Renewal & Recurring Billing Checklist, What you need to know!

It’s no secret that the most important thing you can do as a subscription merchant is keep your paying customers happy and coming back

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Renewal & Recurring Billing Checklist, What you need to know!

It’s no secret that the most important thing you can do as a subscription merchant is keep your paying customers happy and coming back for more – keep them renewing, that is! That’s why customer retention is the lifeblood of online subscription sales and should be at the top of the list for any business operating in this space.
The Renewal & Retention Checklist has been one of our most popular features since we first published it in 2010. It’s based on the findings of our Subscription Retention Handbook, which is a must-read for anyone operating in the online subscription economy. The report is 126 pages of facts, figures, and best practices that will help you to make sure your renewal and retention program is at the centerpiece of your subscription business.

For our 2015 update, our industry experts have offered their updates to the existing list. If you haven’t yet reviewed the checklist for your site, we recommend you do so now!

Here’s an explanation of what’s new:

Section	New Item	Why It’s Important
Routine Metrics & Data Reports	Pageview Trends	Changes in traffic to your most popular pages whether it’s gaining or declining, is a good indicator of future subscription renewal and retention. Metrics such as Time on Site and Pageviews can indicate whether or not there’s a subscriber trend that will affect your renewal rate. Subscription organizations would be well served to monitor these metrics.
On Your Site	Video Tours	The use of video tours to show subscribers how to use your site has gained in popularity in the last few years. It is particularly useful for SAAS and database sites to offer a “getting started” video that shows them exactly how to use your software or site.
Customer Service	Sales Training	Investing in ongoing sales training and sales management for your reps is important to retaining subscribers. The last thing you want from a customer service rep is to easily acquiesce to every demand of the subscriber – the first thing they’ll demand isacancellation of their subscription! By properly training your customer service reps to be able to highlight the benefits of a subscription, they’ll be much better prepared to try to retain the subscriber if all else fails.
Card Charging	Merchant Processor Dialogue	Ongoing dialogue with merchant card processors is another way to help ensure retention and renewal as card declines are one of the leading causes of non-renewal. A relationship with the card processors is the best way to head off the huge consequences of a catastrophic data breach, including declines and perhaps penalties. Investing in services such as the Account Updater from MasterCard and Visa are a great way to stay on top of your credit card database and keep declines to a minimum.
Welcomes	Welcome page	While welcome emails are somewhat effective in educating a new subscriber, 100% of new subscribers will see a welcome page. Engaging copy and site use instructions are very important here to keep the subscriber from having second thoughts. Also, while it’s ethical practice to let potential subscribers know that they can cancel anytime, once they are subscribers, try to keep that part of the deal to a minimum or they will indeed unsubscribe when reminded.
Welcomes	Welcome emails	Since the majority of customer attrition is within the first contract – it’s very important to keep them around. This means engagement as soon as possible – three on-boarding emails should be sent in the first three days. After three days, if the customer doesn’t return to the site, their retention rate drops to between single digits and twenty percent. A rapid-fire email program is a great way to keep them interested and eventually renewing.
Welcomes	Script Training and Monitoring	Managing your telemarketing activities is important if you use them to retain subscribers. Human beings differ in reliability from technology like automated email robots because humans reliably go off-script. Training on how to win back subscribers who are looking to cancel is paramount, as is the correct script.
Content Development	Website Traffic Monitoring	Monitoring the locations on your site that are getting the most attention by using services such as Google Analytics is a best practice. Identifying the parts of your site that are getting the most attention and then expanding on what content is performing best will continue to put relevant information in the hands of subscribers and keeping them coming back for more.
Marketing	Implementation Monitoring	Ongoing monitoring to confirm program implementation is a good way to see that everything is being monitored. We recommend seeding your email list with a company email the correct emails are going out at the proper time.