Redesigning cancellation as a retention conversation

Before

After

The challenge

Cancellation was treated as one problem. But customers had very different reasons to leave.

1. 01 — One flow for everyone. The cancellation journey treated every customer the same, regardless of why they were leaving.
2. 02 — Problems the product couldn't solve. Customers contacted Customer Care to perform actions that could potentially be handled directly within the product.
3. 03 — No distinction between churn and sensitive situations. The same retention logic could be applied to very different scenarios, including sensitive situations such as the loss of a pet.

Design question

How might we reduce avoidable cancellations without compromising customer autonomy?

The goal wasn't to make cancellation harder. It was to understand the reason behind it and offer a genuinely useful alternative when possible.

The key insight

My role

I owned the UX design from discovery to development, working closely with Customer Care, Nutrition, Business and Engineering.

My main focus was translating business rules and customer scenarios into a flow that could actually be implemented and maintained.

This meant mapping states, defining edge cases, specifying tracking requirements and aligning the experience with the backend logic.

Before drawing a single screen

Before designing a single screen, I mapped the logic behind the experience.

I deliberately looked for the scenarios that could break the happy path:

• What happens if a trial customer hasn't received their first box?
• What if a payment happens while they're cancelling?
• What if they have multiple dogs?
• What happens after a retention offer is rejected?

Each edge case became an explicit product decision.

From a linear flow to a decision tree

Instead of sending every customer through the same cancellation journey, the new experience adapts to their specific reason for leaving.

Identify the reason → understand the friction → offer a relevant solution → let the customer decide.

Retention, mapped to the friction

Every reason leads to the help that actually solves that specific problem.

Designing for real-world scenarios

The experience had to work beyond the happy path.

I mapped different customer states and edge cases to make sure the cancellation logic behaved consistently across scenarios such as trials, multiple dogs, upcoming payments and sensitive situations.

Retention without friction

Outcome

Metrics to be validated with the final product data.