4 Ways to Scale a Subscription Business With CX
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For digital subscription business, renewals are everything. That’s why as the landscape becomes more competitive, it’s imperative for brands to know how to scale a subscription business without losing loyal customers.
The key lies in customer experience, which can help brands retain long-term subscribers and drive recurring revenue through monthly or annual renewals. Here, we’ll dive into the key reasons that customer service is a crucial cornerstone for subscription businesses, and share four key strategies to leverage that team to scale your subscription business moving forward.
Customer Service and Your Subscription Business
What Is a Subscription Model?
With subscription model businesses, customers don’t make one-time purchases. Rather, they subscribe — agree to pay on a recurring, ongoing basis — for products or services. This business model relies on long-term customer loyalty and renewals to maintain and grow sustainable revenue streams.
The Importance of Loyalty for Digital Subscription Businesses
Because continued purchases and low churn are critical for subscription businesses, every customer interaction needs to be a positive representative of the brand’s values. Doing so requires digital subscription businesses to invest in their customer experiences and support centers, through which customers engage with the brand the most.
Gladly’s 2022 Customer Expectations Report found that 32% of consumers would fall in love with a brand because of great service. On the flip side, failing to maintain service could be the reason subscribers leave, as 42% of consumers would stop buying from a brand altogether after just two bad experiences. This means customer loyalty is directly linked to customer experience.
4 Customer Service Strategies To Scale a Subscription Business
Investing in and improving your support center means finding technology that can empower agents with tools that bolster their service abilities. When customers can trust a company’s support center to handle their issues effectively, they will be far more likely to renew. Here’s what every digital subscription business needs to provide this level of service:
1. Optimized customer self-service
Make your self-service options as clear as possible so subscribers can handle the majority of their issues and requests on their own. This not only makes your service more accessible and helpful, but it also frees up your support staff to focus on more important challenges rather than repetitive tasks.
Pro tip: The bare minimum for digital brands is to offer an FAQ page, or knowledge base, that offers quick answers to repeat customer questions. Don’t have one? Use Gladly’s Free FAQ Template to build out or refresh your page.
2. User-friendly payment processing
Ensure that paying for your service is as accessible, transparent, and affordable as possible at all times. This means providing user-friendly payment platforms or even unorthodox sign-up options that let you complete transactions within a service chat. Also, make sure that any changes to your pricing policy are communicated ahead of time to give your subscribers fair notice.
Pro tip: Enabling payments over extra channels, like chat, is a critical stage in turning customer service teams into revenue drivers, rather than cost creators. Crate & Barrel closed over $100,000 in sales in their first week of using Gladly’s Payments to process payments over their messaging channels.
3. Improved customer experience with reporting
Listen to what your subscribers are saying and take their criticisms and suggestions into account. Being responsive and reflective of your customers’ interests helps make your subscription better over time, and improves your ability to provide engaging content and services. Look into platforms that provide real-time reporting across channels for a deeper understanding of the customer experience.
4. A customer community
Give your subscribers the ability to talk to one another, not just your service team. Create digital spaces for them to meet and have organic conversations about your service. Word-of-mouth referrals will lead to potential new customers who catch on to how much you value strong relationships with your community.
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Scaling a Subscription Service With Technology
With the right service platform, you can optimize each of these essential elements of the customer experience:
- Intelligent self-service powered by real-time customer insights
- Accessible, easy-to-use payments on whichever channel they’re needed
- Live and customizable reporting to improve customer experience
- High-quality service that drives word-of-mouth in and outside of customer communities
With a focus on long-term customer relationships and loyalty, Gladly combines these elements into one high-powered platform. This provides substantial support through an intelligent knowledge base that updates across channels and keeps information consistent. The platform also helps foster deeper relationships by giving agents access to customer details on the fly, helping them insert radically personal service into everyday interactions.
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