Strategy question
How will you deal with the problem of people leaving your subscription willingly?
- FastSpring
- Strategy
- Medium
Practice this question out loud. An AI interviewer asks it, follows up like a real interviewer would, and scores your answer. Type or speak.
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What this question tests
Retention and churn strategy, distinguishing voluntary churn causes and matching interventions to each.
How to approach it
- Clarify what 'willingly' means here, active cancellation versus passive non-renewal, since interventions differ.
- Segment cancelling users by reason, price sensitivity, low usage, or a better competitor offer, via cancellation surveys.
- Quantify each segment's size to prioritize where an intervention would have the most impact.
- Design targeted saves, a discount or pause option for price sensitive users, a re-onboarding nudge for low usage users.
- Consider a win-back flow for users who already left, rather than only preventing cancellation at the moment of intent.
- Define success metrics, save rate at the cancellation flow and 90 day reactivation rate for lapsed users.
What a strong answer includes
- Refuses to treat all churn as the same problem, splits into price, usage, and competitive reasons with different fixes.
- Proposes a pause option, not just a discount, since some churn is due to a life-stage change rather than dissatisfaction.
- Adds a guardrail against discount abuse, e.g. capping how often a save offer can be used.
- Sets a concrete target, e.g. lifting cancellation flow save rate by 15 percent, marked as an assumption.
Common mistakes
- Jumping straight to 'give a discount' without diagnosing the churn reason.
- Ignoring win-back opportunities for users who already left.
- Not considering the cost of over-discounting to loyal high-value customers.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you avoid training users to cancel just to get a discount.
- How would you segment your save offers.
- What would you measure to know this is working long term.
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More questions from FastSpring
Learn the skill behind it
Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.
- Chapter 4: Discovery and strategy for AI products
- Chapter 9: Prove it paid off: outcomes, economics, and pricing
- Chapter 14: Get the job: the AI PM interview loop