How Two Subscription Brands Reduced Churn Without Relying on Discounts
- Peak Support
Article overview: Discounts can help reduce churn, but they don’t solve every problem. Wildgrain and Appy Hour found better ways to improve customer retention by paying closer attention to subscription cancellation reasons.
Why Discounts Aren't the Whole Answer
Winning new customers is only half the battle for subscription brands. The bigger challenge is giving them enough reasons to stay.
When subscription churn starts to rise, many companies look for ways to convince customers not to cancel. Discounts, save offers, and limited-time promotions can help in some situations, but they don’t always address the subscription cancellation reasons. If customers feel the product no longer fits their needs, or the experience falls short of their expectations, they’re still likely to leave.
Wildgrain and Appy Hour took a different approach. Instead of waiting until customers reached the cancellation page, both brands focused on understanding why customers were leaving in the first place and using those insights to improve the customer experience. Their approaches looked different, but they shared the same belief: stronger subscription retention starts with giving customers more reasons to stay.
Want to hear the full conversation? This article is based on Stop the Churn, Fuel the Growth, where Alison Mooradian, VP of Marketing at Wildgrain, and Michelle Sardina Mancinelli, Marketing Director at AppyHour share the lessons behind their approach to customer retention. Watch the full webinar now.
What Your Customers Value May Surprise You
When companies try to reduce subscription churn, it’s easy to focus on what they think customers want. But the most valuable insights usually come from listening to customers directly. Sometimes those conversations confirm your assumptions, and sometimes they completely change them. Understanding those conversations can also reveal the subscription cancellation reasons that might otherwise go unnoticed.
At Appy Hour, the team initially believed customers valued the fresh, high-quality ingredients in its cheese and charcuterie boxes most. After listening to customers, they discovered something else. People kept talking about the pairing guide and the experience it created. The guide had almost been removed because it took so much time to produce, but customer feedback made it clear that it was one of the parts customers valued most.
Wildgrain follows the same philosophy in its own way. The team brings together feedback from CSAT surveys, social media, and member accounts so it can see the full picture in one place. That feedback is then shared across the business, giving teams a better understanding of what customers are saying, what’s working well, and where improvements are needed. Positive feedback is just as valuable because it highlights the parts of the experience customers already appreciate and want more of.
For both companies, customer conversations became a reliable source of direction. Listening closely gave both teams a better understanding of what customers valued and where they should focus next, helping them make smarter decisions that strengthened customer retention.
Why Customer Feedback Matters Beyond Support
At Wildgrain, customer feedback guides decisions across the business. The company brings together feedback from CSAT surveys, social media, and its member account, then analyzes it to identify what should change next. Those insights influence decisions well beyond the member experience team, whether the feedback is positive or negative.
That same approach carries into the company’s weekly operations. Peak Support and Wildgrain’s member experience leaders share the biggest issues customers are running into, giving other teams the context they need to respond. Sometimes that means improving a member account feature. Other times, it means updating a process after an extreme weather event, changing product packaging, or adjusting how orders are shipped. The feedback also informs Wildgrain’s growth and lifecycle marketing efforts.
For Wildgrain, those updates give the wider business a clearer sense of what needs attention before recurring problems turn into subscription cancellation reasons.
Why Proactive Support Matters
Many customers won’t report every problem they run into. Some will simply move on after one or two frustrating experiences. That’s why the strongest subscription brands don’t wait for complaints to pile up before taking action. They treat every issue as an opportunity to understand what happened and prevent it from happening again.
Appy Hour takes that approach with every reshipment. Instead of treating it as a one-time mistake, the team looks into why the original delivery failed. If similar issues begin appearing in the same area, it could point to a larger carrier problem that needs attention. Looking for those patterns helps the team solve more than the customer’s immediate issue.
Wildgrain applies the same thinking throughout the delivery experience. Customers receive proactive updates whenever a shipment is delayed, lost, or returned to the sender, so they aren’t left wondering what happened. When the same delivery problem happens more than once, support representatives don’t have to escalate it. They can resolve it then and there by excluding a carrier or adding more cooling materials to future shipments.
By investigating recurring issues instead of treating every complaint in isolation, both companies were better equipped to identify subscription cancellation reasons before they affected more customers. That’s what makes proactive support such an important part of reducing churn.
Why Flexibility Can Matter More Than Discounts
Not every customer wants to cancel for the same reason. Some have more food than they can use, while others are dealing with a tighter budget. Treating every cancellation the same way can mean losing customers who simply need a different option.
Wildgrain uses the customer’s cancellation reason to determine what comes next. Someone receiving too much food may be offered a less frequent delivery schedule or a smaller box. When budget is the concern, the company can offer a recurring discount. These options are also built into Wildgrain’s self-service cancellation flow, allowing customers to find an alternative even when they don’t contact support directly.
At Appy Hour, budget is the most common cancellation reason. The team has tested an ongoing discount and developed a smaller, lower-priced mystery box. That option gives customers a more affordable way to continue while allowing Appy Hour to manage its perishable inventory more effectively.
For both brands, flexibility became an important part of subscription retention. Responding to different subscription cancellation reasons gave customers options that better matched their circumstances.
What These Two Brands Got Right
Wildgrain and Appy Hour made different changes, but they shared the same habit: they kept paying attention to how customers’ needs were changing.
Retention improved through a series of decisions informed by what customers were already telling them. Over time, those decisions helped reduce subscription churn while building stronger subscription retention through a better overall experience.
The same opportunities exist for every subscription brand. They can be found in support conversations, customer feedback, reviews, and the reasons customers choose to cancel. The challenge isn’t finding more data. It’s making sure those insights lead to better decisions.
Why Small Changes Add Up
The experiences of Wildgrain and Appy Hour show how steady improvements can strengthen retention as customers’ needs evolve.
The feedback customers share every day can reveal where the subscription is falling short and what would make it more valuable. Every improvement builds on the last. Over time, those changes create an experience people want to keep coming back to.
Wildgrain and Appy Hour partner with Peak Support because every customer conversation has the potential to improve the business. We help uncover those opportunities by turning everyday customer conversations into better business decisions.
Reduce subscription churn and strengthen customer retention with Peak Support.