5 Tips on How to Keep Your Subscription Billing Account Healthy

Subscription billing is a great way to increase your customer’s lifetime value. Customers have recurring subscriptions and spend more money with you over time, which makes it easier to predict revenue streams and make business decisions related to marketing, sales, and operations.
However, there are also some downsides or pitfalls that you need to consider when implementing subscription billing in your business – one of the most common being cancellation fees associated with this type of payment method. This article will explore five tips on how to avoid cancellation fees while keeping your subscription billing account healthy.
Tip 1: Review your customer’s billing information and update it when necessary
The first step to avoiding cancellation fees is making sure your customer’s billing information and subscription eligibility are up to date. If they don’t have a valid payment method on file, you can’t charge them. If they have an expired card, you won’t be able to charge them either.
Here are some other reasons why your subscription customers might not be able to continue their subscriptions:
- The wrong credit card was entered into the system. This can happen if someone pays with a different card than usual or enters their info instead of their spouse’s when signing up for a gift subscription.
- The card has expired since the last time it was used for payment processing. Expired cards are also common among those who use PayPal as their primary payment processor.
- A free trial period ended more than 30 days ago—and no one bothered canceling before that date came around again.
Tip 2: Set up payment declines and retries automatically
The automatic decline and retry features allow you to set up your account to automatically decline any payment from a customer who has fallen behind on their payments and then retry the transaction with an additional window of time for the customer to pay. If these attempts fail, the subscription will be canceled automatically at the end of each cycle. This allows you to handle all of this process without having to manually manage any account adjustments yourself after a failed payment attempt occurs or when canceling subscriptions in bulk.
Tip 3: Set up a cancellation workflow to end subscriptions easily
A cancellation workflow allows customers to end their subscriptions with ease, saving them time and effort while saving your business money on unnecessary cancellations.
You can set up a cancellation workflow in your app or website so that customers can easily access it whenever they want. This will make it easy for them to end their subscriptions if they’re unhappy with any aspect of the service or don’t feel like continuing with their paid account anymore.
Tip 4: Use customer engagement tools to keep your customers engaged
Engagement tools can help you improve your customer experience for existing subscribers, and they’re an easy way to keep customers engaged. For example, you could use an engagement tool such as email marketing automation software that allows you to segment your subscribers by order status (e.g., paying or non-paying).
You can then send them targeted messages based on their actions or lack thereof. For example, if someone hasn’t purchased in the last two months, you can send them a special offer, or if someone has made purchases but hasn’t logged into the app in two months, you can send them a reminder to remind them about what they have access to.
Tip 5: Design a seamless checkout process to reduce cart abandonment
One of the biggest reasons why customers abandon their shopping carts is due to a complicated checkout process. Many online shoppers abandon a cart because it was too difficult or time-consuming to check out. To avoid this issue, you should design a seamless and simple checkout process that allows people who want to buy from you to do so quickly and easily.
Conclusion
If you want to maintain a healthy subscription billing account and avoid cancellation fees, follow these five tips. They will help keep your customers happy while protecting your bottom line. Keep your billing process simple. A well-designed checkout process will ensure that customers complete their purchases and continue to enjoy your products.