Run the cancellation call

1. Set it up when they join

If a customer says they want to leave, talk to them before they do.

• At onboarding, set the expectation. Tell new customers that you will require an exit interview before they cancel. The wording varies: telling new customers you do cancellation calls, or telling them you require cancellation calls.
• Treat the cancellation notice as the trigger. When a notice arrives, that is the sign to set up the call.
• Then talk it through. Discuss it with them, fix their problems, and get them back on track.

The numbers given for doing this, with gyms: done right, it saves about half of the phone and email cancellations. Realistically, that would cut churn by 25 percent (assuming half show up), a respectable 33 percent increase in lifetime value. The two figures agree with each other: with churn at three-quarters of what it was, a customer stays 1 ÷ 0.75 times as long, about 1.33 times, which is the 33 percent. The same numbers are in section 3 of SOP 76 — Design cancellation terms and the waived-fee offer.

2. What a call can do

You can usually save half of the people who get on a cancellation call.

• Half will tell you off. From them you get useful feedback on how to improve what you sell.
• The other half you can save, in one of two ways:
  • Save with a redo. Let me have another go at it, and I'll put it right.
  • Save with an upsell. You realize they needed more help and should have been in your higher program. Credit what they have paid toward that program: You should have been sold into that anyway. And that's on me. You still make a higher-ticket sale. They still want the result; they do not want to leave. Find the expectation that went unmet, and see if you can meet it.

3. Get them on the call

Your chances of saving someone are higher on a call than in email or text.

• An example of what you could send by text or email: No pressure — I'd love to hear every reason you hate me. It would help me avoid them in future.
  • Let them vent. Get more upset about it than they are: only one person can be in the angry boat at a time. That's completely ridiculous. You're 100 percent right. Then ask whether they will let you make it right. They just want to feel validated; they do not want to fight. Then check: And just so we're clear, if these things happened, you would be happy? Their answer becomes a clear roadmap for what needs to happen.

4. Resell, and remind them what they would lose

• Resell them on why staying helps them reach their goals.
• Tell them what they would give up: the things they put time into, or that gave them standing — custom URLs, posts, access, founder pricing.
  • Many software companies are experts at this. If leaving means losing your data, or moving it is hard, or you lose work you have done, you are less likely to cancel.

5. Where a call does not pay: the cancellation video

If you run a high-volume, low-price business, getting on the phone with customers who are leaving may not make sense financially, although it almost always does in what you learn from them. If that is you, you can cut churn simply by adding a cancellation video. It reminds them why they started, which resells them, and reminds them what they risk losing by canceling. Where you do hold the call, a video sent before it is in section 1 of SOP 282.

6. The action step

Tell new customers that you do cancellation calls, get them on the phone, and resell them.

7. What this page does not decide for you

• Which half. The save figures are about half of phone and email cancellations (section 1) and usually half of those who get on a call (section 2). They are counted over different groups, and each is carried with its own group.
• How low a price, or how high a volume, makes a call not worth it. This page gives no figure for the price or volume at which a call stops paying.
• What goes in the cancellation video beyond why they started and what they would lose. Not established on this page.

8. The checklist

Moment	What you do
Onboarding	Set the expectation: you require an exit interview, or cancellation call
Cancellation notice	The trigger to set up the call
Reaching them	A call beats email or text; send a no-pressure message asking for every reason
On the call	Let them vent; be more upset than they are; ask to make it right; ask whether fixing these things would make them happy
Saves	Usually half of those on a call: a redo, or an upsell that credits what they paid
Resell	Why staying helps their goals
What they would lose	Custom web addresses, posts, access, founder pricing
High volume, low price	A cancellation video: why they started, what they would lose

9. What this page does not cover

SOP 76 — Design cancellation terms and the waived-fee offer carries the cancellation terms, the fee and the waived-fee offer. Offering a customer less for less before they cancel is SOP 73 — Feature-downsell customers before they cancel. The other retention habits are SOP 133 — Run the five retention habits and expect the first-month rise. Scoring every customer each week, so those drifting toward the door are spotted before they ask to go, is SOP 273, section 3.

Consumer-protection rules on cancellation are not covered on this page.