Scope

Cohort vs. Event-Based Reporting in Chargebee Retention

Summary

Chargebee Retention has two main types of Reports, Cohorted and Event-Based. Here is a list of the Chargebee Retention Reports broken down by type. 

Cohorted Reports

• Deflection Funnel
• Experience Performance Report
• Save Performance Trends
• Deflection Performance Trends

Event-Based Reports

• Cancel Insights
• Offer Performance
• Save Trends
• Cancel Trends

Solution

What's Different between Cohorted and Event-Based Reports?

The key differences relate to the use of dates in the report view. Cohorted reports are tied to the Initial Session Start Date that produced the end customer outcome whereas Event-Based reports are tied to the date the event they are reporting on occurred. This can be a subtle but very important detail in some cases. For example, the Cancel event that produced the Cancel and Survey Responses presented in the Cancel Insights report may not have been the first session for that subscriber. They may have visited a Chargebee Retention page three days ago and Deflected, only to return to cancel again the following week. You would not want to lose sight of the initial Deflection event as a signal that the customer may have been saveable, but you also want to know when they returned to Cancel and what Reason they selected. Simply put, both dates are valuable, just in different contexts.

How to use Cohorted and Event-Based Reports in Chargebee Retention?

Typically Cohorted Reports are used to evaluate the performance of a specific Page or Experience over a given period of time and identify opportunities for improvement across your entire Deflection Funnel. Event-Based Reports are used to evaluate when key actions are occurring and use them to assess the performance of your retention efforts as a whole. Event-Based Reports tie to the date on which the specific action (Cancel, Save, Offer View/Accept) occurred. This data can be the same as the Initial Session Start Date in some cases, but it will not always be the case. For example, Saves will always occur some period of time after the initial session that produces the Deflection. Therefore, the Save Trends report is going to show when the actual save occurred, whereas the Save Performance Trends report will associate that Save with the date of the Initial Session Start Date that produced a Deflection that ultimately led to this Save. Both types of reports are extremely valuable, they just focus on different things. 

You should use the Save Performance Trends and Deflection Performance Trends reports to monitor how our Deflection Funnel is changing over time and identify the impact our changes is having on our key metrics. The Experience Performance Trends report then takes this a step deeper to let you break this down by the various Pages that are shown to identify specific opportunities for improvement within those pages. 

The Offer Performance report is an Event-Based report that also can be used for performance analysis and improvement. This report shows you how your Offers are being accepted and what % of them are converting to a save, allowing you to identify high/low performing Offers and make adjustments to your Cancel Experience to improve Deflection. The Cancel Insights report breaks down your Cancelations based on the date they submitted the cancel in Chargebee Retention, presenting how your Survey Reasons break down across your audience. This report can be used to tie Cancel Reason data back into your other systems, or used to identify the top Cancel Reasons/ways to address them. Finally, the Save Trends and Cancel Trends reports plot these key metrics based on the date they were either marked as Canceled or Saved in Chargebee Retention. These Event-Based reports help you understand the volume of your Cancels and Saves / Saved Revenue over time. 

As you can see, there are some key differences in the types of reports you will see in Chargebee Retention. One implication of this is that metrics may not be the same across Cohorted and Event-Based reports. As mentioned above, there are logical reasons to view both Cancels and Saves based on either the Initial Session Start date or the Event date, depending upon what you are trying to understand. Keep this in mind when viewing your reports in Chargebee Retention so you don't confuse yourself when Save numbers are slightly different depending upon the report you are looking at.