5 simple tactics to beat Subscribe & Save Churn5 min read
Reading Time: 4 minutesIf you’re in ecommerce, then you know how important it is to keep your customers happy and prevent them from churning. Subscribe & save is a great way to do this, and it’s easy to get started with tools such as Recharge Payments and Shopify. But it can be difficult to keep track of all the different products and prices.
That’s why we’ve put together a list of 5 simple tactics that you can use to beat Subscribe & Save churn. We hope you find these tips helpful and that they help you keep your customers happy and subscribed.
1. Get one-to-one and listen
There are a number of reasons why customers churn. One way to find out what’s keeping your customers from staying is by surveying them. Surveys are a great way to get feedback from customers, but to provide useful insights they have to be done right. In order to avoid wasting time and resources on surveys that don’t give you much value, it’s essential that you ask the right questions and only survey people who have cancelled or are at risk of cancelling their subscription.
Segment and personalise your surveys so you can compare results across different cohorts (e.g., existing vs new customers). It’s also important not to inundate people with too many surveys—you want them focused on shopping rather than answering questions about it!
Using this information will help you identify pain points in your product that need addressing. So that subscribers will stay subscribed for longer instead of cancelling soon after signing up for an auto-renewed subscription plan. A good example of this is identifying that the contents of your subscriber and save bundle could be improved with another accessory, variation or related product.
2. Integrate your data
Data integration is the process of bringing together data from different sources. While it’s important for any business, in the world of e-commerce, it’s especially vital.
Integrating data from different sources allows you to better understand your customers and target them more effectively. You can use this information to create personalised marketing campaigns that speak directly to their needs. These campaigns will be more effective because they’re based on accurate insights into what matters most to your customers—not just guesswork or gut instinct.
There are many places you can integrate customer data:
- Customer service records (CSR) like Zendesk or Intercom.
- Order history from your subscription platform.
- CRM (customer relationship management) tools like Salesforce or HubSpot.
- Product usage from Segment, Mixpanel or Amplitude.
3. Send automated emails
Using email is a great way to reach out to your customers, but this can be especially effective if you use it in conjunction with other tactics. You can personalize your emails and add links to help further communicate with customers. If a customer has issues with their account, they might not feel comfortable calling up customer service or chatting on the website. By sending out an email through their preferred method of communication (email), you’re giving them another option for contacting you.
The benefit of having automated emails is that they will go out automatically at certain intervals—so if someone doesn’t respond within 24 hours, it will still reach them at some point in time! This consistency builds trust between both parties because you will know exactly when their customers are going to receive information from them; whereas without auto-responders there is no guarantee that any specific message would ever reach its intended audience (i.e., an unopened physical letter).
4. Offer incentives
One of the best ways to beat subscribe and save churn is by offering incentives. Offering incentives can be a great way to prevent churn, encourage repeat purchases and introduce new products to customers. However, the incentive must be tailored towards each individual customer, as it will have its greatest effect when it’s unique. Here are some examples of incentives that you could use:
- Offer a one-time discount, because they’ve had a bad experience due a delivery issue or product defect.
- Incentivise a longer relationship if they’re a high value customer, by offering an additional 10% forever.
- Pause their subscription payments by skipping a delivery or two.
- Provide a downgrade option, to a smaller quantity or frequency of delivery.
5. Demonstrate value with segmentation
The power of segmentation is two-fold: it allows brands to personalise the customer experience, and it helps them understand their customers better by understanding their lifecycle.
For example, a consumer brand might look at demographics (age and gender), household income, location and lifestyle to create segments that reflect different types of customers. Then they can use this information to personalise the content they send to their subscribers or offer more relevant products when they subscribe again.
Try some of these tactics with Upzelo to stop Subscribe & Save churn today!
Remember that the best way to stop Subscribe & Save churn is by being proactive. Here are five tactics that you can use to help keep your customers from cancelling their subscriptions:
- Ask for feedback at key points in the customer lifecycle, like after purchase and after delivery of a product. This will give you insight into what’s working and what could be improved.
- Deliver personalisation on all channels so that customers know they’re appreciated—and don’t feel neglected if they don’t receive one-to-one communication from brands.
- Let customers know when there are new options available—or even better, ask them directly if they’d like new products or services before offering them up! Just make sure this doesn’t negatively impact your metrics before doing it too often!
- Include resubscribe links when confirming cancellations so subscribers can resubscribe at any time, even if it’s only temporarily until they get their finances under control again! That way people won’t feel trapped in their decision once they’ve made it.