Practitioner pattern · Dan Layfield (Codecademy, Uber Eats)
Spend 2 days rewriting the emails sent when a payment fails
Modest but real uplift; matters more as churn falls
Workedpayments-checkoutemail
What they did
Set up dunning/email notifications when recurring payments fail and spend about 2 days copywriting them, since they reach 100% of users with failed payments. On the App Store, detect billing issues where possible and send custom emails asking users to update their payment method. The lower churn gets, the larger payment-failure churn's share (at 2% churn, maybe half).
What happened
Guest has always seen value though 'not a massive uplift'.
- Effort
- About 2 days of copywriting
“I've always seen, again, it's not a massive uplift, but there's value in spending like 2 days copywriting those emails because this is going to impact 100% of your people who fail payments”
Related topics
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More from this episode
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- Zoom: When people cancel, offer a cheaper, limited plan instead of losing themGuest was offered $7/month instead of $15; no outcome data
- Uber Eats: Sell a monthly membership mainly to stop customers switching to rivalsGuest says members are way less likely to use a rival; no numbers