Post-churn UX could be your silent growth lever: Here’s how

There’s a ton of talk about preventing customer churn, but far fewer conversations about what happens after a user leaves.

Just because someone churned doesn’t mean you can’t win them back. In fact, investing in post-churn user journeys — that is, scenarios and actions designed for users who’ve already left — can offer surprising ROI. Whether they cancelled a subscription or just stopped returning, you still have a shot at winning them back.

Let’s dig into how.

Strategies to win back churned users

Winning churned customers back is a two-step process:

Nudge them to return to the product — Get them through the door again
Make them stick — Get them re-engaged and reactivated

Let me get into the details now.

Step 1: Nudge users to come back

The exact winback strategy depends on the type of churn (subscription churn vs. inactivity churn) and how you can reach users (email, push ads). But here are some of the most effective approaches:

Share what’s new

One of the most common tactics out there is to nudge users every now and then with pushes and emails to “Come back”. Generic begging users to come back doesn’t work.

Instead, give them an actual reason to visit back. What tends to work are exciting product updates. Let them know what has changed since they left:

New features
Bug fixes
Improved usability
Updates that address the reasons they churned

If someone left due to poor usability, show off your recent usability improvements.

From numerous experiments in different products, I can say that this tactic gets around 15% of users to come back — if you time it right. Months 2 and 3 after churn are usually the sweet spot. Too early feels desperate, too late, and they’ve forgotten you, or moved on.

Use-case sensitive communication

If there are specific moments in time when your product is extremely valuable, focus your post-churn communication there.

A few practical examples from my experience are:

Ed-tech winback around school period — Reach out before exams, not during vacation
Fitness app around New Year’s Eve — People make New Year’s resolutions then and tend to be more willing to retry related products
Retail app push during school hours — That one was surprising, but when working on an app for a retail franchise, we learned that sending school-personalized pushes around school break times (especially to get a hot dog for a break snack) worked really well. Although that particular example is not necessarily “winback related”, I decided to include it to show that there are many creative ways to find the perfect moment to reach out to users

Uber Eats, for example, nudges churned users around 4 PM — right when dinner decisions start.

Retargeting ads

All the above tactics — highlighting what’s new, reaching out at key moments, offering discounts — work well in retargeting ads.

If you still have data on where a user spends time (via cookies or Facebook info), experiment with targeted ads to re-engage them.

Step 2: Win over returning users

Users coming back to your product is just the first step. You need to make them stick for longer — you need to re-onboard them, re-engage them, and help them build momentum.

Nail the reactivation experience

Treat returning users as a special segment that needs a dedicated onboarding flow. Don’t tire them out by pushing them through the onboarding flow they already completed, but also don’t leave them on their own.

A few ways to onboard users are:

“What’s new” tours — Walk users through new features and changes that have happened in the past. Great for products that have evolved rapidly. But skip these in time-sensitive use cases like Shazam, where every second counts
Start over options — Sometimes it’s easier to start from scratch than to come back to an outdated experience. For example, Pinterest allows users to clear their browsing history and set preferences again to build new boards and recommendations

Apart from the reboarding itself, maintain the momentum. Send them daily pushes to visit again, give them an incentive to visit regularly and to perform key actions, and keep reminding them why coming back was a good choice.

I learned that three days is usually a sweet spot — keep them coming back for three days in a row and they’ll then retain on their own.

Pro tip — Use onboarding-adjacent patterns like welcome-back modals, dismissible tooltips, or a checklist UI with the header: “What’s new since you left?” to re-spark engagement.

Special offer for returning users

Discounts can work, but only if they offer real value.

A weak offer like “20% off your first month” rarely moves the needle. Something like “80% off for returning users”? Much more effective — even if you take a hit on short-term profit. Some of those users will convert long-term.

If users have already used their free trial, consider letting them try it again. It costs you nothing and can re-spark engagement.

Rethink your downgrade flow

When users downgrade, for example, premium users cancel their subscription, the common practice is to focus on reinforcing premium benefits and trying to make users stay. That’s one of the ways.

What I’ve been recently experimenting with, though, is a completely different approach. Since users who are in the cancellation flow almost always cancel, instead of fighting for a few % in churn reduction, I fight to make users stay as free users after they cancel premium.

The simplest tactic is to revisit the downgrade confirmation screen. Don’t just say “You lost access to XYZ”, but instead focus on “You still have access to ABC”.

It’s better to keep them around — even at a free tier — than to lose them entirely.

Bonus: Understanding why users churned

Understanding why exactly people churn can help you not only prevent churn but also improve the efficiency of your post-churn UX with better messaging and targeting.

Two main ways to understand the causes of churn are:

Cancellation flow survey

Just ask users why they are leaving. Here’s the little-known hack, though. Do this AFTER they cancel.

Most churn surveys are a part of the cancellation flow. And on paper, it makes sense. But it often makes people either skip it as they don’t know how many steps are remaining, or select something random just to get over this step.

If you ask people right after they cancel, yes, the vast majority of them will ignore the survey. But the results from those who don’t will be way more accurate and actionable.

Churn interviews

Talk to people who just cancelled.

Keep in mind, however, that they are no longer interested in your product. So any in-product incentives won’t make it. For post-churn interviews, cash works better. I’ve found that $50 for a 30-minute call is a sweet spot that gets you valuable insights.

Is post-churn UX worth it, though?

There’s a lot that can be done from a UX perspective after user churns, but is it worth it? Well, as always, that depends.

Post-churn UX is NOT WORTH it if:

Your product is short-term at its core — If you are a car marketplace, it’s rather obvious people will churn after getting a new car. No UX tactic will encourage them to buy a second
You get a small margin per customer — If each customer generates a couple of cents in revenue, then spending extra money on winback is often negative ROI

Post-churn UX IS WORTH it when:

Your product offers recurring, long-term value — Meaning that there’s value in long-term usage
You get a high margin per customer — Spending $1000 to reacquire a user for a month makes sense if you charge $10000 for a monthly usage. It’s an abstract example, but you get the point

Should you invest in post-churn UX?

Here’s a quick checklist to help you decide:

How many users churn each month?
What % can you reach again?
What % can you bring back?
What % can you retain post-return?
What’s the cost of winback actions?
What’s the revenue per returning user?

If you want to get a bit fancier:

[Churned users × (% reached) × (% re-engaged) × (% retained) × revenue per retained user] ÷ winback cost = ROI on winback

You won’t know most of those numbers upfront, but you can start with some hypotheses. It’s often enough to understand if, in your case, it makes sense or not. If it does, start running smart experiments to test your assumptions and get real ROI data.

My rule of thumb is that investing in post-churn UX makes sense as long as there’s a 300% ROI on it. Otherwise, even though it might still be profitable, there are likely other UX areas worth focusing on more, such as core product development, to avoid churn in the first place.

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