Operation: Don't go!

My role

Product designer

Timeline

6+ Weeks

Company

Bitly is a link management platform best known for its URL shortening service, transforming long links into short, trackable ones. It also provides tools for custom branding, engagement analytics, QR code generation, and creating simple landing pages.

The PROBLEM

Previously, Bitly's self-service paid users could cancel their subscriptions and downgrade to Free plan after initiating the process without any active intervention. This impacted our ability to encourage users to remain on a paid plan, leading to higher rate of voluntary churn.

The GOAL

The primary goal was to reduce the rate of voluntary churn among paid users by designing and implementing a churn intervention flow within the plan cancellation process. A secondary goal was to capture valuable data on reasons for voluntary churning to understand and inform potential improvements.

final deliverables & results

Retention achieved; impact measured

Designing and developing the churn intervention flow was a collaborative effort. The process involved close partnership with the Product Manager to plan and define strategic goals; Engineers to ensure technical feasibility; Product Marketing Manager to plan discount offers, ensuring a balance of enticing users to stay while maintaining profitability; and Content Designer, who helped craft clear and effective messaging throughout the flow. 

The final result was a multi-step churn intervention flow that guides users through information regarding the consequences of downgrading, gathers feedback on cancellation reasons, and presents tailored offers. The flow is designed to reduce voluntary churn by providing users with alternatives and relevant information before confirming their downgrade. Below you will find an interactive prototype that you can click through. (Press R or the ↰ button to restart)

After the A/B test of this new flow, we saw the following results:

Voluntary churn rate reduction - 6.2%
Churned MRR* reduction - 15.73%
MRR saved - approx. $7,200/month

*MRR = Monthly Recurring Revenue

DISCOVERy & planning

How might we... reduce churn rate?

As this was a "0 to 1" initiative to address voluntary churn, we worked off a hypothesis: an intervention within the downgrade to Free flow that highlights the value users receive from their paid plan and presents tailored discount offers, could effectively reduce downgrade rates, a common practice in SaaS. I researched existing churn intervention flows across various products for inspiration. 

Collaborating with the Product Manager, I mapped out the user journey and potential outcomes in a flowchart that helped me in planning the design stage.

IDEATION

Wireframes

Using the detailed flowchart as a guideline for required screens and interactions, I began wireframing flow intervention flow. Drawing inspiration from existing churn intervention flows across various products, I initially explored containing the experience within a modal. However, as the visual components and necessary content for each step became defined, I pivoted to a full screen layout, which provided the real estate to present the information and visual elements without feeling crowded.

Deliverables

Churn intervention flow: step-by-step

STEP 1: HIGH-LEVEL PLAN CHANGES

After initiating subscription cancellation, the user is shown a screen that shows key changes to their account if they downgrade to free plan. It highlights feature losses such as ability to create links on their custom domain(s), ability to change short link/QR Code's destination URL, and decrease in monthly limits. 

STEP 2: SURVEY

If the user proceeds with plan cancellation, they're shown a survey, asking why they're cancelling. Options include price, missing features, technical issues, and more. Selecting "technical issues" prompts users to contact support, aiming for resolution.

STEP 3: OFFERS

Continuing with the cancellation flow, users are shown various discount offers (e.g., "free next 2 months," "50% off next 6 months"), tailored to their plan and duration of their being a paid user. An option to switch plans is also presented.

STEP 4: DETAILED PLAN CHANGES

Should offers be declined, an information page provides more granular details on upcoming feature and access changes, the cancellation timeline, and links to the Help Center and a contact form. If applicable, the information regarding a complimentary custom short link domain and its expiration is also included.

ALTERNATIVE PATH

STEP 4a: ACCEPTED OFFER

If a user accepts a discount offer at Step 3, they're immediately taken to a confirmation screen. This page confirms their accepted offer and details when the discount will be applied to their account.

ALTERNATIVE PATH

STEP 4b: PLAN SWITCH CONFIRMATION

If a user opts to switch to another plan at Step 3, they land on a confirmation page for their new subscription. If the new plan is a lower tier than their original, the screen also specifies when the plan switch will occur.

STEP 5: CONFIRMATION PAGE (MAIN PATH)

The final screen is a confirmation page summarizing the cancellation, confirming the plan remains active until the billing cycle ends. It also informs users they can still cancel the downgrade before their plan expires.

DELIVERABLES

Fully responsive

Part of the every project at Bitly is ensuring that the experience is seamless whether users are using the website from desktops, tablets, or mobile phones. I designed every screen to be fully responsive, providing guidelines in my handoff files that included min-max widths, and having designs in multiple sizes that reflect the breakpoints for layout changes.

Validation TESTING

A/B testing and results

To test this flow, we released it to 50% of users, with the remaining 50% serving as the control group, who continued to experience the original cancellation flow. This test was monitored over a period of 13 days. During that time, we saw the following performance:

- Churn completion rate decreased 6.2%

- Churned Monthly Recurring Revenue decreased by 15.7%

- Extrapolating data to 1 month with all users, the expected reduction in churn per month is approximately $7,200

Next steps

What's next?

This churn intervention flow proved a success, but our work doesn't end there. There's always room to further improve retention and prevent revenue loss. Here are some key steps that could build on this project:

PAID TO LOWER TIER INTERVENTION

While this project focused on preventing users from downgrading to the Free plan, a logical next step would be implementing a similar intervention for users looking to switch from a higher plan to a lower one.

PERSONALIZED STATS AND VALUE HIGHLIGHTS

Enhancing the flow to include insights based on user's invidivual usage could further boost motivation to stay. For example, if a user consistently creates 300 links per month, highlighting and comparing it to the Free plan that only offers 50 links per month, could strongly demonstrate the value they would be losing by downgrading.

RESUBSCRIBE OFFERINGS

Developing a strategy to offer targeted discounts or offers to users who have churned, could motivate them to resubscribe and turn a churn into renewed revenue.

Let's chat!

I'd love to connect with you! Let's talk about anything, and grab some coffee

© Anastasiya Pak 2025