How to reduce subscription churn: a case study of Grind coffee

A 10/10 example of knowing your audience and meeting their needs.

GIF from ShotbyBenJordan

I love coffee. I drink one in the morning with our little Nespresso machine and one decaf shot in the afternoon.

However, I was shocked when I learned that 29,000 single-use coffee pods end up in landfill every single minute. Every. Minute.

That’s ~14,000 whilst you read those two sentences.

So, that’s what led me to Grind coffee. Their London-based pod subscription sends me 3 types of pods each fortnight and (once you’ve used them) the pods will fully decompose within 180 days (26 weeks) in your back garden.

Eco, local and convenient, ticks all my boxes *taps subscribe*.

I was loving Grind. I’ve been a customer since Sept 2022. That was until my partner decided to buy 6 months worth of coffee pods from a competitor: Roar Gill.

Why? Because he saw a discount, wants to try something new and liked the colourful packaging.

No comment.

Fast forward a week later, I get my fortnightly Grind delivery email

We’re getting ready to send your coffee 💌

I think: given the pile of Roar Gill coffee pods on our shelf, we’re going to end up with too many, I better cancel our Grind subscription.

So, here’s the story of how I cancelled my Grind subscription and will very much be coming back one day due to how great their UX is (and because I like the pink container on our shelf).

1) Accessing subscription cancellation: as easy as 1–2–3

A lot of D2C products have a low frequency of log-ins — i.e. you don’t go in and manage your account all the time. For me, it was when I’m going on holiday and needed to pause the next delivery, or when we had guests and ran out of pods quicker.

Despite the low frequency of log-ins to ‘my account’, Grind make it really easy to access your account and cancel your subscription.

Most users will interact with the brand through CRM. So that’s where you need to link to your ‘manage subscription’ section.

What’s great is that it was super clear in the Grind email how I can do this. No dark UX. No hidden links in the footer.

Below the summary of my order, the secondary copy says:

Fancy switching up your blend or off on holidays? It’s not too late to amend or skip your upcoming order — just log into your account below or email us via [email]

You can make changes to your order before 12pm on 14/07/2023

Flow from email to account: easy peasy

What I like most about Grind’s emails is:

1. They’re regular in frequency and format: I know to expect one per fortnight exactly 2 days before dispatch
2. They have excellent UX writing: it’s clear I can pause, skip or change anytime
3. They link to a password-less log in (as who remembers their passwords?)
4. The unsubscribe is clear: meaning they’re mailing a high-intent and high-quality email list, which improves email deliverability over time
5. Its specific: I’m given the exact date I can make changes till and they give me enough time to do so.

So, I tap ‘log in’, get a magic link via email and head to my account.

2) No dark UX. I repeat, no dark UX.

I land straight in the subscriptions tab and can see clearly that I have an active subscription. The edit button is the first I come across, top right of the module. I can also see a nice rewards banner (that I don’t fully understand but still appreciate the gesture…).

There’s a lot I like about the manage subscriptions tab.

First is that it has everything I need: Delivery schedule, Next order date, Frequency, Payment, Delivery address, Discounts and the ‘Danger Zone’ where I can pause or cancel.

The discount section is particularly nice as I had forgotten I had a 15% discount. It reminds me that I’m getting a good deal.

Apologies for the long image, hard to show you just how much stuff there is in account…

Second is the copy. Take the ‘Danger Zone’ where I can cancel — it’s fun and playful. It’s not pushy. It’s also coupled with the copy:

You can pause or cancel your subscription at any time

Kind of like: haha, here’s the cancellation section booo. No but seriously feel free to do what you want.

Third, the UI is 90% consistent. The buttons are the same size and follow the same pattern as the other CTAs on the page. ‘Cancel’ copy is red and ever so slightly lighter, but not by much. I see a lot of brands make the cancellation CTA significantly smaller, often hidden in the footer in a tiny link.

But with Grind, the cancellation button UI follows the same rules and gets the same real estate.

Lastly, users have options: pause or cancel. Up to 20% of those who want to stop their subscription pause instead of cancel. That’s 20% reduction in all-out churn.

It’s nice to offer this to people in case they’re unsure whether they want to cancel. With Grind, I can pause for up to 3 months. However, I needed around 6 to get through our Roar Gill pile, so opted to cancel.

3) Precise reasons for leaving and a solution for each

What’s happened next really stood out for me.

After tapping ‘cancel subscription’ I get a pop up with 10 precise and specific reasons for cancellation:

1. I’ve already got too much coffee
2. My introductory offer has ended
3. My coffee needs have changed and… something(bug here, can’t see the end of the sentence on my iPhone 12 mini)
4. My coffee needs have changed and… another something (bug here too)
5. I buy Grind from Waitrose
6. I didn’t want a subscription
7. I prefer another brand
8. I didn’t like the coffee
9. This is too expensive
10. Other

The options also randomly shuffle every time you open the pop up to ensure the results aren’t biasing the top options. Nice.

