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Targeted cancellation flows in Appstle Subscriptions

Give specific groups of subscribers their own cancel experience, with entry conditions, reason-specific offers and second offers.

Targeted cancellation flows give a specific group of subscribers their own cancel experience. For example, subscribers who have been with you for a year can see a bigger discount than everyone else, or subscribers to one product can see an offer made for that product. Customers who don't match any flow get the default experience from the Cancellation tab.

Where to find it

In Appstle Subscriptions, go to More > Retention Management and open the Flows tab. Targeted flows are included in the Business Premium, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus plans. On other plans, the Flows tab shows an upgrade option. If you move to a plan without targeted flows, your published flows go back to drafts and customers get the Cancellation tab's setup. To bring a flow back, upgrade and publish it again.

Flows run in the classic customer portal. Customers who manage their subscriptions in Shopify's new customer accounts always get the default experience from the Cancellation tab.

How a flow is chosen

When a customer clicks Cancel Subscription, Appstle checks your published flows in priority order, lowest number first, and uses the first flow whose entry conditions all match the subscription. If no published flow matches, the customer gets the default flow.

The Default flow card is the experience you set up on the Cancellation tab. Edit default flow opens the Cancellation tab and View performance opens the Overview tab. If the card shows Draft, Allow customers to cancel subscriptions is off in Advanced Configuration, so no customer can start any cancel experience.

A customer who enters a flow sees its reasons and offers even if the Cancellation tab is set to Direct or Custom instructions.

Create a flow

  1. On the Flows tab, click Create flow. A new flow is called "New targeted flow" until you rename it, and starts with three example reasons: Too expensive with a 20% discount, I have too much product with a skipped order, and Just taking a break with a one-cycle pause. Change or remove them as you like.

  2. Click a step on the canvas to edit it under Step settings. The live preview shows the selected step.

  3. Click Save draft to keep your work, or Publish to make the flow live.

The preview shows the customer portal window with your store's titles and button labels.

Choose who enters the flow

Click the Trigger step. With no entry conditions, every customer who clicks Cancel enters the flow. To target a group, click Add entry condition and choose a field, an operator and a value.

Fields

  • Subscription status: for example ACTIVE or PAUSED.

  • Billing interval and Delivery interval: DAY, WEEK, MONTH or YEAR. Billing interval count and Delivery interval count are the numbers that go with them, for example 2 for every 2 months.

  • Order amount: the value of the subscription items in the order that started the subscription, in your store's currency, for example 50.

  • Successful orders so far: how many orders the subscription has placed successfully, including the first order.

  • Currency code: for example USD.

  • Customer email, Customer ID and Contract ID: a specific customer or subscription. IDs are numbers.

  • Origin type: how the subscription started, for example STORE_FRONT for subscriptions bought in your store or IMPORTED for subscriptions you imported.

  • Subscription type: for example REGULAR_SUBSCRIPTION, BUILD_A_BOX_CLASSIC, BUILD_A_BOX_SINGLE_PRODUCT, BUNDLING_CLASSIC, BUNDLING_MIX_AND_MATCH, SECTIONED_BUNDLE or VOLUME_DISCOUNT.

  • Product, Variant and Selling plan: the numeric ID. A product's or variant's ID is the number at the end of its page address in Shopify admin. These match when any item in the subscription matches.

Operators: equals, does not equal, is any of, is none of, is greater than, is at least, is less than, is at most, has a value and has no value. For is any of and is none of, separate the values with commas.

How matching works

  • A customer enters the flow only when all of its conditions match. To match one of several values, use is any of.

  • Text matches ignore upper and lower case.

  • Greater than, at least, less than and at most only work with numbers.

  • A condition without a value is removed when you save, unless its operator is has a value or has no value.

Priority

When more than one published flow matches a customer, the flow with the lowest Priority number runs. New flows start at 100, and a duplicated flow gets its original's priority plus 10. If two matching flows have the same priority, the one saved most recently runs. A flow's name and priority take effect as soon as you save, even when you save a draft.

Ask why they're leaving

The Ask step sets the question at the top of the cancel window, such as "Why are you leaving?", and the reasons customers choose from.

  • Show a free-text feedback box: lets customers type more detail. Choose whether it appears With the reasons or On the final cancel screen, after any offer is declined.

