description: "When the user wants to reduce churn, build cancellation flows, set up save offers, recover failed payments, or implement retention strategies. Also use when the user mentions 'churn,' 'cancel flow,' 'offboarding,' 'save offer,' 'dunning,' 'failed payment recovery,' 'win-back,' 'retention,' 'exit survey,' 'pause subscription,' or 'involuntary churn.' This skill covers voluntary churn (cancel flows, save offers, exit surveys) and involuntary churn (dunning, payment recovery). For post-cancel win-back email sequences, see email-sequence. For in-app upgrade paywalls, see paywall-upgrade-cro."
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.
If `.agents/product-marketing-context.md` exists (or `.claude/product-marketing-context.md` in older setups), read it before asking questions. Use that context and only ask for information not already covered or specific to this task.
| 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.
- **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
| Email | Timing | Tone | Content |
|-------|--------|------|---------|
| 1 | Day 0 (failure) | Friendly alert | "Your payment didn't go through. Update your card." |
| 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
**How to run cancel flow experiments:** Use the **ab-test-setup** 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.
- **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