To pause or to cancel? That is the question.

What is excellent about these 10 options is that they are in user language. In layman terms. Like they’ve been plucked out of the mouth of the user.

It is crystal clear to me that someone at Grind has interviewed or surveyed churned users and honed these options over time. It screams user research, excellent UX writing and a team that are close to the customer.

Not only this, but they actually address your concerns.

For every single cancellation reason, I’m given a useful set of options about how to solve my problem.

For instance:

• I’ve already got too much coffee → Skip, pause or change frequency
• My introductory offer has ended → Discount
• I didn’t want a subscription → Did you know you can buy Grind as a one-time purchase? Link to shop to buy one-off
• I prefer another brand → Did you know Grind pods are home compostable…[+ more info about value prop]? Link to educational landing page
• I didn’t like the coffee → Swap your coffee
• This is too expensive → Discount
• Other → Free text entry

Note that ‘cancel’ the Primary CTA is always there and waiting. Not hiding.

I was compelled to use the discount, but we’d already ordered the other coffee. I was also compelled to pause, but we needed longer than 3 month.

Not as compelling as a discount in my view, but maybe their core persona is climate conscious over price conscious.

In the end I cancelled and whilst I was sad to do so I knew I’d be back.

Grind had built up my trust by understanding me and my motives for cancelling, and trying to help me.

What you’ll notice is that in each of the screens, the cancellation button is still there as the primary CTA and ‘Go Back’ as secondary.

That’s important.

I know they’re trying to get me to stay, but also that I’m able to leave whenever I want.

That’s fundamental to a good relationship.

4) User-centric UX writing — no guilt tripping

I’m so tired of ‘are we breaking up’, ‘we’ll miss you’. Grind user to-the-point copy that is simple, transparent and doesn’t in any way make me feel guilt.

Update your subscription to make it work best for you

You can pause or cancel your subscription at any time

We’ll put it on hold till you need it again

We’re sorry to hear you want to cancel you subscription, but can you let us know why?

Let us know how we can improve

Your subscription has now been cancelled

No guilt tripping. No ‘sorry to see you go’ just back to business. I like it.

It is important that people leave feeling good, not bad. Support them, be funny along the way but don’t go for over-used language in cancellation flows.

Even small things like:

We’re sorry to hear you want to cancel you subscription, but can you let us know why?

This is pretty basic and simple, yet the comma and ‘but’ make it feel like you’re talking to a real person. Its very similar to ‘we’re sorry to see you go’ but due to the difference in grammar and the extra word, it makes this sentence feel a bit more fresh, genuine and real.

Here’s a task for you, type “sorry to see you go” into your email search box (you need the “ “).

I easily get 10 cancellation emails with the same copy.

It’s boring. It’s over-used and I wish people would spice it up a bit like Grind do. It’s not hard.

Modern Milkman, Babylon and Forthglade jumping on the ‘Sorry to see you go’ bandwagon. Boring.

5) Last but not least: keep a short time-to-cancel

Despite the fact that Grind have a pretty comprehensive off-boarding flow, it is still very quick to cancel my subscription.

All it takes is 4 taps from the cancellation button. That’s it.

Grind have managed to not only keep the cancellation button there, ensure the button gets good real estate and given me something for each reason for leaving, they’ve also managed to do so in only 4 taps. Wild.

In my view, this is pretty tight. Its a good flow, not longer or more difficult than it needs to be.

In sum: Grind, I’ll be back

Many companies are scared about cancellation. They think the solution is to hide it deep in the UX and lengthen the time to cancel so users will ultimately give up.

Not Grind.

They tackle cancellation head-on, with the same importance as payment details and discounts. I think this benefits the brand for a few reasons:

1. If users are going to cancel, they will ultimately find a way to do so
2. Its your job to understand why they want to cancel and try to fix it
3. If not, don’t get in their way else you loose trust

In ‘They Ask You Answer’ Marcus Sheridan states that the companies who build trust by addressing users fears and issues at each stage of the buying cycle will ultimately win long-term.

Every time you try to hide a key detail, you erode the trust with the user.

You’re not helping your bottom line by hiding the cancellation button. You may see a reduction in cancellation short term, ultimately reduced trust and subscription churn will come back to bite you.

So, what should you do?

Here’s where to start with your cancellation flow:

1. Understand why people leave: interviews and surveys are best, its hard to find these users but you can incentivise them to talk to you
2. Provide tailored solutions for each reason: discounts, longer trials, referrals, links to more info — you need to decide what will solve the user’s pre-churn pain
3. Use authentic language: make sure your UX writing reflects what the user is thinking and in no case use “sorry to see you go”. That reduces trust even more by seeming impersonal
4. Add options to pause as well as cancel: you could reduce churn by up to 20%
5. Keep the UX flow transparent and short: make sure people can access the cancel button and shorten the time to cancel as much as possible, while still providing them re-engagement options