General Settings

The General Settings tab allows you to configure core subscription management features that affect how your customers interact with their subscriptions and how billing failures are handled.

Overview

General Settings covers three main areas:

1. Cancellation Settings - Configure cancellation reasons and retention strategies
2. Billing Failure Settings - Control retry logic for failed payments
3. Pause Settings - Enable subscription pausing with automatic resumption

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Cancellation Settings

Configuring Cancellation Reasons

When customers cancel their subscriptions, you can present them with a list of reasons to understand why they're leaving. This data helps you improve your subscription program.

To add a cancellation reason:

1. Navigate to Settings → General Settings
2. Scroll to the Cancel Subscription section
3. Click Add Reason
4. Enter a reason name (e.g., "Too expensive", "Don't need it anymore", "Poor product quality")
5. Click Save

Best Practices:

• Keep reasons short and clear (2-5 words)
• Provide 4-6 common reasons to choose from
• Include a generic "Other" option
• Provide reason names in English and translate to other languages using Translate & Adapt app by clicking on the translate button

Customer Prompts

For each cancellation reason, you can optionally enable a prompt asking customers to provide more details about why they're cancelling.

To enable a prompt:

1. Find the cancellation reason in your list
2. Toggle Prompt to "Yes"

When enabled, customers will be asked to provide additional feedback when they select that cancellation reason. This helps you gather more detailed insights about why customers are leaving.

Best Practices:

• Enable prompts for your most common cancellation reasons, especially for generic 'Other'
• Use the feedback to improve your product or service
• Review prompt responses regularly to identify trends

Retention Actions

Retention actions are powerful tools to reduce cancellations by offering alternatives when customers attempt to cancel. For each cancellation reason, you can configure one retention action that will be presented to the customer.

Available Retention Actions:

1. None

No retention offer is shown. The customer goes straight to confirming the cancellation.

When to use: For reasons where retention is unlikely (e.g., "Medical reasons", "Don't need anymore")

2. Discount

Offer a one-time percentage discount on the customer's next order to incentivize them to stay.

Configuration:

• Set your retention discount percentage (0-100%)
• The discount applies to the next upcoming order only
• Discount is automatically removed after one billing cycle

Example: A customer selects "Too expensive" → System offers "Stay subscribed and get 20% off your next order"

When to use: For price-sensitive cancellation reasons

Best Practices:

• Start with 15-20% discount
• Monitor redemption rates and adjust
• Don't offer discounts for every reason (devalues your product)

3. Skip

Allow the customer to skip their next order instead of canceling, giving them time to reconsider.

How it works:

• Customer's next billing cycle is automatically skipped
• Subscription remains active
• Billing resumes with the following cycle

When to use: For temporary concerns like "Have too much product" or "Need a break"

4. Change Date

Let customers reschedule their next order to a more convenient date.

How it works:

• Customer can select a new date for their next billing cycle
• Only affects the immediate next order
• Returns to normal schedule afterward
• Not offered on anchored subscriptions: the customer can still pick the reason, but no change-date offer appears and they go straight to the normal cancellation

When to use: For timing-related reasons like "Delivery timing doesn't work" or "Too frequent"

5. Change Address

Offer the customer a new delivery address instead of canceling.

How it works:

• The customer is invited to update the shipping address their subscription orders go to
• On a subscription delivered to a custom pickup location, the offer is to switch to a different pickup location instead

When to use: For reasons like "Moving away"

Configuration Example:

Cancellation Reason	Retention Action	Settings
Too expensive	Discount	20% off next order
Have too much product	Skip	Skip next delivery
Delivery timing doesn't work	Change Date	Reschedule next order
Don't need anymore	None	-

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Billing Failure Settings

Configure how Zubs handles failed payments, including retry attempts, timing between retries, and what action to take when all retries are exhausted.

Key Settings:

• Number of retry attempts for payment failures
• Days between retry attempts
• Action when all retries fail (Skip, Cancel, or Pause)
• Inventory failure handling (separate retry settings, with customer emails at each stage)
• Staff notification frequency (applies to both payment and inventory failures)

For complete details about payment failure handling, dunning strategies, and optimization, see the Payment Failure Handling guide.

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Pause Settings

Allow customers to temporarily pause their subscriptions with automatic resumption on a date they choose.

Enabling Pause Functionality

Toggle Pausing enabled to allow customers to pause subscriptions from their customer portal.

How it works:

1. Customer clicks "Pause Subscription" in their portal
2. Customer selects a date when they want it to resume
3. No billing occurs while paused
4. Subscription automatically resumes on the selected date

Benefits:

• Reduces cancellations from temporary needs
• Gives customers flexibility and control
• Automatic resumption = less manual work for you

When to enable:

• Seasonal products (customers may not need in certain seasons)
• Consumable products (customers may have excess inventory)
• Lifestyle products (customers may travel or have changing needs)

When NOT to enable:

• Critical ongoing services
• Products with high marginal cost
• When pause rate monitoring is difficult

Best Practices:

• Set maximum pause duration (e.g., 90 days)
• Send reminder email before auto-resumption (configured in Notification Settings)
• Monitor pause rates - high rates may indicate frequency or quantity issues
• Consider offering skip instead if customers frequently pause