Reducing churn for a global subscription service

The challenge

The business needed to get Instant Ink subscriptions back to 13 million, and churn was the main obstacle. We had 10 weeks to understand why people were cancelling, where the experience was falling short, and which ideas were worth testing.

The solution

We explored three directions:

• Badging and milestones - rewarding engagement and building a sense of progress over time
• Surprise and delight - unexpected physical gifts to create emotional moments outside the app
• Deeper personalisation - a plan selection wizard, comms preference centre, and usage-based print summaries to make the service feel tailored to each customer

My role

Across 10 weeks I owned the design and research end of the project:

• Ran 15 user interviews with active and lapsed Instant Ink customers
• Designed and tested multiple clickable prototypes across badging, onboarding flows, and the preference centre
• Shaped the Surprise & Delight campaign collateral
• Presented findings and recommendations directly to the client team

The impact

Delivered a tested, insight-backed set of concepts ready for quantitative validation. The work surfaced high-priority gaps in three areas: pricing transparency, value perception, and onboarding quality. It also gave the team a concrete roadmap for personalised comms and feature nudges - and shifted the conversation from fixing functional problems to building emotional engagement, particularly for low-usage customers who were most at risk of churning.

Key takeaways

Retention isn't just about fixing problems. It's about reminding people why they signed up in the first place.