Problem

WW currently does not offer members to pause their membership. After looking into member data, we learned many of our members cancel and rejoin at various stages of their journey.

  • Taking a break from WW

  • Dealing with life circumstances (such as pregnancy or medical situations)

  • Meeting their goal weight

This is a problem because during these periods, members have no way of committing to resume their wellness journey with WW.

Research Questions

I gathered research questions that decision makers and stakeholders wanted us to answer. Some of the research questions include:

  • When are members cancelling and rejoining?

  • What factors bring members back?

  • What’s the business impact of pause?

  • Who is the pause concept most relevant to?

  • Is this desirable for our target audience?

  • What elements of pause resonate more than others?

Approach

Some of the research questions are direct and others are broad. Given the time constraints and the nature of the questions, I collaborated with other teams at WW (data science and behavioral science) to tackle these questions by pulling existing data and running a survey.

Analytics

  • Average duration between cancel and rejoin

    • Digital vs Studio

  • Cancellation reasons

  • Re-join dates through the year

  • Return model factor analysis

Survey

We sent a survey using Qualtrics to 630 people who recently cancelled their WW membership to gauge their interest in pause and how we could best approach this from a content perspective.

From a business standpoint, we wanted to see if there’s potential to bring cancelled members back earlier and identify elements of pause that resonate with them including:

  • Overall desirability

  • Duration of pause

  • Any desire for additional features

  • Any impact on brand (brand perception)

  • Interpreting their own journey based off the survey message they received

Survey Learnings

  • Respondents are primarily happy with the pause concept (no surprise)

  • Asking members to commit on a specific date during Pause is not driving the outcomes we were expecting

  • The optimal duration is ~3 to 4 months

  • WW is seen as more personalized & supportive in building healthier habits

  • There’s an interest in additional offerings + special deals (while on pause)

Potential next steps + further considerations

Qual Testing

  • What specific features in the app do paused members want?

    • What is a teaser vs what’s actually helpful?

    • How much (if any) do we charge?

  • What do members actually do when they’re between memberships? (do they think about WW? Weight loss? Food?)

  • What is the ideal way of sharing deals and discounts while members are on pause in a way that doesn’t feel like a spammy weekly newsletter?

  • What is the user flow? 

    • Where does it make the most sense to introduce pause? In the cancellation flow?

A/B Testing

  • 30 vs 90 days

  • Option to extend pause

  • Provide pause to keep them ‘hot’ and special deals to bring them back even sooner (worth testing)

Stakeholder Interviews with finance group to discuss reporting