User Offboarding — The Good, Bad and Ugly
Digital businesses now pay more attention to onboarding users so they can get the most value throughout a product’s lifecycle. Products like Slack and Anchor have set a new standard in easy and clear user onboarding.
On the other end of the spectrum, is offboarding users — where they want to cancel their subscription, switch to another provider, remove their account, etc. Whilst I get that the offboarding experience is not a top priority for designers, it doesn’t have to be made intentionally difficult. The reality is, if users have already decided to leave the product, then it is already too late. When products are designed to boobytrap — take users down a tricky and convoluted flow in the hope of changing their mind — it really does leave a bad aftertaste.
The best products accept there is a churn of users, clearly design for it and try to understand it because they know that the same user who is leaving may return in the future.
Below, I’ve brought together some good, bad and ugly examples, one in which I’ve had a stab at re-designing. I’m sure there are many others I’ve missed, so feel free to share any experiences you’ve had in the comments below.
The Good — InVision / NounProject
InVision, the SaaS (software as a service) digital prototyping tool, has a pricing structure that users can up/down grade depending on their usage, and they design gracefully for that.
When users click the “Cancel my account” button which is clearly next to the Upgrade Plan button, they are given a few options to downgrade or pause their account. Interestingly, the product knows that it can still be valuable as a storage service, even when the users account is paused. Also, this modal has the specific primary and secondary buttons carefully labelled “Downgrade” and “Never mind” (Note: using the typical “Cancel” action in this context would be confusing).
Another good example is The Noun Project which is a website for downloading symbols and icon which similarly operates on a SaaS model. Again, it is made clear what actions a user can take and they see it as an opportunity to get light-touch feedback from users on why they’re leaving (I didn’t manage to get a screenshot of this!)
Typically, when users have cancelled it’s hard to engage them in a discussion, and asking too many questions tends to be part of a bad offboarding experience. Usually it’s only one question when they cancel, especially if it’s automated SaaS product. E.g. We’re sorry to see you go, can you tell us why you’re cancelling? The user could answer in a text box or multiple choice to make it easy.
The Bad — NowTV
Next up, we have NowTV — and trust me, this does get bad.
Firstly, users have to scroll to the bottom and find their buttons which are confusingly worded and have no primary/secondary visual hierarchy (by the way — the button that reads “I don’t want a free pass” means “continue to cancel”).
On the second screen, users faced with a series of questions to fill in with more confusing text and buttons.
Finally, users reach the screen to actually to cancel their account. There is one last desperate attempt to sign up users to a movie plan. By this point, I’m sure most users are fed up.
There is a chance I could be wrong here and NowTV has the data to back up that this works (i.e. stops users from cancelling their account). However, I’d question how much value it adds to the long term. As a product designer, I stand behind the principle that if users have already decided to leave then it’s already too late. There are deeper issues in the products which should have been addressed earlier.
For reference — let’s have a look at how Netflix does it.
When users first sign up and set up their payment method, Netflix makes it very clear when users are able to cancel, and they’ll also send a reminder. It is smart to include this information on the payment screen as it is the place where users can get most anxious (by addressing it early, no doubts are left in the user’s mind).
The Ugly — HSBC Business Banking
Okay, so closing a business bank account is fundamentally different from cancelling a SaaS product subscription however making it incomprehensibly difficult sabotages the long term relationships with users.
I came across this post on LinkedIn, by someone out of my network. Ian’s experience got so ugly, he took to his public profile to vent.
This hardly makes you want to rush and sign up for a HSBC account, does it?
What if we were to redesign this? What would a better experience look like that would impact HSBC reputation as much?
I’ve sketched a storyboard to help solve some of the pain points Iain experienced. The key principles driving this offboarding user experience are: making it clear, convenient and simple, for the user. Some of the processes might be necessary for regulation so it’s important that the user feels like HSBC is in service of them — not the other way round — even if they are cancelling their account.
To sum up: digital businesses shouldn’t neglect or abuse the user offboarding experience. Be in service of users and invest in their long-term relationship. If there is high churn rate of users then look deeper into where the product isn’t adding value at an earlier stage in it’s lifecycle. Be good!
More links:
- If you’re looking for a good onboarding resource check out useronboard.com for detailed and witty tear-downs of products like Netflix and Bitcoin.
