Retain cancelling subscribers with targeted offers

Present targeted discount, pause, and plan-downgrade offers when subscribers try to cancel.

Overview

Not every cancellation means a subscriber has rejected your product. A subscriber may find the price too high, need a temporary break, or feel they are paying for more than they use. A relevant offer at the moment of cancellation can address that concern while preserving the customer relationship and retaining some or all of the recurring revenue.

In this tutorial, you create three Retention offers in Chargebee Growth and process them through Chargebee Billing:

1. A discount for subscribers who select a pricing-related cancellation reason.
2. A temporary pause for subscribers who need a break.
3. A move to a cheaper plan for subscribers who select a low-usage cancellation reason.

You then place these offers on your Cancel Page and test them against no-offer variants. When a subscriber accepts an offer, Growth applies the corresponding subscription change through Chargebee Billing automatically.

This tutorial assumes you already have a working Cancel Page. If you don't, set one up first in Deflect cancellations with a personalized cancel experience.

What you get: A Cancel Page with targeted alternatives that can convert would-be cancellations into discounted, paused, or lower-tier subscriptions.

Before you start

1. Connect Growth and Billing. Make sure Chargebee Growth is enabled and connected to your Chargebee Billing site.
2. Publish a Cancel Page with relevant survey reasons. You need a live Cancel Page with reasons that can trigger the offers, such as "Too expensive", "Taking a break", and "Not using it enough". See survey reasons.
3. Prepare the offer configurations in Billing.
   1. Create the coupon for the discount offer, for example, 30% off for three months.
   2. Confirm that subscription pause is enabled and configured.
   3. Confirm that the cheaper target plan for the downgrade offer exists.
4. Make sure subscribers have a payment method on file. Growth applies accepted offers through Chargebee Billing using the payment source on file. Subscribers without a stored payment method can't complete the change or resume automatically after a pause.

You can assign only one offer per Cancel Page placement. Choose the placement for each offer based on the cancellation reason or moment you want to address.

Implementation steps

Follow these steps to create the three offers, place them on your Cancel Page, and measure their performance.

1. Create the offers

In Growth, go to Offers > In-app, select + New Offer, and choose Retention as the offer objective. Create each offer separately in the following order.

Discount offer

Use this offer to save price-sensitive subscribers.

1. On the Choose your widget prompt, select the widget that matches where the offer appears, such as Loss aversion card for a card on the Cancel Page.
2. On the Choose your offer category prompt, select Discount.
3. Under Button > Settings:
   1. Set Button processing to Billing integration.
   2. Set the Button action to apply the coupon you created in Billing.
   3. Select whether the discount applies Immediately or at the End of term.
4. In the editor, edit the offer copy and CTA:
   1. Title: acknowledge the concern, for example "Stay for less".
   2. Description: state the value, for example "Get 30% off for the next 3 months and keep everything you have today."
   3. Action (CTA): set the button text, for example "Apply my discount".
5. Select Done, and then on the Publish changes immediately prompt, select Publish now.

Pause offer

Use this offer when a subscriber needs a temporary break.

1. On the Choose your widget prompt, select the widget that matches where the offer appears.
2. On the Choose your offer category prompt, select Pause.
3. Set the pause duration, for example one month or three months. To compare durations later, create a separate offer for each and name them distinctly, such as "Pause for 1 month" and "Pause for 3 months".
4. Under Button > Settings, set Button processing to Billing integration so the pause is applied in Chargebee Billing on acceptance.
5. In the editor, edit the offer copy and CTA:
   1. Title: name the need, for example "Need a break instead?".
   2. Description: state the value, for example "Pause your subscription for up to 3 months. We'll keep your account and settings, and pick up right where you left off."
   3. Action (CTA): set the button text, for example "Pause my subscription".
6. Select Done, and then on the Publish changes immediately prompt, select Publish now.

Plan-downgrade offer

Use this offer when a subscriber is paying for more than they use.

1. On the Choose your widget prompt, select the widget that matches where the offer appears.
2. On the Choose your offer category prompt, select Plan change.
3. Under Button > Settings:
   1. Set Button processing to Billing integration.
   2. Set the Button action to a subscription change and select the cheaper target plan you confirmed in Billing.
   3. Under How would you like to apply the subscription change?, select one:
      • Immediate: The plan changes right away.
      • End of term: The plan changes on the next billing date, so the subscriber keeps the current features until then.
4. In the editor, edit the offer copy and CTA:
   1. Title: reframe the decision, for example "Pay less for what you use".
   2. Description: state the value, for example "Switch to our Starter plan and keep your account, history, and settings, at a lower monthly price."
   3. Action (CTA): set the button text, for example "Move to Starter".
5. Select Done, and then on the Publish changes immediately prompt, select Publish now.

2. Place the offers on the Cancel Page

Open each offer and go to the Placement tab, or edit the Cancel Page in the Experience Manager. Placement is available only for Retention offers on Cancel Pages. Configure the placements in the same order:

1. Discount offer: Switch the placement to Reason based and select a pricing reason, such as "Too expensive".
2. Pause offer: Choose one of the following placements:
   • Loss aversion or entry offer: Show the pause to everyone as an early alternative before they select a reason.
   • Reason based: Show the pause only for reasons that fit a temporary break, such as "Not using it right now" or "Taking a break".
3. Plan-downgrade offer: Switch the placement to Reason based and select a low-usage reason, such as "Not using it enough".
4. Select Preview and walk through each relevant path to confirm that the expected offer appears.

3. Test the offers

Measure whether each offer performs better than showing no offer.

1. In Growth, open the Retention (Cancel Page) play that serves this Cancel Page.
2. Select Targeting & Experimentation.
3. Add experiments that compare each offer against a no-offer variant:
   1. Test the discount behind the pricing reason against no offer.
   2. Test the Cancel Page with the pause offer against a version without it.
   3. Test the downgrade behind the low-usage reason against no offer.
4. Select Review & Publish, and then Publish Play.

Result

Subscribers on your Cancel Page now receive an alternative that matches their cancellation reason or situation:

1. Price-sensitive subscribers can accept a discount applied immediately or at the end of the term.
2. Subscribers who need a break can pause and resume automatically at the end of the pause window.
3. Subscribers with low usage can move to a cheaper plan immediately or at the end of the term.

Growth processes each accepted change through Chargebee Billing without a separate checkout. Open the Offer Performance Report to track views, accepts, accept rate, saves, and saved revenue. Compare each result against its holdout to confirm that the offer is effective.

Summary

In this tutorial, you learned how to:

• Prepare the required coupon, pause configuration, and target plan in Chargebee Billing.
• Create discount, pause, and plan-downgrade Retention offers in Chargebee Growth.
• Place each offer at the relevant point on your Cancel Page.
• Run experiments against no-offer holdouts.
• Use the Offer Performance Report to evaluate saves and retained revenue.