v2.0.0 to v2.0.0

35 added, 36 removed. Audit A to A.

---

name: suede-churn-prevention

- description: "Keep subscribers who are leaving and recover the ones you lose to billing: cancel flows, save offers, pause options, dunning for failed payments, and win-back sequences. Use when the user is losing subscribers, designing a cancellation flow, or recovering revenue lost to failed payments. 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 subscribers or wants to build systems to prevent it. For post-cancel win-back email sequences, see suede-emails. For in-app upgrade paywalls, see suede-paywalls."

+ description: "Suede-owned retention discipline for voluntary and involuntary churn: cancel flows, pause paths, evidence-based save offers, failed-payment recovery, proactive signals, and win-back design. Use when diagnosing subscriber loss or designing a bounded retention intervention. NOT FOR: lifecycle-email production (use suede-emails), pricing architecture (use suede-pricing), paywall design (use suede-paywalls), or event instrumentation (use suede-analytics)."

metadata:

version: 2.0.0

---

- # Churn Prevention

+ # Suede 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.

+ Use this Suede retention playbook to reduce voluntary and involuntary churn through transparent cancel flows, bounded save offers, proactive signals, and payment recovery.

## 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:

1. **Build a cancel flow** — Design from scratch with survey, save offers, and confirmation

2. **Optimize an existing flow** — Analyze cancel data and improve save rates

3. **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](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 = (

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

|-------|--------|------|---------|

| 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

|--------|------|---------|------|

| 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](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](../../tools/integrations/posthog.md) for setup.

+ **How to run cancel flow experiments:** Route the hypothesis, sample, duration,

+ and stopping rule to `suede-ab-testing`. Use an authorized experimentation

+ system that can assign users consistently and read each funnel step (survey →

+ offer → accept/decline → confirm). Verify the system's current official

+ implementation guidance, assignment behavior, and event readback before launch.

---

## Common Mistakes

- **No cancel flow at all** — Instant cancel leaves money on the table. Even a simple survey + one offer saves 10-15%

- **Making cancellation hard to find** — Hidden cancel buttons breed resentment and bad reviews. Many jurisdictions require easy cancellation (FTC Click-to-Cancel rule)

- **Same offer for every reason** — A blanket discount doesn't address "missing feature" or "not using it"

- **Discounts too deep** — 50%+ discounts train customers to cancel-and-return for deals

- **Ignoring involuntary churn** — Often 30-50% of total churn and the easiest to fix

- **No dunning emails** — Letting payment failures silently cancel accounts

- **Guilt-trip copy** — "Are you sure you want to abandon us?" damages brand trust

- **Not tracking save offer LTV** — A "saved" customer who churns 30 days later wasn't really saved

- **Pausing too long** — Pauses beyond 3 months rarely reactivate. Set limits.

- **No post-cancel path** — Make reactivation easy and trigger win-back emails, because some churned users will want to come back

---

## Tool Integrations

- For implementation, see the [tools registry](../../tools/REGISTRY.md).

+ This pack does not ship retention, billing, or analytics connectors. Select an

+ authorized system from the user's actual stack and verify its current official

+ documentation, account plan, test mode, and rollback path before configuration.

- ### Retention Platforms

+ ### Capability Checklist

- | 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 |

+ - Cancel-flow routing, survey capture, and an unobstructed final cancel action

+ - Stable experiment assignment and step-level event readback

+ - Pause, downgrade, and save-offer rules with explicit eligibility

+ - Payment-retry state, card-updater state, and customer-notification controls

+ - Audit history, test mode, role controls, and rollback or disable behavior

- ### Billing Providers (Dunning)

+ ### Implementation Routing

- |----------|:------------:|:--------------:|:------------:|

+ - Route message writing to `suede-emails`.

+ - Route event schemas and readback to `suede-analytics`.

+ - Route test design to `suede-ab-testing`.

+ - Treat billing retries, discounts, subscription changes, and activation as

+ separately authorized mutations.

- ### 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 |

+ ## Boundaries

- ---

+ - Do not obstruct cancellation, hide downgrade paths, manufacture urgency, or use deceptive retention friction.

+ - Do not change subscriptions, retry rules, discounts, billing objects, or customer messaging without explicit authorization.

+ - Do not claim saved revenue or churn reduction without a defined cohort, window, denominator, and verified payment state.

+ - Do not decide which individual customer should receive a sensitive offer from protected traits or unsupported inference.

- ## Related Skills

+ ## Routing

- - **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

+ - Need retention, dunning, or win-back messages -> use `suede-emails`.

+ - Need plan structure or offer economics -> use `suede-pricing` or `suede-offers`.

+ - Need paywall or trial-expiry UX -> use `suede-paywalls`.

+ - Need churn events or a controlled retention test -> use `suede-analytics` or `suede-ab-testing`.

+ - From those skills, route cancellation and payment-recovery strategy back to `suede-churn-prevention`.