Subscription payment strategies and the customer experience

Enhance success through customer-focused strategies

We have written about payment processes and we have written about the difference between subscription payments and more traditional business payments, but the final magic ingredient when it comes to subscription payments is to consider them within the context of a customer experience strategy, prioritising three core objectives:

Embedding recurring payments seamlessly into the continuous customer journey

Maximising revenue

Preventing revenue leakage

Each of these things have been highlighted as repeated areas of difficulty for subscription businesses that don't have suitable mechanisms and processes in place. In this article we look at each area to understand what the difficulty is, why you need a strategy and how it can both help avoid problems and maximise benefits to your business and your customers.

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Seamlessly integrated subscription platforms and payment services are crucial for enhancing customer experience, increasing retention, preventing revenue loss, and streamlining financial operations.

Payment strategies and the customer experience

Tailored payment methods
for optimal customer satisfaction

The payment method that you use and the customer journey through the payment process have both a practical and emotional impact. In some countries people prefer one payment method over another, but equally someone's age, demographic, the invoice amount, the size of the business etc., can all affect how someone prefers to make a payment. Adding to the considerations are transaction fees on different payment types but also for different payment amounts.

When it comes to considering customer experience and your payment strategy, it’s important to think about what works best for your business but also what works best for different customer segments and markets. It is possible, if not probable, that you will need to offer multiple payment options, but if you have those that you prefer people to use because of preferable rates for example, it's important to provide information and pathways to encourage, support, make it easy and reduce any barriers to use. You may also consider using discounts to encourage certain behaviours.

Which providers have the lowest transaction fees or offer transaction revenue share?
Which provider offers the most transparent payment data analytics to inform future decisions?
Which payment processes are customers most familiar and comfortable with?

Using payment strategies to maximise revenue

Boost business revenue through smart payments

Customer experience is also a central feature in maximising the revenue of your business. The goal is to make sure that the payment does not inhibit any sale. This is where you need to take a strategic view—not only considering whether it's possible to make a payment for a selected product, but whether there is anything about the payment process that will put someone off. As mentioned, on the other side of the coin, consider the charges on different payment types and how that may impact your revenue. With that in mind, you can encourage particular payment methods for certain transaction sizes. For example, some payment service providers have tiered pricing.

For your strategy it's important to think about things including varying price points, entitlements and contract terms. Having a good payment strategy in place makes sure not only that customers have a streamlined payment experience, but your business can also benefit from smooth internal processes that help maximise profits.

Are all customers offered the same payment option?
Are all product orders offered the same payment option?
Will you enable particular payment methods or procedures such as direct debit and credit checks for certain invoice amounts?

Using payment strategies to prevent revenue leakage

Prevent financial loss with
effective payment processes

Cash flow can really suffer without a payment strategy, and part of the reason for this is the ample opportunity for revenue leakage, especially as your business grows. The more successful you are, the higher the need for dependable automation, and to implement automation effectively you must have a coherent and considered strategy.

Revenue leakage typically results from things like the way late or failed payments are handled, whether or not there are measures in place to prevent failed payments from involuntary factors like out of date payment methods, human error, miscommunication, poor tracking, security measures on the client's account or insufficient credit checks.

If you're managing late payments manually then you're much more likely to come across errors than if you implement a well thought out and connected automated approach. That's only one way in which strategic automation can help however. There are all kinds of actions businesses can implement to make sure recurring payments work to their benefit instead of presenting a weak spot in their revenue processes.

Considering a strategy in line with your customer experience, the nature of recurring payments and with your business needs will help you to create a journey that is helpful, supportive and most likely to result in positive outcomes.

Have you implemented credit checks?
Could you consider late payment fees?
How do you detect insufficient funds or expired credit cards
Can you streamline customer communication via text message, email, or even notify support agents to make a phone call?
Can you communicate with customers to remind them a payment is coming up to prevent overzealous security measures on their account?
Do you have automatic payment retry and dunning processes in place?

How to streamline your customer payment experience

A guide to perfecting your subscription payment strategies

At keylight we know that subscription business success is rooted in user experience, and in particular the customer journey. This is the basis for ongoing development and it's the foundation on which trusting relationships are cultivated for long-term commercial sustainability. As a result, every aspect of our system has been created to maximise benefits and to minimise or overcome the risk of challenges and the payment process is no exception.

Broadly speaking, to optimise the potential of your payment strategy you need two things:

To be able to identify customer segments and their associated preferences.

To have a subscription engine that can automate payment processes for different scenarios.

The flexibility to define and configure rules for the seamless but personalised execution of payments and services is a hallmark of keylight. It offers the dependability of automation but with the nuance to tweak elements to different customers or customer segments and thereby create the best customer experience possible. keylight’s end-to-end capabilities mean that you have the real time data to understand your customers and their behaviours in order to support their preferences. In addition, keylight connects with multiple global payment partners to facilitate secure transactions and local payment methods, giving you everything you need for a coherent payment strategy that supports your business now and in the future.