're experimenting with, and here's what I would do next:
Effort Towards New Framework
More effort towards new cancel flow vision outside of the original constraints
Personalized Initial Counter-Offer
Content that reminds customers of their loyalty
Sales, reFills, items in cart, credit left reminders
Savings recap from past purchases
Discounted items of their favorite brand
Incentive-based Second-Offer
Explore a second offer based on individual users' cancel reasons. e.g. Credit, renewal discounts, loyalty points, etc.
Education of Benefits
Anticipate cancellation before it happens.
Expand on My Membership that explains key value propositions, driving Swap adoption.
Testing on Copy
Balance between UX and marketing copy
Thank you for reading!