  • Feedback box label: the text above the box. Leave it blank to use your customer portal's cancellation feedback label.

  • Require feedback: customers must type something before they can continue. Message when feedback is missing is the error they see. Leave it blank to use your customer portal's required-field message.

  • Reasons: click Add reason branch to add a reason, and Edit offer to set up its offer. Reasons appear in the order you add them.

Offer a reason to stay

Each reason has its own Offer step. Choose the offer in Offer instead of cancel:

  • Offer Discount: a percentage off, from 1 to 100. For how many orders sets how long the discount lasts. Leave it blank to use Discount Duration from the Cancellation tab.

  • Skip Next Order: Orders to skip sets how many upcoming orders are skipped.

  • Pause Subscription: Cycles to pause sets how long the pause lasts.

  • Swap Products, Gift Subscription, Change Delivery Date, Update Address and Update Frequency: open the matching editor in the customer portal.

  • No offer: there's no offer screen. The customer goes straight to the final cancel screen.

Message shown to customer is the text on the offer screen. The note under the field lists the tokens that work for that offer, such as {{discountAmount}}. Other tokens appear to customers as plain text.

Add a fallback offer if they decline adds a second offer, shown only after the customer declines the first. It has no effect on a reason set to No offer, because there's no offer to decline.

The same rules apply as on the Cancellation tab. Each subscription can receive a retention discount only once, and Pause offers need Allow customers to pause subscriptions turned on in Advanced Configuration. Once a subscription has used its discount, discount reasons are greyed out. With Let customers pick a used discount reason again turned on, the customer can still choose the reason and sees the fallback offer, if it isn't a discount, or the final cancel screen.

The final step

The Cancel anyway step is always there, so customers can still cancel.

  • Step label: the text on the button customers click to cancel. It appears on the offer screens and the final cancel screen. The default is "Cancel anyway".

  • Confirmation message: shown on the final screen before the subscription is cancelled. If it's blank, customers see "You can restart your subscription anytime."

Publish and manage flows

  • Save draft saves a new version. Customers keep seeing the published version until you publish again, apart from the flow's name and priority, which apply straight away. A published flow with newer saved changes shows Unpublished edits in the editor, and its card on the Flows tab says a newer draft exists.

  • Publish makes the latest version live for every customer who matches.

  • Duplicate copies a flow's latest version into a new draft called "Copy of" followed by the flow's name.

  • Archive takes a flow out of service straight away. Customers who matched it get the next matching published flow, or the default flow. Archived flows can't be edited or published again, so duplicate one to reuse its setup. Archiving from a flow's card on the Flows tab happens straight away, without asking you to confirm.

The Flows tab lists your flows under Active, Draft and Archived. Activity Logs records when a flow is created, saved, published, duplicated or archived.

While a flow is published

The Cancellation tab is read-only while any targeted flow is published, so there's one place to manage the cancel experience. Customers who don't match a flow still get the Cancellation tab's setup. To change it, archive every published flow, make your changes, then duplicate and publish your flows again. Discount Duration is on the Cancellation tab too, so it can't be changed while a flow is published.

What customers see

  1. Your question and reasons. If the feedback box is placed with the reasons, it appears here.

  2. The offer for the reason they chose, titled "Before you go", with Accept and your Step label button.

  3. If they decline and the reason has a fallback offer, the second offer.

  4. The final cancel screen, titled "Cancel your subscription?", with your confirmation message, Keep my subscription and your Step label button. If the feedback box is placed on the final screen, it appears here.

  5. After they accept a discount, skip or pause, they see "You're all set" with "Success!" and a Close button, because flows don't have their own success messages. After they cancel, the subscription page shows "This subscription has been cancelled."

Flow text is in one language. For customers who enter a flow, your question, Step label, feedback box label and missing-feedback message replace the matching customer portal labels in every language.

Measure results

Reasons from published flows appear in Offer performance on the Overview tab, together with your Cancellation and Pause reasons. The Overview doesn't split results by flow.

Good to know

  • Flows only change the cancel experience. Pausing always follows the Pause tab.

  • Rules that stop a customer from cancelling still apply before any flow: the cancel button setting, the free trial setting, the plan's minimum number of orders and the timing restrictions in Customer Portal settings.

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