Offboarding Redesign
Offboarding Redesign
TL;DR
In 2024 I volunteered to redesign the offboarding experience at Elastic Email. The goal was twofold: reduce churn if possible and learn more about why customers were leaving.
I redesigned both of the main exit paths, added a short offboarding survey and introduced a final retention step that offered help without relying on dark patterns. The new flow did not significantly reduce churn, but the survey uncovered an important pattern: many customers who appeared to be leaving permanently actually intended to return later.
My role: concept and wireframing
The problem
Elastic Email had a long-standing churn problem, but we also knew surprisingly little about what was driving it.
High churn
A significant number of customers were leaving the product, and there was no clear mechanism for trying to retain them at the point of departure.
Little insight into reasons for leaving
We also lacked structured data explaining why users were leaving. That made it harder to distinguish between pricing issues, technical problems, temporary pauses or dissatisfaction with the product.
Customers were leaving through an unintended route
There was an official option to disable an account, but many customers were instead removing their payment method through the "change payment method" flow. This route was never designed as an offboarding path, but customers had effectively turned it into one through repeated use.
What I did
I redesigned both exit paths around two goals: collecting feedback and giving customers one final opportunity to stay.
Adding an offboarding survey
I designed a short survey asking customers to select their main reason for leaving.
The aim was to create a regular source of churn data that could help us understand whether customers were leaving because of product problems, pricing, changing needs or something else entirely.
Making the consequences clear
I redesigned the flow so that customers received clear information about what would happen after proceeding.
They were asked to confirm their decision and were given a final opportunity to reconsider before completing the process.
Offering help without creating friction
As part of the retention step, customers were offered the option to schedule a one-to-one conversation with the Support team.
I also proposed offering a discount at this stage, but the idea was not adopted.
The key principle was to give users a genuine reason to stay without making cancellation more difficult.
Working with the Product team
The project required close cooperation with the Product team. I prepared the proposed flow and interface, which was then incorporated into the product design files and refined together with the team before implementation.
Outcome
The redesigned offboarding flow did not have a significant effect on churn. The survey, however, gave us something we had not had before: direct information about why customers were leaving.
One finding was particularly interesting. A substantial number of customers, especially those leaving through the payment-method route, indicated that they were not planning to leave permanently. They expected to return later. This suggested that some of what we were treating as churn was closer to a temporary pause in usage. At least according to the users.
The project therefore did not solve the churn problem itself, but it gave us a clearer picture of customer behaviour at the point of departure and exposed an important distinction that was previously hidden in the data.