# churn-prevention

> A Claude Code skill that designs cancel flows, dynamic save offers, churn-risk health scores, and dunning sequences to reduce both voluntary and involuntary churn.

**Use case**: Build cancel flows and dunning that actually save

**Canonical URL**: https://agentcookbooks.com/skills/churn-prevention/

**Topics**: claude-code, skills, marketing, retention

**Trigger phrases**: "churn", "cancel flow", "save offer", "failed payment recovery", "people keep canceling"

**Source**: [Corey Haines](https://github.com/coreyhaines31/marketingskills/tree/main/skills/churn-prevention)

**License**: MIT

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## What it does

`churn-prevention` is a Claude Code skill from Corey Haines's [marketing-skills repo](https://github.com/coreyhaines31/marketingskills). It turns Claude into a retention specialist who designs the entire cancel and dunning stack — exit survey, dynamic save offers tied to cancel reason, payment-failure recovery, and a churn-risk health score. The skill activates when you mention "cancel flow", "save offer", "dunning", or "failed payment recovery".

The output of a session is a cancel-flow specification (survey questions, offer-to-reason mapping, UI patterns), a dunning sequence (smart retry timing, four-email cadence), a churn-risk health score formula, and a list of A/B tests to run on each stage.

## When to use it

Reach for it when:

- Cancellation today is instant — no survey, no save offer, no win-back path
- Failed payments silently kill accounts and nobody's emailing the customer
- You have churn data but no insight into *why* — and no tested save offers

When *not* to reach for it:

- The product itself is the problem; no save offer fixes a broken product
- Your cancel rate is already at the floor — diminishing returns

## Install

The skill is distributed via Corey Haines's [marketing-skills repo](https://github.com/coreyhaines31/marketingskills). Install via the repo's recommended path — copy the [`churn-prevention` SKILL.md](https://github.com/coreyhaines31/marketingskills/tree/main/skills/churn-prevention) into your project's `.claude/skills/churn-prevention/` directory, or use the repo's plugin install if you've set it up.

Once installed, the skill activates on the trigger phrases above. The first time it runs, it will check for `.agents/product-marketing-context.md` (or `.claude/product-marketing-context.md`) — populating that file with your product context first dramatically improves output quality across all of Haines's marketing skills.

## What a session looks like

A typical session has three phases:

1. **Voluntary stack.** Exit survey design with reason categories, then offer-to-reason mapping ("too expensive" → discount or downgrade, "not using it" → pause, "missing feature" → roadmap preview). The pattern is one primary offer + one fallback, not a wall of options.
2. **Involuntary stack.** Smart retry logic by decline type, four-email dunning cadence (Day 0/3/7/10), card updater services, pre-dunning expiry alerts.
3. **Proactive layer.** Risk signals (login frequency, feature usage, billing-page visits), a weighted health score, and intervention triggers before a user ever clicks "cancel".

The discipline that makes it work: matching offer to reason. A flat 30%-off-everything cancel flow saves the wrong customers and trains the rest to cancel for deals.

## Receipts

Honest reporting on what `churn-prevention` produces and where it has limits:

**Where it works well:**
- The reason→offer mapping is the difference between a save flow and a discount machine
- The dunning playbook recovers a meaningful chunk of involuntary churn — the easiest win in retention
- Proactive health scores surface at-risk accounts before they cancel, not during the exit survey

**Where it backfires:**
- On B2B with manual contracts the self-serve cancel flow doesn't fit; the skill leans toward SaaS-self-serve patterns
- Save offers without LTV tracking risk "saving" customers who churn 60 days later anyway

**Pattern that works:** ship the dunning sequence first — it's faster to implement, less brand-sensitive, and recovers revenue from customers who *want* to keep paying.

## Source and attribution

Originally written by [Corey Haines](https://corey.co). The canonical SKILL.md and any supporting files live in the [`churn-prevention` folder](https://github.com/coreyhaines31/marketingskills/tree/main/skills/churn-prevention) of his [marketing-skills repository](https://github.com/coreyhaines31/marketingskills).

License: MIT. You can install, adapt, and redistribute the skill, with attribution preserved.

This page documents the skill from a practitioner's perspective. For the formal spec and any updates, defer to the source repo.