In the digital age, subscription billing is a powerful tool for many different types of businesses. Not only does it allow you to build repeat customers and increase lifetime value, but it also helps you save money by reducing administrative overhead. In this article, you’ll learn 4 ways to improve your subscription business by optimizing the way you charge customers:
Ensure your subscription billing system is scalable
To ensure your subscription billing system can handle the volume of transactions, you’ll have to think about growth. You need to plan for this in advance and make sure that the system can handle additional customers and transactions without overloading.
For one, you need to make sure your subscription billing system is scalable. The moment a customer subscribes to your service, they will start using it right away—and their usage may increase over time as their needs change or as they discover new features and benefits.
This is why having an easy-to-use tool that’s capable of managing thousands of subscriptions—and even more, if needed—is a necessity for any successful business. You will also need to ensure that proper disaster recovery measures are in place to protect against data loss or interruption due to hardware failure, environmental factors (power outages), human error (user error), and other causes of disruption.
Leverage cross-selling and upselling tactics
Cross-selling and upselling tactics are both ways to boost your subscription business. They can help you increase the value of each subscription, which may result in a higher percentage of subscribers renewing their subscriptions or upgrading to a more expensive plan.
Cross-selling is when an existing customer is targeted for an additional purchase based on their past purchasing history. For example, if a customer has previously purchased a gym membership from your company, then they might be targeted with promotions for supplements or additional classes at the gym.
Upselling is similar to cross-selling but works by targeting customers who have not yet purchased something that they usually purchase together with whatever else they’re buying at that time (or have in their cart). For instance, if someone was about to buy a blender online but also had some cookie dough mix in their cart as well as almond milk and organic chocolate chips—those items could all be tagged as “upsells” because they typically go together very often.
Offer a variety of payment options
There are a variety of ways to pay for subscriptions, and your customers should be able to choose the one that best suits their needs. Think about whether you want them to spend more or less money now, and use that information as a guide:
- Credit cards are the most popular option, but they cost more in transaction fees than other payment methods like prepaid cards (which can be purchased at stores like Walmart).
- Credit card payments are also flexible because they can be canceled at any time with no penalty.
- Debit cards offer a lower-cost alternative for recurring billing every month; however, if someone misplaces a debit card or loses access to funds (for example due to an overdraft), it could result in missed payments or other problems with your service.
- Prepaid cards are inexpensive and convenient since they don’t require credit checks — but they also have high rates of fraud and can only be used once before needing recharging again.
Take advantage of data-driven insights to reduce churn
To reduce churn, you need to identify the customers most at risk of canceling. With subscription billing, this is easier said than done. Use predictive modeling to create a list of customers who are likely to cancel their subscriptions soon. From there, take an action like sending an email campaign targeted at those people with relevant offers or discounts designed specifically for them—this technique has been shown to increase customer satisfaction by 50%. Or consider offering incentives for long-time subscribers who haven’t canceled yet (for example, double credits). These kinds of tactics will help keep your top performers from leaving – which means more revenue for your company.
Conclusion
Subscription billing is a lucrative business model that can be used by almost any business to boost revenue and increase customer retention. And when it comes down to it, implementing a successful subscription program doesn’t have much room for error. It’s not just about offering the right products or services; it’s also about making sure your customers feel valued and appreciated. And that means listening to their feedback, implementing changes as needed, and staying up-to-date on industry trends.
